Monarch butterflies along the ribs

Mum rang again about the flat, so I'm writing this instead of answering like a grown woman. The shutters on Ardwick Road came down at eleven and I walked home the long way, past the bus garage where they've strung purple lamps along the wall for the cleaners. You'd hate them. Everything under them looks bruised. But the oil in the puddles goes green and gold, and I stood there until a late 86 pulled in and the driver gave me the look people give you when you're standing still in the rain.

I've taken the job at the glasshouse, by the way. Night keeper. Nobody believes it's a real title. The monarchs in the big house have to be checked after dark because the heating drops and they huddle on the leaves like dead things until you wake them, so I walk the paths with a torch that turns everything violet. Under it their wings catch the light and seem to hum. Last night one lifted off my sleeve and went straight up through the vents towards the streetlamps, and I swear it hung there a second before it went.

Remember the tracing paper you drew on at Gran's, five butterflies sliding down a page like they'd fallen off a step? She said they were going home the wrong way. I think about that a lot now. Every autumn they come down through the cities on their way somewhere warm, and nobody ever gives them a lamp to find the way.

So I've left a UV lamp on the bench by the door, switched low, so the late ones can see the path down to the glass by dawn. It's not much. Come up when the migration's over and I'll show you how they look with the lights off. Ring Mum yourself. She thinks I've joined a cult.

Love, Nell