by Mobi Warren
“I thank Pan for putting my feet on the path at the right moment,” Kimon said. Kimon, like his wife, was devoted to Pan, god of shepherds and wild places.
“He said I killed his son, Kimon. Why would he say such a thing?”
Kimon looked at the boy with a mixture of kindness and pity. “The wild rants of a man who has drunk too much, that’s all.”
“No, it was more than that, Kimon. Why did he think I killed his son?”
Kimon offered his hand to help Hippasus stand up. “Young Master, please, I will accompany you home.”
“Not until you tell me what you know.”
“Then your sister has not told you of the rumors?”
Hippasus cocked his head. His eyes filled with confusion. “Rumors, Kimon?”
Kimon sighed and laid a hand gently on the boy’s shoulder. “The fever has claimed many lives, Hippasus. People look for someone or something to blame.”
“They blame me?” Hippasus asked, his young voice trembling in disbelief. “My own mother is dead!”
Kimon lowered his eyes . “Some in the village blame you, not all. Dika has heard the tanner mumble that you are cursed by the gods, that your presence pollutes the island.”
“They think my ugliness is the cause of fever?” cried Hippasus. “Do they think I would kill my own mother?” Hippasus struggled to hold back angry tears.
Kimon put his arm around the boy’s shoulders and tried to comfort him. “Hippasus, you are different, not ugly. When a nymph gave birth to Pan, she was so shocked by her son’s goat feet and horns, she fled. But when his father, the god Hermes, presented him to the gods of Mt. Olympus, they were so delighted, they gave Pan dominion over the most beautiful of wild places.”
“But I am not Pan, Kimon. My father is not Hermes.”
Kimon looked over the boy’s head as if pondering what to say. “No, you are a mortal boy, but perhaps Pan has favored you in some way. Your mother did not recoil from you when you were born and a swarm of honeybees hovered in the doorway to welcome you. Your mother loved you. She believed you were born to a good fate.”
Hippasus stroked Dove’s back, still fighting back tears. “But what fate is that, Kimon?”
“I don’t know. You will have to discover it for yourself, young Master. What I do know is that the fever will not last forever. Time will soften grief and rage. But it would be best if you stayed out of sight as much as possible. This foolish brute of a tanner could have harmed you and there may be others like him.”
“Do not tell Amethea about this,” Hippasus said. “She has enough to worry about. I will bring her only the good news of pomegranates. He reached into his tunic and showed Kimon the ripe pink globes.
“She will be delighted,” Kimon said.
At that moment, a thrush nightingale, hidden in a nearby bush, whistled and rattled as if trying to get their attention. Hippasus turned and the bird flew from the bush and landed on his shoulder.
“Birds, at least, do not find me monstrous.”
To Amethea’s surprise, that evening Hippasus refused to touch the fish she had grilled for their dinner, saying, “The honeybees have taught me to forsake eating flesh. The pebbles have shown me a new way of seeing.”
“But it’s only a fish,” Amethea said.
“A fish has a life of its own, as does a bird, or a goat.”
“What are you talking about, Hippasus?” she asked. Her heart sank, fearing yet more strangeness from her goat-footed brother.
“The Bee Goddess favors barley cakes and flowers. We must never stain her altar with a sacrificed animal.”
“Very well,” retorted Amethea, “but I would not turn down my share of the slaughtered ox if I won at the Heraea Games.” She slid Hippasus’ share of fish onto her own plate and ate it, separating flakes of pale flesh from the delicate bones.
Tension hung in the air between them but vanished the instant Hippasus took out the pomegranates. Amethea clapped her hands and thanked him. She sliced one of the pomegranates open, staining her fingers with the sweet scarlet juice. But as she ate the juicy beads, she couldn’t help thinking that even a fruit had blood. Sacrifice came in many forms but the gods always demanded it. She would have to give up running. And Hippasus, what would he have to give?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
QUITTING
The following Saturday Melissa sat alone on the cypress bench in the sticky, late morning heat. She felt like melted sugar on a burnt cinnamon roll. The bee she was folding was too damp to hold a crease. She wiped her hands on her shorts and set the half-completed bee on the bench beside her. Goats on Beau’s side of the fence nudged at clumps of dry, brittle plants before slumping beneath the shade of a large oak. A mockingbird, grey and slender, perched on a fencepost close enough for Melissa to see the deep, fierce gold of his eye before he scolded her and flew away.
Beau had left Amaltheia in Melissa’s care for the day. The blue-eyed goat and Hermes, now best friends, chased each other, scrambled across the yard and leapt into the air, speaking to each other in barks and bleats. Finally, having tired each other out, they settled down by the cypress bench and curled against each other to nap.
Beau and Rocio had borrowed one of the town’s solar vans to attend a food and fiber swap in San Antonio, a two hour drive away, and would be gone all day. Her father, as usual, was on campus even though it was the weekend. Melissa rubbed the slight bump at the bridge of her nose and appraised the growing pile of origami bees in the basket. With Beau’s help, she had over four hundred bees, still a long way from a thousand. But while the number of origami bees steadily increased, the Yolo County bees dwindled. Everyday her father returned from work long-faced and discouraged, reporting that more bees had failed to return to the hive. He seemed to grow ever more distant and Melissa felt powerless to reach him.
Melissa let out a long breath. Her hands were tired. The folding seemed pointless. She sifted her hand through the basket and paper rubbing against paper made a soft rustling sound like a breeze through parched leaves. She longed for a real breeze. Then out of the day’s stillness and unrelenting heat, a thin breeze caressed her neck like a cool hand and lifted a few strands of her hair. Thankful, she closed her eyes. Without warning, the breeze flared into a brisk wind that overturned the basket and sent several bees skyward. The sound of the flute followed. Melissa stiffened her body in an unsuccessful attempt to ward off the seizure.
“Bee Maker,” the boy bowed as he spoke. “I’ve waited for you!”
She stood before the goat-footed boy at the shrine and without thinking held out her hand. An origami bee flew from her hand to his. He nodded and pointed to a hollow tree and then upwards to the cloudless sky. A long line of bees circled overhead, then swept down and entered the hive one by one.
The boy looked at her and said, “Bees from your realm, Goddess. Come to visit their kin.”
What did he mean? Did he think she was a goddess, that she had brought bees with her? She shook her head and opened her mouth to protest, but the boy dipped a wooden spoon into a clay urn and motioned for her to sit beside him on a large flat stone. He spread a spoonful of thick, golden honey on a small cake made of barley flour and poppy seeds and handed it to her. The cake had a wholesome earthy flavor, and the honey a deep, complex sweetness. She felt a quivering sensation as honeybees danced about them in a golden circle. Their oscillating wings made a soft humming. Images passed between her mind and the boy’s. She closed her eyes and did not see the young woman that stood several yards away on a path that led to the shrine.
Amethea had lowered her flutes and stared. She did not see Melissa, only her brother offering a honey cake to someone who was not there. A chill ran up and down her limbs. Had Hippasus gone mad or did he see things other mortals could not? Fear seized her and she turned and ran back down the path. What kind of creature was her brother?
M
elissa and Hippasus exchanged many layers of thoughts. Then suddenly the boy’s eyes lost their sheen and he stared straight ahead as if he could no longer see her. The humming of bees faded and Melissa found herself back on the cypress bench. There were crumbs in her hand and a taste of honey in her mouth. Hermes jumped onto the bench and sniffed her hand. He licked the crumbs and placed a paw in her lap. She still felt a quivering in her body as if she were filled with bees. Amaltheia stood and looked at her, her head tilted.
What is happening to me? Melissa fought a surge of panic. Her seizures were no longer blips of absence but a channel that flung her to an ancient shrine that overlooked a turquoise sea. It was Ancient Greece, she was sure. There a young boy, befriended by bees, arranged pebbles in patterns and his sister played a flute. Images flooded her mind and she was amazed by how much she suddenly knew.
The goat-footed boy was named Hippasus. He had recently lost his mother and for some reason, feared his uncle. He was an epileptic like she was and he seemed to think Melissa was a goddess. His right foot was shaped like a hoof; he had two small knobs on his head, curly brown hair and pale blue eyes. But was he real?
Whatever was going on, Melissa was frightened. She knew that some epileptics suffered hallucinations. Brain signals became so scrambled that a person might experience sights and sounds that did not really exist. She needed to tell her father, get checked by a physician. But what about the crumbs that Hermes had just licked and the taste of honey still in her mouth? She shivered.
The boy can’t be real, she reasoned with herself. None of this is real. And if I tell Ba, he’ll think I’m losing my mind. Am I? As she debated whether or not to tell her father, it struck her that all her strange seizures had occurred while she was folding origami bees. Was folding bees doing something to her mind? If so, she could stop it, put an end to her hallucinations by not folding any more. She grabbed the basket and hurried up the porch steps. She flung the basket in a corner of her closet and covered it with a quilt, a small one that Noi had sewn. She thought of destroying the bees, building a fire and throwing them into it, but something held her back. The bees had taken hours and hours of effort. She had made them to pray for the bees and to cheer her father. She had folded them because she wanted more than anything to earn her father’s affection. And each one, she had to admit, almost felt like a real bee to her, a personality composed of paper.
“But I can’t fold any more. I won’t,” she declared, and brushed her hands in a gesture of finality.
Just then her wristband vibrated and a holographic image of her grandmother appeared. Melissa could see the print of the Mechtild painting on the wall behind Noi, the mystic’s arms flung open in a gesture of ecstatic surrender.
“Noi?”
“Melissa, I hope I’m not a bother.”
“No, of course not, Noi.” Melissa closed the closet door and sat down on her bed.
“But I had a sudden feeling I needed to check in. Have you had any more seizures?”
Melissa stiffened. Her grandmother had an uncanny way of reading her thoughts. “A few, but I’m okay.”
“Are you still hearing the flute?”
Melissa didn’t want to reveal what had just happened, not even to Noi, but she answered in a small voice, “Sometimes.”
Her grandmother peered at her and opened her mouth to speak but hesitated.
“Noi, I’m fine.”
Her grandmother turned and pointed to the print of Mechtild. “I often wonder if Mechtild’s experiences were related to seizures.”
“You mean Mechtild was epileptic, too?” asked Melissa.
“Well, no one knows.”
“But you told me that she had experiences of great joy, of feeling one with the universe and all that. That doesn’t sound very much like epilepsy.”
“A seizure can be a kind of surrender, Melissa, a means to open oneself to greater awareness, and in that awareness, discover joy.”
“Noi, I don’t want to be a mystic,” blurted Melissa. She shifted her body. Epilepsy was a brain disorder, a mix-up of chemical signals. Melissa didn’t see how it could possibly be a door to awareness.
Her grandmother picked up a piece of cloth and a threaded needle. “You do not have to be anything, but hating your seizures doesn’t help, does it?”
Melissa didn’t answer. She half longed to tell Noi about Hippasus, but fear held her back.
“Noi, I’ve always wondered about something.”
“Yes?”
“Mechtild was a Christian mystic. She believed in God.”
Noi nodded. “And you’re surprised that a Buddhist like me who does not, would feel deep kinship with one who does?”
“Sort of.”
“It’s true I’m not attracted to the idea of an all powerful deity but I do feel wonder and gratitude for the vast web of being and for every unique creature on that web. Mechtild’s God and my web may well be the same thing.”
“That makes sense, I guess.” Melissa silently debated with herself. Should she tell Noi about the visions? Was the goat boy a creature on Noi’s web or a figment of Melissa’s epileptic brain?
Her grandmother gave her another probing look. “Little bee, you’ll contact me if your seizures increase or change?”
“Really, Noi, I’m fine.”
“Well, I’ve got to harvest a bitter melon to make soup tonight. I hand pollinate my melon vines now. It’s quite a nuisance and often not successful. Keep folding those origami bees and help your Ba bring our honeybees back, nhé!”
Melissa thought of the trellis on Noi’s narrow apartment balcony and the slender vines with pale green melons. Each melon was covered with little bumps that reminded Melissa of iridescent opals. Noi had once told her that bitter tastes nourished the heart. That was odd, Melissa thought, because she was pretty sure bitter feelings had the opposite effect. But maybe with the right attention, a bitter feeling could be transformed and somehow make the heart more open, more accepting than it had been before.
Her grandmother’s image faded and Melissa went out to sit on the porch swing. She swung back and forth, agitated and torn. She had always shared her troubles freely with Noi but something held her back this time, as if sharing what was happening to her would give the seizures more power. She feared becoming trapped in that other world where the goat boy dwelled. She was afraid of losing herself.
The next day, Sunday, Beau’s mother invited Melissa over to show her how to use a spinning wheel. Melissa was grateful to have something to help take her mind off the seizures and when she sat down at the spinning wheel she noticed a new clay figure on an adjacent shelf. It was a girl sitting on a bench folding an origami bee. Melissa smiled and touched it lightly with her finger. Another surprise from Beau.
After the spinning lesson, Rocio served bowls of vegetarian tortilla soup flavored with tiny chile pequin peppers and freshly chopped cilantro. Rocio topped each bowl of steaming broth with crisp tortilla strips and melted goat cheese.
“This is delicious!” Melissa exclaimed.
“Abuelita’s recipe,” said Beau.
After dinner, Melissa helped Beau wash the dishes. He pretended to fold the dishcloth in his hand and asked, “Bring any origami paper? We could fold some bees.”
“No, I forgot,” she lied. She hadn’t folded any bees since banning the basket to her closet.
On Monday, Beau stopped by after school. He leaned his bike against the fence while Hermes leapt about him, clutching a knotted rope in his teeth. Beau tossed it high in the air several times for Hermes to catch then joined Melissa on the porch.
“Want some iced tea?” she asked.
“Sure, and then I can help you fold some bees.”
Melissa poured Beau a tumbler of tea. “Let’s do something else for a change. It’s too hot and sweaty for origami.”
“Okay, but we’re sti
ll a long way from a thousand.”
“Yeah,” countered Melissa, “actually, I think we’ve folded enough. I’m kind of tired of it.”
Beau’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “I thought you made a vow to fold a thousand.”
“Sheesh, Beau, it’s not like I swore on a Bible,” Melissa snapped.
Beau looked at her quizzically. “Sorry, just wanted to help. If you don’t want to fold any more bees, that’s your business.”
As they rocked on the porch swing, Melissa watched Beau model a miniature Hermes, roll the clay back into a ball, then begin to model a goat.
“I will be so glad when school is over,” he said. “I can’t believe the homework my math teacher came up with.”
“What do you mean?” Melissa took a sip of her own tea.
“She’s always trying to give us ‘fun’ things to stretch our brains.” Beau curled the first two fingers of both hands into quotations marks for the word ‘fun.’ Some stuff has been sort of interesting, like Fibonacci numbers—you’d have liked that. Did you know that the family tree of a honeybee follows a Fibonacci sequence?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Oh right, I was forgetting you’re the math geek daughter of a honeybee scientist.”
Melissa gently punched Beau’s shoulder. “So what homework did she give you that was so sadistic?”
“We’re supposed to figure out why the numbers 6, 28, and 496 are called perfect numbers without looking it up on our holo-vids.”
“I can help. Ba told me about perfect numbers just a few weeks ago. Think about factors. What are the factors of six?”
“Uh, one times six, two times three.”
“Throw away the six and add the others.”
“Okay. They add to six.”
“There you have it.”
“Wait, you mean a number is perfect if its factors add up to the number itself?”
“That’s it.”
“You’re a life saver, Mel.”
“Since you’re such a Greek geek, did you know Pythagoras knew about the first three perfect numbers?”