by Meg Kassel
“I really don’t like the white pills,” I gasp, but I feel better already.
He gazes down at me with an expression I don’t like. He looks as though he’s trying to stifle a smile. “I’ll prescribe you something to calm your stomach,” he says, pulling out his prescription pad. “The white pills stay.”
13
Dresden
falling
I don’t care for Essie’s psychiatrist.
I am in swarm form, clumped under the eaves of Dr. Roberts’s office building on Main Street. A few bees are hanging out in the flowers, watching what’s going on in there with Essie’s appointment. I can’t hear, of course, but the man’s body is positioned all wrong. He hovers over her like a cat playing with a mouse. I get a few glimpses of his eyes through the window.
The way he looks at her is wrong. I’ve seen men look at a woman like this many times, when they want to do something with someone they know they shouldn’t.
The energy he emits is dank and prickly. I’m well versed with this variety. He’s not a good man, but not evil, either. He exists in a wavering gray space that’s actually quite unstable. You would think not being evil would be a good thing, but true evil is a rare thing, indeed. Most so-called “evil” people are sick, damaged creatures, born with bad wiring in the head or ruined young by some other, equally sick person. I’ve encountered true evil only a few times in all my long years, and most who possess it prove incapable of hiding it.
Evil pulses from their pores, corrupts everything they touch, poisons the very air they breathe. These people rarely last long in society. They are dispatched by the populace, quickly and viciously, but leaving scars on those they touched long after their short, destructive lives are ended.
This man would not be here if he were evil. He maintains a place in society, a psychiatric practice, a residence. I am certain, however, that his feelings for Essie are not the simple doctor-patient variety. Essie should not be alone with him. He touches her now with bumps to the knee, casually crowding her space. He won’t always be satisfied with being in her space, with little touches. One day, his restraint will fail him, unless he is removed from her life.
I wish I could hear what they are talking about in there.
Ordinarily, Dr. Roberts would be a person I would consider stinging, but only if there wasn’t a stronger target around. I could never do it now. It would put Essie in even greater danger.
I wonder if he was stung by another beekeeper. I wouldn’t know it, if he was. Our stings don’t work like dogs marking a tree. It’s possible to be unfortunate enough to be stung multiple times by different beekeepers. There’s nothing I could do about it if he was stung. He has a shelf life, if that’s the case, as he’ll only be able to hide the venom’s effects for so long. I’ll keep a close eye on him, just in case. Perhaps the impending disaster the harbingers are predicting will take care of him. Perhaps I will ensure that it does.
A crow caws in the eave next to me, startling me into dislodging my swarm. The crow dips its head low and caws again, repeatedly. It must be Michael with something to tell me. I collect all my bees and roar away from town in an angry roil. None of the other beekeepers cease their activities to answer the call of a harbinger. Sometimes, maintaining a friendship is infinitely aggravating.
I take human form in a violent rush at the edge of the orchard, coming together in a jagged, disorganized clumping of bees.
Michael hunches in his crow form, head bent at a strange angle as he struggles to transform. This isn’t right. I step forward in alarm, unsure how to help. Unsure if I can. Finally, a cloud of black fog billows from his crow’s beak. It envelops him as usual, but the substance, which usually smells like smelting iron, instead carries the stench of stagnant water. The black stuff elongates, shapes itself into a man, but this one is much taller, thinner than Michael.
A wide straw hat emerges on the man’s head, and a face forms. Clothing materializes—something harbingers do not get when they transform—but the garments are those of an old-fashioned farmer. It’s the Strawman. I had no idea he could do this. The black fog, which usually pours back inside the harbinger’s mouth, sinks heavily into the earth. The grass dies instantly, leaving a dead circle where the Strawman stands.
I’m afraid, and I’m so unaccustomed to fear that I want to attack him and flee simultaneously. The result is complete immobility. “Where’s Michael?” I can’t keep the wobble from my voice.
I don’t know how a Strawman sees with those sewn-shut eyes, but he’s looking right at me. Possibly through me. I shouldn’t be surprised if some previous version of him did create me, after all.
Why?
The question sounds deep in my head. A rusty, ground-down voice not my own. It takes me a moment to remember this is how the Strawman speaks, as he did the same thing the day of the fair. And he’s ignored my question, of course, and posited one of his own. Why should he bother with the inquiries of a lowly creature such as myself?
“Why, what?” I ask. There was a time, as a young man, when I was brought before a group of powerful sorcerers. I fell to my knees and begged for my life. A week ago, I would have said I’d never bow to anyone again. I can’t say that anymore. I would do anything he asked, if it meant keeping Essie safe.
Why now, after all these long years? the Strawman asks.
For a second, I consider lying, denying. My first instinct is to protect Essie, keep her off the Strawman’s radar, but she’s already on it, and if he’s speaking inside my head, he’s likely seeing everything going on in there anyway. Honesty may be my smartest move. If I even have a move.
“Because now is her.” It doesn’t matter if Essie had been a hundred years ago or if her time wasn’t for another five hundred years. It’s about her. The Strawman knows this, so I don’t know why he bothered bringing me out here to ask. “Don’t hurt her.”
The Strawman tilts his head. He raises a hand, and my body suddenly rises off the ground. I struggle against the sensation of constricting bands around my body. I attempt to change into bees, but I can’t. Like what he did to Michael, he’s controlling my ability to transform into my animal state. Bees expel from my mouth in an agitated cloud. Only the queen and her drones stay deep within.
The Strawman makes a fist, and the pressure increases. I can’t pull in a breath. My bones bend like drawn longbows. I can almost hear them creaking under the strain.
If I do not harm the girl you adore, do not mistake it for kindness or generosity. I possess neither. I am neither. I am the darkener of minds and thief of light. I do not answer to you, beekeeper.
I nod. It’s all I can do at the present. There’s no air for breath. A single rib snaps in my back. I gasp at the surprise pain.
Perhaps pain was what he was waiting for, as he releases me immediately. I sink to the ground. The invisible bands around me disappear. Already, the pain is subsiding. The bone is knitting. The Strawman, for his part, stands slightly hunched over. His hands tremble before he locks them behind his back. Perhaps they are not quite so infallible after all.
“You said I was supposed to right a wrong,” I say quietly. “But if you want me to kill her, I won’t. You can break all of my bones. You can break everything, and I still won’t.”
There. It is said.
You are close, beekeeper. So close.
“Close to what?” I can’t banish the anguish from my voice, my expression. “How can I protect her?”
Reach deep inside yourself. The answer is there.
Deep inside myself? And here we go with meaningless riddles and nonsense that the Strawmen are known for. “Did you create a monster in this town?” I ask, risking another go with his crushing power.
You created the monster, beekeeper. I merely awoke it.
The Strawman bows his head. The black fog lifts from the dead circle of earth to envelop him again. The smell of it changes from swamp to the familiar, and much welcome, smells of a blacksmith’s shop. A few moments later, Mi
chael stands there, trembling and disoriented. The puckered mess of scars twisting over his torso is angry red and appears irritated. The black fog funnels into Michael’s mouth, to be released the next time he transforms. He blinks at the poisoned earth beneath him, then up at me. “What am I doing here?”
I back up, rest against a gnarled peach tree. My knees aren’t steady. My back still retains a slight ache. “The Strawman took over your body. He was just…”
“The Strawman was here?” Michael joins me in the shade of the tree. The sky is clear and blue. There is no breeze. “What do you mean, he ‘took over my body’?”
How to explain something I don’t even know the mechanics of? But more intriguingly, why did the Strawman do that? “What is the last thing you remember?”
He rubs his temples. “This morning, we took the death energy of a suicide just outside town. He was one of yours,” Michael clarifies, because he thinks I’ll ask. I wouldn’t. Not today. “Older male, lived alone. Worked in a call center.”
The harbingers feel an annoying need to acknowledge the dead by discussing them at length, but I do not. I will acknowledge them until the end of time by wearing the dead on my face.
“After that, I was…” Michael scratches the top of his golden head. “Heading to the distribution center, where I found temporary work loading trucks. I was just walking down the highway. Next thing I knew, I was here.” He looks down at himself, apparently just noticing that he is naked. “Damn. Lost my clothes again.”
“Why would the Strawman need your body?” I murmur, more to myself than him. “He wanted me vulnerable, off balance. He succeeded in that. What better way than to take over the body of someone I—” I break off, roll away the words care about. “Someone I know.” But the Strawman would know that his presence alone would throw me off balance. He would know that I am vulnerable in his presence. Unless that is no longer the case.
“Maybe they’re weakening,” Michael offers, mirroring my thoughts. “Maybe they’re not as powerful as they used to be.”
I can’t argue with him. Each time I’ve seen the Strawman, he’s exhibited great power, of course, but also an underlying fatigue. He holds it in the stooped curve of his body; in the deep heave of his chest. It is as if every expression of power comes at a price.
“Perhaps he needed your body because his own is starting to fail him.” The words surprise me. “You’d recently taken in energy. You were charged up. The Strawman may have needed that. How do you feel, now?”
“I feel depleted. He drained me of what I’d taken this morning.” He rubs his hands over his face. “What did he say to you? Of course, I understand if it’s a private matter between the two of you.” There’s an edge to his words. A hint of distrust and suspicion that I don’t like. I don’t know how to assure him that I’m not in league with this creature, but I would like to.
Somehow, Michael’s opinion has become important to me.
“He reminded me of his power,” I say in measured tones. “He said I was ‘close,’ but didn’t say what I was close to. He told me that I created the monster that is killing in this town, and he told me that the answer to keeping Essie safe was inside me and that I should reach deep for it.”
“Reach inside yourself?” Michael frowns. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? The only thing inside you is a lot of bees.”
“I know.”
He shakes his head. “And I fail to see how you created a monster. We are monitoring every person you’ve stung, and none of them are—or were—involved in any psychotic business other than what usually accompanies your bees’ sting. Your victims didn’t murder that young woman everyone is talking about.”
“I’d know it, if they did.”
“Are you sure that was all the Strawman said to you?” Michael asks.
I straighten, eliciting a series of satisfying pops up my spine. “He reminded me, in dramatic fashion, that he doesn’t answer to me.”
He winces. “That mustn’t have been pleasant.”
“It was not,” I say honestly. “Little has been pleasant since you birds set foot in this marked town. I feel as though I have fallen into a chasm I have no hope of emerging from.”
I shake my head, annoyed with myself for saying that, and eager to steer the conversation elsewhere. “You know about that young woman Essie found in the park?” Nothing happens in a town occupied by harbingers of death that the crows don’t know about. They are like the peeping toms of the supernatural world. “When your crow came to me today, I thought perhaps you came to tell me you knew who it was.”
“Interestingly enough, we have no idea who committed that murder.” He rubs his chin. “The killing did not call us, and whoever the murderer is, they don’t carry the scent of death on them, which is odd. Most killers wear it for many years—some, for life. There are a few living here who bear that scent, but it’s old. Nothing fresh, I’m sorry to say. If I learn anything, I will tell you, of course.”
“Thank you.”
Michael leans toward me, and I instinctively lean away. This has been happening often lately: people leaning toward me. It’s unnerving. “You should know that more harbingers are coming. Not just because of the coming event, but because they’re curious about what’s happening with you. A beekeeper falling for a human girl—it’s never happened.” He gives me a long look, the way someone looks at a locked door. “Have you considered that maybe there’s more to your connection than coincidence?”
I sigh, weary all of a sudden. “You’re a superstitious, gossiping lot. There’s no grand conspiracy here, Michael.”
“My group and I aren’t so sure,” he says. “Harbingers are ruled by instincts, signs.” His gaze slides away. “It says something that what’s happening in this town is attracting so many of our kind. They think fate brought you here.”
“Fate?” I barely contain a chuckle. “You scavengers can keep your talk of connections and destiny. I care about Essie, as unnatural as that is, and it’s going to end one way: with her dying—preferably much later, rather than sooner—and me having to go on.” My voice cracks on the last word. Bees dribble from my lips. “I can’t bear the thought, but that’s my fate, Michael. There is nothing grand or even noteworthy about it.”
Michael cocks his birdlike gaze to the clear blue sky. “Actually, there’s plenty grand and noteworthy about what’s happening here, Dresden, but you are probably right,” he says. “About how this will end with her, that is. Can you handle it, if she dies sooner, rather than later?”
He’s asking me if I’ll lose my mind if Essie doesn’t survive our time here. It’s a valid question. There are beekeepers roaming the Earth right now whose sanity evaporated long ago. A few have even lost the ability to speak, let alone use any good judgment. Their humanity is gone. Yet, they go on.
“I’ll have no choice,” I say. “I’ll go on.”
With all the monsters I’ve created.
With all the horrors I’ve breathed life into.
14
Essie
the rest of it
On Friday morning, the body of the woman I found in the park turned up in Potter’s Creek. What was left of her, anyhow. It hadn’t rained for a while, and when it poured overnight, the higher water dislodged her from the spot she’d been left. The water carried her downstream to the McKannon farm, where Sylvia McKannon’s dogs found her.
The only way I know this is because Detective Berk called Aunt Bel and me to the police station and told us about it. And the only reason she did that is because we knew the dead girl.
Detective Berk’s name plaque is missing. Probably stuffed in a drawer because I made such a fuss about it during my last visit. I’d like to think it’s gone because it’s in the process of being replaced with one bearing the correct spelling of her name.
“The victim was a student at the college. She was twenty years old and lived in an off-campus apartment,” Detective Berk tells us. “And a biology major.”
&n
bsp; Steam is coiling off the top of Aunt Bel’s head. Literally, it is. It’s like there’s a pot of boiling water hidden inside her voluminous bun giving off steady puffs of water vapor. “You pulled me off a double shift at the hospital to tell us this poor girl’s major?” she snaps.
“No.” Detective Berk hands over a photograph. She smells strange today, like a glass of milk left out in the sun. “I’m telling you because this young woman tutored Essie. She’d been to your house.”
I take in the pretty, smiling girl in a cable-knit cardigan. “Oh.” My lungs empty. “It’s Miss Leeds—Meredith.”
“Meredith Leeds was your science tutor last year, wasn’t she?” Detective Berk asks. “We have records of payment.”
“Yes, I’m aware.” Aunt Bel’s eyes narrow. “And this is very, very sad news. But we could have established this with a simple phone call.”
“Not the rest of it.” Detective Berk slides over another photograph, to my aunt, this time. Not to me, but I can still see it clear enough. This photo is of Miss Leeds as the McKannons’ dogs found her—skin gray and mottled, dress torn. Something blue is clutched between her fingers. She doesn’t look anything like a person anymore, certainly not the bright, way-too-excited-about-science tutor who came over twice a week last year and wasn’t upset about working with a girl who sometimes told her she was bleeding from the eyes. She was, I tell you.
I look away from the photo with a whimper. Aunt Bel flips the photo over with a hiss. “What is wrong with you, Anne Marie?”
“I know it’s hard to look at.” Detective Berk pushes the photo back toward me. “I need you to take a close look at what she’s holding. Here...” She turns the photo back over but takes several pieces of blank copy paper and blocks off the rest of the photo, framing out everything but what Meredith Leeds is holding. I never noticed before how large Detective Berk’s hands are. “Do you recognize that, Essie?”
I lean forward and peer at the isolated part of the photo. It looks like she’s holding… “Hey, that’s my baseball cap,” I say. “The one I wore to the park the day I found her.”