Years ago ships wouldn’t have left harbor until the village floated close enough to make it a day’s sail or less, but the wares of Crucialis had built a keen reputation, and merchants wanted to cherry pick the goods before the common man could get their hands on them.
More to the village’s favor, I thought.
I opened the shop door and sat with a cup of blackberry tea and my needlepoint, waiting for buyers to wander along the boardwalk.
I took the ointment and rubbed it into the bee sting. My thoughts wandered, and a vision of holding the hand of a child breezed through my mind. It was a momentary glimpse, like a twinkling of the sun through the verdant leaves of a maple. The child’s wrist was marked by a mole. I bore no such mark myself, so I tried to think through the many Sundays at the village square where I would sit and watch the children play on the lawn. But I couldn’t remember any of them having a mole. Then again, why would I? I’d never bothered to look for such a thing.
Shadows darkened my doorway, and an older couple entered. I clapped the lid back on the tin of ointment and waited as they wandered, inspecting my wares, adjusting like land lubbers as the shop creaked and swayed in time with the waves. The woman smoothed her earthy green dress while inspecting the honey. The man stood with hands shoved deeply into his pockets, looking at nothing in particular while pointedly ignoring both his wife and me.
They weren’t here for dried flowers, I knew, nor flax thread, nor honey. They were here for my candles.
“May I help you?” I asked.
They traded uncomfortable glances. Then the man cleared his throat. “I heard word that you have bees...”
The woman stepped forward. “That you can help a man forget.”
I smiled as kindly as I could. “You heard right.” And I waited. I had to hear the story.
It was the woman who spoke. “You see, my father... My mother died a few months back. Fifty years they were married, and now that she’s gone he’s lost the will to live. He sits home, stares at the ceiling, doesn’t want to eat. He’s wasting away, and we just thought...”
I shrugged. “The candles can help, but there’s a steep price to pay. You have to understand what his mind will do. It’s a resilient thing, and when it finds a gap, it will bridge it. He’ll no longer recognize you as his daughter”—I turned to the man—“nor you as his son-in-law.”
The woman seemed shocked; nearly everyone did when they learned the truth. “But he’s my father...”
“Don’t worry, dear. He’ll remember. Your mother will simply be missing. He’ll think of you as a close friend, like a daughter but not quite so. You’ll see the changes in little ways. He’ll be distant from you. Cordial. He’ll ask after your children, but more out of politeness than true interest. He’ll come to your house for holiday dinners, but might not invite you to his.”
I waited for the words to sink in. The husband stood now at the entrance to the shop, his face troubled. The wife, however, smiled, a fleeting thing, and nodded to me.
“I require one hair from your mother, the longer the better.”
The woman pulled a small linen bag from her purse and held it out. “It’s the longest I could find.”
“You know the price?”
“We do,” she said.
I accepted the bag with the hair in it. “Come back in three hours.”
The couple were the only unusual customers that day, but I still sold a sizable amount of honey and boot polish.
I set the beeswax to melting, and in between customers carefully braided the hair the woman had left into a flaxen wick. Then I dipped the wick into the melted wax over and over, slowly building its layers until the candle was complete.
When the couple returned, I told them to make sure her father was alone while the candle was burning; leaving it in his room while he slept would be best.
They gave me their money and took the candle. Neither of them thanked me.
WARM and COLD HERBED and SALTED Baths
SHAMPOOING, Shaves, and Haircuts Given
Purity Bath & Barber, Outer Ring, Due West, Adjoining the Guiding Light Hotel
After the ships left, I walked along the canals to the Childress house. Rose was the village’s midwife; if anyone would know about a child with a mole, it would be her.
We sat in rocking chairs as the sun touched the horizon, sipping hot toddies from porcelain cups and watching the wind play among the flowering cucumber and cantaloupe. Rose wore a calico dress—pretty fabric, but she sewed her dresses too tight, and the neckline was altogether too revealing. She was staring at the knitted shawl I’d just given her.
“Do you like it?” I asked.
Rose gave a half-hearted smile. “I can’t think of what I’ve done to deserve it.”
I didn’t return the smile. We both knew I’d given it to her because of the cut of her dress. “You’d like them if you only gave them half a chance.”
Rose folded the shawl and set it on the grass near her feet. “Let’s not start that again.”
“It’s for your own good.”
“Susanna, I’m asking nicely.”
I stared at Rose, my blood rising, but I stopped myself. Rose never responded to directness. I’d make her a different type of shawl, perhaps a nice cornflower blue.
After the sun had set—and my temper had cooled—I broached the subject of my bee sting and the events that had followed.
“A mole?” Rose asked.
“Yes, here.” I pointed to my wrist, spilling a bit of my drink in the process. Perhaps I should have stopped at one.
Rose laughed. She had a heavy laugh, like a man. “That’s all you have is a mole?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Rose shook her head. “No, dear, I don’t recall.”
“It seemed so real...”
Rose winked. “Dreams have a way of doing that, don’t they?”
I smiled, trying not to look at Rose’s disgraceful hemline, which was practically up to her armpits. “I know it’s foolish, but I can’t shake the feeling that it really happened, that it wasn’t a dream at all.”
“Then look this Sunday. If you find a match, you can put the mystery to rest.”
I nodded. Church would be a good place to look, indeed.
I avoided the ointment for several days, dearly hoping the dreams would stop—hoping, in fact, that the visions would stop as well. It seemed to work, for I couldn’t remember my dreams after I woke each morning. I did, however, have an undefined, anxious feeling that sat at the base of my gut and stewed all day, as well as feelings of yearning and loneliness I’d never experienced before.
I started to forget things now and again. This was to be expected, and I made up for it by writing the important things in a journal. I usually remembered where the journal was.
Pastor David was in rare form that Sunday—his voice was resonant, his words vengeful—but my mind was so scattered that I couldn’t focus on any of it. I kept studying the mothers around the hall, especially Jane Skolfield with her two daughters, Mary and Alice. Mary had just turned eleven; she was bouncing in the pew, praying the sermon would end so the celebration on the village green could begin. Jane, every so often, would shush Mary, but a moment later she would absently smooth her daughter’s hair down.
That simple gesture nearly made me cry.
After prayers I attended the party. It gave me a perfect opportunity to inspect the girls’ wrists. The green was actually a ring of barges around the church, each lashed to the next in the chain. Rock and soil and grass filled their interiors. Thirteen girls, ranging from five to seventeen, wove colorful ribbons around the maypole set into the barge on the backside of the church. I sat on a wooden bench, watching them. As the ribbons wound their way ever lower, a feeling of discomfort grew within me, especially when I was watching the older girls.
I made a fool of myself going up to every girl, casually inspecting their wrists while trying to keep the conversation with their parents light. I wo
ndered if Joseph had talked, because the mothers seemed to be choosing their words carefully, and they sent furtive glances my way when they thought I wasn’t watching. But whatever Joseph had or hadn’t done, none of the girls bore a mark that matched my dreams.
I returned home to my garden, glad to be alone.
I sat in a hanging chair Joseph had built for me, the one I used to watch the sunsets and my bees. They were active, flitting about the flax and blackberry bushes. I bid several of them to fly nearer. It was something I’d found I could do from time to time, when the feeling was right. It was a secret I’d kept from everyone, and it was immensely comforting, the fact that it had returned so soon after the taxing experience on the green.
The summoned bees traced patterns in the air above my lap. They looked like a herd of porpoises, leaping and diving among the waves. One landed on my knee, and I placed my hand next to it, feeling bad that one of its brood mates had died in stinging me. It crawled onto the back of my hand, tickling my skin. The feeling of control, so strong a moment ago, faded like a comforting breeze that would soon be forgotten. The bee lifted from my hand and circled the air near my head before following the others back toward the blue flowers of the flax plants.
Near sunset, over eight hours later, the piping of the unborn queen—brrr-rap—brought me out of my inexplicable feelings of self-loathing. I was sitting in the same chair, staring blankly at the bees. My heart sped up when it struck me how low the sun was. I stared at the bee sting, wincing as I probed the swelling around it. It was getting bad. Visions or no visions, I was coming dangerously close to losing myself to the venom.
I returned to my home and immediately applied more of the ointment. The dreams returned that same night.
BRIGHTEN THOSE BOOTS, MAN!
I’ve tried, sir, but the shine never lasts.
THEN GET YOU TO CARVER’S SUNDRIES!
Fine Boot and Leather Polish Made from the Purest Beeswax
Candles, Honey, Flax Thread, Slumgum Firestarter
Carver’s Honey & Sundries, Inner Ring, SSW
The dreams varied wildly save for the feeling of powerlessness in all of them. Wednesday was the worst. I was in a cramped, bare room. A cockroach issued from a small hole in the floor. I crawled toward it, looking down into the darkness as another cockroach crawled out. I took a hammer and a scrap of wood and nailed it over the hole, but as I struck the third and final nail, the hammer punched through the floor, leaving a gaping wound.
Dozens of cockroaches streamed from the darkness, skittering over the floor and up my dress. I took another, larger scrap and slammed it over the gap. The floor broke again, and again, until a river of black insects poured from the bucket-sized hole and flooded over me.
I woke, my breath coming in great gasps. It was still the middle of the night. I refused to go back to sleep—I doubted I could have anyway—and it was a long, long wait until the sun finally broke the waves to the east.
A vision of the girl reappeared that morning. I could see more of her now: a wrist, a delicate hand, a swath of beautiful strawberry blond hair. It felt like me, not some girl I’d held hands with. But the perspective was bizarre, like I was also myself, separate from this girl. The sensation struck me in the chest, in the throat, and for a time I had difficulty swallowing. It was only when I felt warm tears falling onto my hands that I realized I was crying.
After composing myself, I went up to my garden and gratefully found Joseph already in his.
He stood and waved when he saw me. “Morning,” he called. His smile was a good sight to see.
I returned the wave. “Morning.”
“Something wrong?”
“Mind if I come over?” I asked.
The concern on his face was plain as he waved his assent. I crossed the narrow wooden walkway between our homes and confessed everything. Near the end, I stopped, unable to continue under his stare. “I can see the pity in your eyes, Joseph.”
He ducked his head until the brim of his wool hat hid his eyes. “Sorry, Sue.”
“You’ve been hiding something from me.”
He pulled himself up straighter. When he met my eyes, he was resolute. “I think it’d be better if you remembered on your own.”
The moment he said it, a memory struck me, clear and true, one I’d been unwilling to admit to myself. The girl. That mole. That beautiful hair.
“I had a child...”
Images took shape: rubbing the soft skin of my daughter’s cheek as she moaned herself to sleep; tickling her along the ribs, the only place that would produce a wholly satisfying and uncontrollable laugh; chasing her through the paths of the garden and around the bee hive; swaths of green over my daughter’s cheeks as she fought her dinner of mashed peas.
“I had a child,” I said. There could be no doubt. But her name... Her name lay just beyond reach. Lena. Elena.
“Where is she?” I asked.
Joseph shook his head. “Just let it be.”
Why was Joseph being so tight-mouthed? It didn’t make sense.
But then another realization struck like a tidal wave. I must have done this to myself. I must have used one of my own candles to mask the memories of my daughter. What in the name of all that’s holy could I have done that would make me think that forgetting my own daughter was the best solution?
“Is she dead, Joseph? Did I kill her?”
Joseph stood there, a silent mountain in faded blue overalls.
“Damn you! Did I kill her?”
When Joseph said nothing, the festering emotions that’d been stirring inside me since the bee sting boiled over and I slapped him full across the face. It stung my hand and I know it stung him.
He recovered, his eyes angry and hot, but he remained silent as the moon, his expression more pitying.
I stalked off, leaving him to rot in his silence.
I returned home and applied more ointment, horror-struck with the knowledge that most of the village knew of my self-imposed infirmity. They’d conspired against me, and worse—I’d asked them to do it. I thought back to the women on the green. They knew... They knew of my awakening memories and would act just like Joseph, hiding my past from me. The urge to hide, to run, was nearly overwhelming, but I couldn’t, not now, not when I needed to know so much more.
I rushed across the village to the Childress house, taking the lesser-used walkways, thankfully crossing the path of no one.
“Please,” I said after Rose had opened the door and allowed me in. “You have to tell me the truth. My daughter. What happened to her?”
Rose’s expression softened.
My hands shook. “I don’t need your pity! Tell me what happened!”
“Susanna. Dear.” Rose sat in an upholstered chair, leaning on her elbows over her knees, worrying the hem of her blue dress, exposing her slim legs all the way up to the knees. “Please listen to me,” Rose said. “I’ll answer your questions, because I know how you can be, but I’m going to ask you a favor—for both our sakes—after I’m done. All right?”
I drew in a deep breath—ignoring Rose’s smug tone—and released it slowly. “How did she die?”
“She’s not dead. She left twelve years ago.”
My head jerked back. I blinked. “She left?”
Rose nodded.
“Twelve years ago?”
“Nearly thirteen.”
“W-why? Why would she leave?”
“She couldn’t bear it here. With you.”
Couldn’t bear it? And then it struck me.
Eleanor... Her name was Eleanor, and the taste of it was sweet as honey.
Memories began to slip into place like the torn pieces of a quilt that were now being sewed anew. I remembered having these same doubts, remembered years ago Mr. Billington, the village’s records keeper, recording Eleanor under the list of souls that had permanently left Crucialis.
I sat speechless, my mind racing. “I can’t believe it’s been that long...” There was something that w
as bothering me, though, the way Rose and Joseph had been acting... They had been too accepting, too nonchalant, for this to have been the first time. “How many times have I done this?”
“Five,” Rose replied.
I swallowed. My fingers felt cold and the brown wool carpeting lost focus for a moment. Five times? I’d done this over and over again?
“I know this is painful,” Rose continued. “But I’m hoping you’ll just go home and make another candle. Unwelcome shawls and comments about my hems aside, you’re really a much nicer person without Eleanor. Some of us aren’t meant to have children. There’s nothing wrong with that. She’s gone for good anyway. Just leave her be and live out the rest of your life in peace.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. My first reaction was outright anger, but I began to grow wary. Had I fought before? Had Rose and Joseph forced the issue? Had the village elders condoned it?
I managed to lift myself up and walk toward the door as memories flooded through my mind.
“Susanna?”
I opened the door and ran for home, heedless of the danger of running along the uneven boardwalks. I had to be alone, had to sort through the river of thoughts rushing through my mind.
I reached my garden as the sun slipped behind a thick bank of clouds. The piping of the queen came, much louder and clearer than it had the last time I’d heard her. She was free of her cell, and she was challenging the old, mated queen for supremacy. I stepped toward the hive, my brood, and removed the wooden lid. Their collective buzz saturated the air, infusing me with a sense of belonging I’d so often been without this last week. Bees landed on my hands, my face, my hair; they flew under the hem of my dress, tickled my ankles, my shins, my thighs. The threat of a sting was deliciously present, and I made no move to prevent it. They could sting me if they wished.
With the sense of oneness that overtook me, memories began to play in an orderly fashion like the careful construction of a hive.
Eleanor had grown into a fine young woman. She had been bright and beautiful, the apple of every young man’s eye. I had tried to keep a tight leash, more so as Eleanor’s bosom filled in and her hips spread and her eye returned the hungry glances sent her way ever more easily.
Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories Page 11