by Meg Kassel
The men turn at my approach. One lets out a warning. They’re standing in the small pool of light given off by an exit door lamp. I see a flash of silver, glass, before it’s tucked inside folds of clothing. I spread my arms when I’m sure they can see me clearly and release a torrent of bees from my mouth.
The men scream in terror as the bees whirl around us. Three bees break from the swarm and make for the men. The three targets howl in pain as they’re stung. The fourth isn’t a target and bolts from the alley. He’s going to tell what happened here and someone might believe him. But I don’t care.
Fear pours off the men, potent and piercing. It hits me like a drug, so good I tremble in the sensation. It’s like a sugar rush to humans, this kind of fear. It’s a powerful shot, but doesn’t last long. Not like the slow-simmering dread that’s currently back in Concordia. Plus, scaring people like a Halloween prank is the most shameful way to get the energy I need. I’ve sunk to a new low.
The men run to the back of the alley, waving their arms wildly, screaming as though they’ve been gutted. Some lights blink on in windows. I pull the bees back into my chest and swiftly walk away, toward the address singing in my head.
Stinging and the absorption of fresh fear energy leaves the bees slightly more manageable. I’m as prepared as I’m going to be to speak with the young man who used to be a harbinger. I promised Adele I would not harm him. I mean to keep that promise.
Part of me still doesn’t believe such a person exists. According to the address Lish gave me, he does, and harbingers are not prone to deception. It’s the reason I’m here, against every instinct. The ex-harbinger lives in a pleasant neighborhood, in a nice brick building.
Charming little window boxes overflow with flowers. The iron railing beside the steps still smells of fresh black paint. I slip into the building by following a man delivering food. Reece Fernandez lives on the third floor. I take the stairs. Apartment 3B is the second on the left. My hand isn’t steady as I knock. No answer. I rest my ear to the door and hear nothing. All this way to come to an empty place.
It’s a simple decision, as beekeepers are prone to deception. I change into bees and enter through the space under the door. It’s a most impolite thing to do, but I simply must speak with this guy.
I take human form in the kitchen, which is right off the entry. I have nothing better to do while I wait, so I look around. The apartment is lightly, but tastefully, furnished. Pretty tidy, too. After glancing at the clothes inside the wide-open closet, it’s clear that Reece lives here alone. However, evidence of the girl who supposedly helped free him from his curse is all over the place.
A stray hairband on the coffee table. Small white flip-flops next to the couch. Green sunglasses with pink lenses. A framed photograph shows the two of them, smiling. I peer at the boy in the photo and—there! I see it: a weary hardness to the eyes. He was a harbinger. Shedding his curse did not lift the burden of sorrow, pain, death. He will carry that for the rest of his days.
But there is joy in his eyes, too. Love. Belonging. Hope.
Envy, the likes of which I’ve never known, starts a riot in my chest. I’ve never known anyone to rid themselves of a curse, and it strikes me as monstrously unfair that the rest of us haven’t known this joy. Why did Rafette die? What caused him to be deprived of a life without bees? The first frissons of worry rattle through me.
After I’ve sufficiently annoyed myself with the photo, I sit my restless self in the recliner across from the dark TV and wait.
And wait. I’m about to get up and start pacing when I hear voices at the door and a key turning the lock. The girl is with him. A shock of nerves makes sweat break out on my palms. The bees, which had been crawling around my insides, roll toward my sinuses, trying to get out. I suck them back forcefully. I’m going to give these two a scare. Best not make it worse by allowing bees to fly around the room.
The harbinger enters first, followed by the petite young woman in the photo and the pungent scent of Thai food. He turns on the kitchen light, drops a takeout bag on the counter, and says something into the girl’s ear. She laughs and turns to face him, raising on tiptoes to kiss him. It starts out playful, but quickly deepens. His arms go around her, and he backs her up to the counter, lifts her up on it. The rest of the apartment is darkened. They don’t know I’m here.
My chest constricts. I would give anything to kiss Essie that way. To kiss her at all, for that matter. I look away from the couple, swallowing another wave of envy. I’m going to have to interrupt them, as I obviously can’t sit here while they make out or do whatever they’re going to do. The trick is making my presence known in such a way as not to terrify them in the process. If that can be avoided.
“I beg your pardon,” I say.
The girl lets out a little shriek, and the harbinger, or ex-harbinger—Reece—steps in front of her in one swift move. “Who’s there?” He reaches for the phone in his pocket.
He can’t see what I am yet. He thinks I’m an ordinary intruder. For some reason, I hadn’t considered that. I get to my feet and come forward quickly. “I know my presence here is terribly rude,” I say, moving into the kitchen light. “I’m not here to harm you. I need your help.”
A hint of the bird Reece used to be still shifts at the corners of his eyes. “I don’t know you.”
The girl’s expression goes belligerent. She hops down from the counter and shoves around Reece, peering up at me with all the fury of an angry kitten. “You need to leave.”
Against my better judgement, a smile moves over my mouth. “You’re not afraid of me.”
“Of course I’m afraid of you. One of your kind stung me over a hundred times. I almost died.” She bares her teeth. “Asshole.”
Reece is more calculating. His hands are curved and ready. The guy is tall and physically impressive. If evidence of the hockey equipment in the corner is an indicator, he’s a powerful athlete. “We can’t help you.” His voice is low, sharp with warning.
He says it so matter-of-factly, I collapse against the wall, suddenly spent. “Please. I’ve come a long way,” I say through my teeth to keep the bees contained. They don’t want to sting these two—it’s my nervousness making them clamor for release. Although Reece gives off some damaged vibes, he’s not dark and violent. His energy carries the stories and the scars of all he endured during his time as a harbinger. It always will.
I hold up my hands and back off, feeling absolutely wretched. “I need to know how you and the beekeeper broke your curses.”
“I wish I could tell you it was magic words, a potion, but it was nothing like that.” Reece’s expression is wary, guarded. He didn’t have the relationship with his beekeeper that I have with Michael. “I guess you could say it was love that broke it,” he says with a small shrug.
I raise my head, meet his watchful gaze, which is now tinged with pity.
Reece’s expression eases a fraction. “I’m sorry. I know the curse is horrible for you. You beekeepers have it much worse than harbingers.”
Love.
Hope, need, certainty—so many emotions unfold within me. My faces are changing so fast, my whole head aches. I must look absolutely gruesome like this, but I walk up to them. They tense up, but don’t back away.
I don’t know how to prove myself. I don’t know how to show these strangers that I am here for a noble reason. I close my eyes and conjure an image of Essie behind my eyes. The first time we met—her sitting on a swing and eating peppercorns. She told me I was pretty and wished I was real. I didn’t know it then, but I was lost to her that day.
“Love,” I quietly say, “is the one thing I have.” When I open my eyes, my vision is blurry with tears. “Will you help me?”
A curious smile quirks Reece’s lips. “You’re…in love?”
A few dead bees fall from my nose and for some reason, I find it humiliating. I move to gather them up, but the girl waves me off. “Go, sit down.” Her voice is brusque. “You look like you’re going to drop. I
’m Angie, by the way.”
Reece nods to the living room, which is a few steps from the kitchen. He sits on the couch. I take my previous spot on the recliner.
Angie joins Reece on the couch. “Why are your bees dying?” she asks.
“They’re starving,” I explain. “I left the town we were feeding off of.”
“How are you keeping control of them?” Reece asks, narrow eyed.
I offer a closed-mouth grimace. “With considerable difficulty.”
“Wow.” Angie leans forward. “You must really love her. Him?”
“Her name is Essie,” I reply with a smile. “And yes, I do.” Just saying her name brings a shudder. “I’m afraid, many years ago, I stung her ancestor—accidentally,” I add, not that it matters. “Her family line was infected with my venom, and my Essie suffers, too. They say that when the curses were broken, the humans who’d been infected by the beekeeper who followed your group were cured. I came halfway across this country to find a way to break the curse. To free Essie of the suffering I brought to her.”
There. I said my piece. I admitted my sin to two total strangers. Neither of them says anything for a moment. The pause stretches. Perhaps they’re going to throw me out.
“Are you willing to die for her?” Reece asks me.
That shiver of worry returns, stronger. “I would do anything for her.”
“Look, surely you know that the beekeeper you’re referring to didn’t survive being freed from his curse. You probably think one of us killed Rafette, or there was an accident. None of that happened. He tried to turn me into a beekeeper.”
“I would never sentence another to this existence,” I say with a savage growl to my words.
“I’m liking you more,” Angie says. “This girl, Essie, could do worse.”
“Thank you.” I give her a weak smile. It’s all I’ve got in me. “Will you tell me what did happen to the beekeeper, Rafette?”
Angie and Reece exchange heavy glances. “We don’t exactly know how the harbinger’s curse was broken, but we do know that the beekeeper’s curse was broken when his queen bee was killed. She’s quite squishable,” Angie added. “I’d know, because I’m the one who squished her.” She splays her palm, where a light, bumpy scar mars her skin.
“What happened to us isn’t something that can be recreated,” Reece says. “I can’t say there’ll be a happy ending for you and your Essie. If you want to free her of your venom’s effects, you need to kill the queen bee. Then, the rest of your bees will die, and so will you.” He winces. “Maybe what happened to Rafette won’t happen to you, but I wouldn’t count on a different outcome.”
“I see.” The words choke out of my chest. No happy ending. None of the things I was so foolishly dreaming of. Hope is a double-edged blade, then. But it isn’t extinguished. There is still the possibility to free Essie. And haven’t I wanted to die since I was given this curse? It looks like there’s a way to make that happen. There’s a bonus, too. I can die to free a family from a curse they should never have had to endure.
My head feels lighter. A bizarre euphoria sweeps through me like balm to the soul. “So be it.” I look at Reece and Angie. “How can I do this and free my Essie?”
“Well, killing a queen bee isn’t easy. She doesn’t leave your chest, does she? Rafette lured her out.”
I always know the location of my queen. She and I share a unique connection. We can’t communicate directly, of course, but we read each other, sense each other. The other bees come and go, but she never, ever leaves my body. She has never even ventured up my throat. But there must be a way to get her out.
“I wish I had better news for you,” Reece says, and he sounds like he means it.
“Does Essie…” Angie pauses, bites her bottom lip. “Know what you are? Does she have feelings for you, too?”
“She knows everything. Almost everything,” I reply. “And she does seem to have some affection for me, yes.”
“Then maybe there’s some hope.” Angie takes Reece’s hand and twines her fingers with his. “Rafette wanted only one thing—to die. He got what he wanted. That’s not what you want, though, is it?”
I get to my feet. My body feels like it’s weighed down with knowledge, with the dissolution of hope. With this impossible task before me. I’m ready to put distance between myself and these two happy people, who have exactly what I would give anything for. My bees roil with eagerness to return to Concordia. “I want very much to live, but not as I am now. As that appears not to be an option, I will try to make some good come of my death.” I rub a hand over my face, through my hair. “I’m tired of only bringing suffering. I’d like to stop. Permanently.”
Reece’s face opens in a wide, handsome smile. “You are very unusual, beekeeper.”
“My name is Dresden.”
Angie gets up. She walks right up to me. “I hope you get what you want, Dresden.”
I gaze down at her. “What I want doesn’t matter as much anymore.”
She smiles, slow and intrigued. “That’s why you have a chance.”
24
Essie
the remains of myself
There are comfy chairs by the windows. I sit in one of them while the woman next to me quietly cries. Her fingers fly in intricate, repetitive movements. For the longest time, I couldn’t tell what she was doing, but I stared at her hands long enough to figure it out—she is knitting.
Unfortunately, she’s the only person who can see what she’s making. She doesn’t talk to anyone, so I don’t know why she cries. Maybe it’s because they don’t let her have real knitting needles. Still, she’s making great progress on her blanket. Every now and then, she straightens it out and checks her stitches. Maybe I can get her to make me one, since I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. I’m now a resident of Stanton House.
There are between twelve and fifteen women living here. I’m related to a couple of them, but I’m the youngest by far. Yesterday, I played checkers with my cousin Lori, who is sixty-five and hasn’t spoken in almost a decade. I’m in the Library room, which is full of comfortable chairs and shelves full of books. Most inmates, er, residents, prefer the Open room, which is bigger and has games and art and sometimes music. Everyone has to be quiet in the Library room, which doesn’t always work out so well, but right now it’s just The Crying Knitter and me.
I don’t remember being brought here. One minute I was sitting on the porch with Grandma Edie and the next I was curled up on a strange bed in a strange room. Aunt Bel tells me Grandma Edie died in front of me and as a result, I had a complete breakdown. Some guy apparently heard me screaming and called the police. They don’t know who it was, since none of the neighbors were home. At least no one thinks I killed her. She died of a massive, sudden stroke. Natural causes, they say.
My father is happy. Dr. Roberts is happy. Aunt Bel does not seem happy and says she’s going to get me out of here, but I kind of wish she wouldn’t. It just makes it all worse. I’m here now and I’ll be here for a while. I lost several days to an episode I don’t remember. From what I’ve been told, and if the bruises on my arms and legs, across my cheekbone, are any indication, I went demonic when they tried to move me. Worst of all, I hurt Aunt Bel. Don’t remember it, of course, and they say it was an accident. I was resisting the EMTs. She thought she could subdue me and got my elbow in the eye for her efforts. She’s forgiven me. I haven’t.
I tuck my legs up and rest my chin on my knees. I feel better, tucked up like a turtle without a shell. My sweatpants are warm, and that’s a good thing, since the nurses play fast and loose with the air conditioner. I’ve been treated well here. No one bothers with me. I haven’t required any extra observation so far. There’s two things that make it unbearable: the complete management of every minute of our conscious time, and the loneliness. I want to go outside without a nurse two steps behind me. I want to draw in my sketchbook, but I’m not allowed to have a sharp pencil yet. I want to look out my window and
see my neighbors, cars, even that asshole dog who lives next door, but the only thing I see is the closed courtyard of Stanton House.
Then there’s the medication. The drugs Dr. Roberts has me on shut everything down. It’s like my emotions are smothered under a giant pot lid. I can’t access them. Not even enough to properly grieve my grandmother’s passing. I can think about her death, sort of, but it’s like this faraway thing, not really real.
As scary as it is, I want to feel. Honestly, that’s the thing I hate most about the stuff they keep giving me—the disconnect. Makes me worry that I’ll lose what little of myself remains. That I’ll never be anything more than a pincushion to be injected and corralled and managed. Like a cow. A zombie cow. Oh, that would be a terrifying sight.
But I do deserve this. I am where I belong. Not a burden or a danger to Aunt Bel, who is finally free of dependents. She can have a life of her own. Wean herself off those true crime shows. She needs to quit smoking.
The Crying Knitter—I should find out her name—gathers up her invisible blanket, sniffles, then scurries out without looking at me. Her chair rocks gently in her wake. Ah, I have the room to myself, finally. I gaze outside, where a lead-gray sky hangs dangerously low over the parched lawn. A blanket of humidity weighs everything down. Even the air conditioning can’t fully dispel it, which is saying something, because the air conditioning is downright arctic.
There’s a strange charge to the air. I recognize it—everyone in these parts does. The strange quiet that portends a bad storm. It’s been hanging over us for a few days now. Heaven knows, we need some rain. Everything is turning brown and dry. I sink into the cushions and let my thoughts unspool. The Library room has a camera, but from where I’m sitting, it only sees me from the back.
Only when I’m in a place not facing the cameras can I think about Dresden. And I do think of him, more often than I’d like. He was one of the few amazing things that actually happened in my life. Happened: not imagined or fantasized or conjured up. I don’t know why he left, but I believe he wouldn’t have, if he could have stayed. He’ll always be my friend. No matter what I said to him. No matter what he said to me.