IGMS Issue 15 (14 page)

When the chaotic, dreamlike state finally began to recede, it left me exhausted and useless, like flotsam washed upon the shore. I heard the sound of a conversation, but it seemed more like the beat of a kettledrum than a coherent string of words. I was inside my shop near the potbelly stove, my wrists tied to the arms of a rocking chair. The voices were coming from the boardwalk, somewhere beyond the door to my shop.

Silence came, then creaking, and finally Rose swept through the shop as if she owned it and seated herself at the kitchen table. She must have thought I was still in my trance -- indeed, I could hardly keep my eyes open -- for she ignored me as she picked up three coarse flaxen threads and began forming them into a braid with clumsy, unpracticed hands.

I noticed among the threads a single human hair, long and strawberry blond. Eleanor's. The lock of hair, still bound by the purple ribbon, sat on the table so near to me that I swear I could smell Eleanor's scent.

On the stove was a cast iron pot with liquid wax inside. Rose was forming a candle, I vaguely realized, and when it was complete, they would light it and leave me to forget everything I had fought so hard to remember. It was that thought more than anything that helped my mind to clear.

"Don't do this, Rose."

Rose glanced over, the surprise in her eyes betraying her. "Relax, dear. This is for your own good."

"Don't do this."

"You should have seen yourself on the green. The same as when Eleanor left. Weak. Crumbling. Bordering on hysterical. Forgive me for saying so, dear, but you're a much better person without her. Perhaps you can try for another child. You're young yet, and Joseph's been waiting long enough for a son. Hopefully you can take better care this time."

"Please."

Rose set down the braid and met my gaze. "So you can what, go chasing after Eleanor?"

I was wholly awake now, ready to fight for my daughter. "Yes."

"You're a selfish woman, Sue. Eleanor's gone. Gone for good. But that's no reason the village should let you go, too. How many customers would Crucialis lose if your wax and candles were gone?"

The wick was nearly complete.

"She's my daughter."

Rose looked down at Eleanor's hair. "Something you saw fit to overlook five times already. But this time will be the last." She finished the wick and stood, taking the lock of hair with her. "This time nothing will be left behind that you could stumble across." And with that she opened the door of the stove and threw the hair inside.

"No!" I cried, the scent of scorched hair making me sick.

The piping of the queen came to me.
Brrrr, rap, rap rap
.

Rose, her face grim, hadn't heard, or perhaps she was hiding the fact that she had. She began dipping the wick into the pot of wax.

Again the sound came, long and triumphant. The new queen had won her challenge, and by now she would have killed off not only the old queen but her brood-mates as well.

The door jingled and in stepped Joseph, hat held tightly in one hand. He walked through the aisles of the store and entered the kitchen.

"They've agreed?" Rose asked.

Joseph stared into my eyes. "It doesn't sit well with Pastor David, but yes, they've agreed."

The moment I heard Joseph's voice, the last of my memories fell into place. I had been promised to Joseph when I was fifteen, but I had railed against the decision. I had loved someone else -- a deckhand on one of the ships that came to the village often. The very night I heard the news, I had stolen away on his ship, hoping to leave Crucialis for good.

I'd had one night with my lover -- dear God, I couldn't remember his name -- but the next morning I was discovered and the captain had immediately turned the ship around, afraid of angering the village elders and losing his ship's berth. My mother had beaten me senseless, and I'd been married to Joseph within the week. The signs of my pregnancy came quickly thereafter. Joseph had bedded me several times, but we both knew the child wasn't his. Yet he surprised me. He never once spoke of his suspicions, and he raised Eleanor as his own.

Until trouble struck. Then, it was as if Eleanor had never been his.

Nearby, Joseph was watching Rose as the layers of the candle built.

I whispered, "This isn't right, Joseph."

"It is. She doesn't need you anymore, Sue. And you don't need her."

"I
do
need her."

Joseph looked up and met my gaze. His gray-blue eyes held a vulnerability I had never seen, but then Rose said, "It's ready," and the look was gone.

Joseph considered her handiwork. "That?"

Glancing sidelong at him, Rose blew along the length of the misshapen candle to set the wax. "It's not pretty, but it'll work."

After pressing the taper into a holder, Rose used the whale oil lamp on the kitchen table to light it. An aromatic smell filled the room. Joseph and Rose left quickly, shutting the door behind them.

I stared at the candle, tears flowing freely. I had used the first candle willingly, and I could still remember that it had felt like sinking slowly into the winter waters of the Inland Sea. It had been a sweet release, made all the sweeter in knowing that I'd never have to deal with the shame of my daughter again. But now it felt as if some vital part of my soul were being ripped away.

The smell of the candle deepened. It wouldn't be long now.

Brrr, rap, rap, rap.

Several bees landed on the table nearby.

"Go," I repeated, all the while trying to remember my daughter's name.

I had a daughter, didn't I?

Dozens of bees flew around the interior of my home, a handful coming dangerously close to the wavering flame. Then one struck it, its wings immediately singing. It fell to the table, buzzing uselessly. It was replaced by three more. They, too, were burned, but a dozen took their place, and finally, in a concerted move, a whole host of them converged on the wick, and the candle was doused.

The buzzing intensified.

The front door opened. "Susanna?"

Joseph's voice.

He stepped inside, and immediately the bees buzzed around him. He shouted, swatting at them before realizing the smarter course was to flee.

I leaned forward in the rocking chair until I managed to leverage myself onto my feet. I dropped my weight onto the chair over and over until it broke and I crumpled to the floor.

I heard Joseph's voice outside, saying, "Susanna, don't do this."

I ignored his calls and picked myself up, pulling at the arms of the chair until my hands were freed. From the cupboard below the counter which divided store from kitchen, I retrieved the small box that held all the money I had. The vast majority of my earnings went to the village's communal reserve, but I had saved enough over the years. It would bring me to Eleanor.

Feeling the thrum of my bees deep within my chest, I strode to the front door and stepped onto the boardwalk. A dozen paces away were Rose and Joseph. Several of the village elders stood behind them, their faces lit in wraithlike relief by the lamps they held.

I considered sending the bees to attack. They would, if I bade them do so. I could make them forget themselves, forget everything they had ever known. At the mere thought, a flight swarmed over their heads, and they huddled in fear, all of them.

All except Joseph.
His
face was calm. He looked into my eyes with an expression that begged me to stay. Even now, he couldn't find it in himself to say it -- that he loved me, that he'd be lost if I left.

His reasons for urging me to take that first candle and all the others had been for his sake, not mine. But I couldn't stay. Not for him. Not any longer.

I allowed the tightness in my chest to dissipate, and the bees began to disperse. Before they had all returned to the hive, I turned the corner and descended the short ladder to my rowboat. I guided it out toward sea as the last of the bees were swallowed by the dark of the night.

I heard no cry of alarm, no call from the harbor. They were too afraid I would change my mind, or that the bees would simply take it upon themselves to do exactly what everyone feared they would.

And soon, I was out among calm, open sea.

Alone.

I remained close enough to Crucialis to view it on the horizon. It wasn't difficult, caught as I was in the same lazy currents as the village. The most difficult part was the growing feeling that I would have to turn back when my small store of provisions ran out. But then, on my second day at sea, a ship left Crucialis, and I pulled hard on the oars to place myself in its path.

I was taken aboard, and the captain interrogated me for a good long while. He was justifiably afraid of what might happen if he were to harbor a fugitive from Crucialis, but in the end he accepted half of my money to bring me to port and keep silent about it.

As I stood on deck, leaning against the gunwales, I watched the mainland approach. I was scared. I had no idea where Eleanor might have gone, only the name of the city in which she would have landed. I had no idea if I would find her, only that I had to try. And for now, I decided, that was enough.

I felt something tickling my skin and looked down.

A bee, now motionless, on the back of my hand.

I stared, dumbfounded. "And where are you bound?" I asked, slowly lifting my arm.

But then, without warning, it took flight, and was soon lost among the winds.

I can usually tell within seconds which of the homeless men are going to be trouble. The ones with the fruity smell of alcoholism or the missing teeth and cracked gums of meth addiction are easy. Sometimes you can tell by the way they look at you when you talk; some ignore you and some hold on to your words only to spit them back at you. But John Truro was different. He didn't scare me, at least not in the way that some of the men do. But he made me fear for my life more than anyone I have ever known.

He came in one brutally cold night, when the police emptied the tent city under the interstate. I didn't notice him at first; there was soup to serve and a scuffle between one of the lifers and a newcomer. It wasn't until time for lights out in the men's dorm that I met him.

He came to me clutching a fresh blanket in one hand and a long tube, like architects use to hold blueprints, in the other. He was thin, with a full gray-streaked beard; but his hair was trimmed, and he didn't smell of the street. Cleanliness is a good sign and it put me at ease.

"Do you keep a guard at night?"

That question usually leads to a threat or a pulled knife. I guess he saw my reaction.

"I have this," he said, holding up the aluminum tube. Dents and scratches marked its surface, but it was still shiny, as if he polished it every day. "I need to protect it."

"I don't have a safe or anything." He didn't seem dangerous. I usually have a good sense for these things, so I thought he was telling the truth. I wondered what was in the tube. No telling with my clientele; they have nothing, and can become attached to the oddest things. I guessed he had picked it up on the street somewhere, or out of a trash bin, and imagined it was Excalibur.