The Lava in My Bones (18 page)

Suddenly the scarecrow shook. She jolted to the left, the right;
the stone fell off, and her torso bent forward to reveal two men pushing her to the ground. The taller man pointed the barrel of a rifle at me. The shorter man smiled. He had freckled skin and a cowlick that trembled in the breeze. “Jimmy!” In his right hand, he held the wire-cutters he carried in the woods.

“Don't you move,” said Jimmy's father. His lips were stained with tobacco juice and his hair striped red and grey. “We saw everything.”

“But I—”

“Shut up! Jimmy, go into town and tell officer Dolsen. I'll keep her right here.”

Jimmy watched me, his brow pleated. All the honey on my skin had been lapped off. The bees had vanished.

“I said go!” shouted his father.

Jimmy hesitated, then ran toward town.

An hour later police cars, reporters with cameras, and the mayor arrived. Men in suits examined the satin dummy, poked at the straw with their fingers. One man picked up the Estelle head and shook it. Jimmy's father was speaking with a policeman. “That bitch humiliated my son, so I pulled him out of school for a month.” The policeman scribbled on a pad. Jimmy hadn't returned. A uniformed man approached me, touched the skin on my forearm, and walked away sniffing his thumb.

I was handcuffed, pushed into a police car, and driven to the Home for Young Offenders in West Bay. Sitting on a cot shaped
like a matchbox covered with a paper-thin blanket, I eyed the bars on the window. They reminded me of the stripes on my beloved bees.

The next morning, Mother stumbled into my cell. Despite everything, I was glad to see her and we embraced. The first thing she said was, “Am I being punished for my pride? And my leniency? Have I not been paying attention?” Being the wicked stepmother takes work. Had she been slacking off? “Maybe I wanted to relax? Forgive me. Or am I too harsh? I know you think me obsessive. Fear is the strongest emotion in me; that's my problem. But people who say disciplinary parenting doesn't work are screwballs. Under no circumstances will you go the way of your brother.” She sat down on my bed. “Now Sam has completely lost his hunger for rocks. That means we're doing things right. But he has become very quiet again.” You're planning something drastic, Sam. What is it? “Don't worry, Sue. I'm going to take action to make things better for you always.”

After she left, I looked out the window, saw the parking lot below, and beyond, the ocean. I put the tip of my finger on the glass where the horizon-line was. I knew that some day I would touch that line with my bare hands. I would lift and hold it between my fingers. I would play jump-rope with it and wrap it, cobra-like, around my neck.

I tried to think back to the days before bees, before honey. Yet I could think only of you, Sam. Was there ever a time when I was
not defined by someone else? Could I ever be me, standing separate yet accepted by others? I had only a few scattered memories:

Mrs Bodner, my kindergarten teacher, had three needles protruding from a ball of red hair that crouched behind her head. Once she gave me a gold star to put on my forehead; it complemented my eyes, which she said shone beautifully.

Sandra Morning Star, a tiny Indian girl, agreed to be my friend for five days.

Once I came upon a frog flattened by transport truck wheels. I took it home and hung it like a trophy on my wall.

I was in these memories. Was I anywhere else?

That afternoon, when my honey started to flow, a horde of bees gathered above my cell. I heard Q-Tip's high-pitched whine, Wiggle-Butt's whimper, and Drooper's snorting. The whole room vibrated to the scratching on the metal roof.

“Come, friends, yes, come!” I cried to them.

The sound continued for an hour, then faded. This building was maximum-security. Nothing could come in or go out.

The next afternoon, the bees arrived and again departed. The same thing happened the third, fourth, fifth days. A week later, at three-thirty on a Monday afternoon, I heard the faintest scratching of just one bee on the roof. Was it Drooper? I imagined him pressing his bent snout into the corrugated metal, rubbing it over and over, as tears poured from his eyes. Finally he flew up into the sky and left me. Yes, even Drooper abandoned me to the world of men. I sat in a silence I was sure would never break.

I pictured Estelle sitting before her mirror, surrounded by open jars of gel as Esther moulded her hair into a perfect labyrinth.
Mother was surely praying to God as my father rocked back and forth on his spot on the sea. Sam, were you examining the walls? the ceiling?

I still believed my true mother was in the sky spinning honey scarves, mittens, and underpants on her giant spinning-wheel. When we finally meet, she will sit me down and pat me on the head with her honeycomb hands. Then she will tell me honey stories.

I thought of all the tales my true mother will tell:

First, she will describe the glue-bandit who travelled the world over and, though he left a conspicuous glue-trail behind him, was never caught, for whoever tried to follow the track stepped in it, got stuck, and could never move again.

She will tell me of the honey damsel who let her honey hair flow out a castle window and down to her lover below. When he tried to climb her hair, he got stuck in its folds, and all he could do was watch the sun rise and set or glare at her honey dandruff, which was as large and bulbous as apples.

Then my mother will speak of the glue family. They were stuck together, and only when they accidentally fell into an enormous bucket of paint thinner were they freed from each other. Yet the thinner was so corrosive that two children had polka-dot-stained skin for the rest of their lives, and the youngest child dissolved completely.

My mother will offer me cookies full of caramel and vials of liqueurs that flow so sluggishly that, when drunk, they stop our blood from circulating and congeal our organs as our bodies merge.

My mother was waiting for me in the sky, and only the swarm of bees could take me to her.

The day the bees left Labrador was a day of jubilation in Cartwright. The newspaper headline read, “Labrador Freed from Bees. Teenage Girl's Involvement Still Unclear.” Articles described how citizens could walk freely again; fish once frightened away by the buzzing were returning to shore; cod stocks would quadruple, and the town could become a tourist destination.

“Work will continue at the steel foundry,” the mayor announced. “We have no reason to fear it will be moved to Mexico.”

In court the judge was kind; he sympathized with me. I was simply a poor fisherman's daughter at the mercy of her body's perversity. My family doctor was brought in and chastised for not having alerted the authorities. He said, “I didn't know it was so serious.” The judge concluded, “Medical intervention may prevent the appearance of the bees and recommencement of their savage attacks.”

On October 30, I was hospitalized in Queen Mary's Institute just outside West Bay. During the following weeks, specialists from every town in the province arrived, each trying to find some way to stop my honey flow. I endured hundreds of tests. Sweat
was scooped off my skin with scalpels and deposited in pouty-lipped beakers, and chemical tests were done to me throughout the day. The men, like you, Sam, were scientists, so I trusted them and submitted willingly to their experiments.

They changed my diet, the type of bed I slept on, the hours I slept, how often I bathed. I was put in rooms full of ice, then overheated saunas, until it was discovered, as I knew, that the honey flow had no connection to my external environment but was a product of my own inner geography. The specialists claimed that my condition was so advanced, there seemed little hope of a cure.

One doctor explained, “We've been studying your sweat glands, Sue. Sweat glands are coiled tubes in the dermis, a layer just below the skin. They are connected by a duct to a pore on the skin's surface. Normally, sweat ducts fill with water that's absorbed from the body. When we eat, our metabolism is activated; our body heats up and we sweat, usually imperceptibly. However, when you eat, the naturally occurring sugar in food isn't broken down but is transferred into the spaces between blood vessels from where it travels into the apocrine sweat glands in your armpits and the eccrine glands found everywhere else—except your lips and clitoris.” His mouth twisted. “You are not as abnormal as you think. When people perspire, not all the sweat runs off the skin; most evaporates and leaves a salty residue. On you, it's more sugar than salt. And you sweat at a slightly greater volume. The average person produces between one and two litres per hour, whereas your body produces about four-and-a-half. Your perspiration colour is normal—clear but yellowish under the armpits. You may have noticed,” he added authoritatively,
“armpit stains on clothes are always yellow.”

Mother visited me daily. She had become calmer; a soft light glowed in her eyes. Since the bees had departed, the atmospheric barrier separating her from the Holy Spirit was removed and she was able to speak Godly tongues. While I underwent experiments, I heard Mother in the hall like a constantly rattling air-conditioner. Afterwards, she'd sit holding my hand for hours.

It began to snow as November came and went. My parents celebrated Christmas Day at my bedside. Throughout the winter a tutor came and assigned homework so I didn't lose the school year.

I often asked Mother about you, Sam. She told me you were now allowed to leave your room. The psychiatrists trusted you, and you trusted them. You loved merrily marching up and down the halls. During therapy you related all kinds of personal info without shame. You showed a new curiosity. Oddly, the mention of Europe now excited you. You had a new confidence and appeared giddy and weirdly expectant. “They allow him to read letters now.” The psychiatrists had previously asked that we not communicate with you. “I sent him one. He loves reading about what's happening in the outside world.”