Keeper of the Bees

by Meg Kassel

  I shake my head. This doesn’t fit. Something is out of sync, like Grandma Edie watching her television shows. I don’t like how Detective Berk is looking at me. My heart beats faster.

  My feet have no problem moving backward, away from her. Away from that house.

  A roll of thunder rumbles the heavy air.

  I act on instinct and nothing more. I turn and run.

  Detective Berk lets out a growl, much like an animal, but she doesn’t give chase. “You can’t hide, Essie. You’re the final piece. You and me. We’re the last Wickerton women. We’re going to end the curse, finally. Forever.”

  Oh boy, that sounds bad. And crazy. I run around to the other side of the garage. There’s nowhere else to go, really. Behind that lies acres and acres of corn. I don’t think I can outrun her. She’s bigger and stronger than I am, and I’m particularly out of shape after spending the past few weeks convalescing at that damn Stanton House. I flatten against the back of the garage and drop to a crouch. My hand closes around a wooden handle, long since separated from its tool. I pick it up. I need a weapon. This is better than nothing, even if the wood is rotten.

  Berk comes from the right, gun pointed at me. She looks like a demon straight out of hell—red skinned and smoldering all over, not just from the eyes. I’m so surprised I freeze.

  “You’re coming to the house, Essie,” she says in a silky voice. “We’re finishing this the way our great-great-grandmother Opal did—in flames.”

  That explains the gasoline smell. Cold sweat trickles down my back. I don’t want to die like this. “Actually,” I say, probably unwisely. “She hanged herself.”

  “It was fire. Everyone knows that.”

  “I’m telling you, Opal hanged herself from her clothesline.” I can’t believe this conversation is happening, but it offends me that she’s got such a well-known bit of our family history wrong. And if she’s planning to kill us based on it, it should be accurate. I know it’s weird to worry about something like that, at a time like this, but unlike her, I never claimed to be sane. “Grandma Edie said it was hanging and she would know. She was alive for it.”

  “We’ll break from tradition, then. Flames, for us. No one will pass these genes on.” She steps closer, closer. She’s right in front of me, and I can’t move a muscle I’m so scared. The barrel of the gun presses cold and hard against my forehead.

  “That hurts,” I say.

  Her voice, face soften. “I’ve always liked you, Essie. It’s a shame about this,” she says. “I wasn’t going to kill you. You weren’t going to have babies, were you? There was no way you could attract a guy, or even know what to do with one. You were going to rot in Stanton House with our elderly relatives. But you had to get a boyfriend—don’t deny it—I saw you two together in your bedroom. I knew then that there was a chance you’d pass it on.”

  “You saw me?” I ask, surprised. “You were spying through my window?”

  “I was. It was hard, deciding what to do with you,” she replies. “But I can still be merciful. Would you like me to kill you first, then burn you?”

  A crow on the roof above starts up a noisy cawing. The other two join in.

  Tears gather in my eyes, even though I feel very far removed from my emotions at the moment. There’s little I can do against a gun pressed to my forehead. I survived a tornado, a crazed doctor, to be murdered by my own cousin. My throat closes so tight I can barely speak. “Yes, please.”

  She nods. “I can do that. There doesn’t have to be unnecessary pain. I didn’t make the others suffer long. I killed them quickly and I’ll do the same to you.” She motions me toward the house, to walk in front of her. She lowers the gun.

  She thinks you’ve submitted.

  It’s a voice, rasping in my head. A familiar voice that I’m sure isn’t mine.

  She thinks you’re too weak to fight.

  I look around, searching for the owner of the voice—ah, I remember! It’s the man with the sewn-up eyes and mouth who visited me in Stanton House. “Stitches!” I call out. “Are you here?”

  No one’s answers. It’s just me and Berk and all those crows. I wonder if they’re sometimes people, like Dresden’s friend Michael.

  “Shut up, Essie. No one’s here.” Berk looks so smug, so sure of herself. So certain that I’ll go quietly and gratefully to my death. My hand tightens around the broom handle, which I’d nearly forgotten. With a sudden burst, I swing, slamming it into her face.

  Her hand flies up to her nose, as surprised as I am that I just did that. Blood pours from both nostrils.

  I break into a run. I may be able to get to the road. Someone driving by might stop for me.

  Bullets crack the air.

  Pop!

  Pause.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Pain sears my right leg. I go down hard, skidding in the mud, but more from surprise than anything else. Her shot grazed me, missing meat and bone and skimming my skin. I climb to my feet slowly.

  “That was bad of you, Essie.” Berk stands over me, a river of blood flowing down her face. None of the woman I recognize remains. She is a thing of my worst nightmares. Her skin smolders. Her features are transformed into the most horrid hallucination my mind has ever conjured.

  “You’ll suffer for that.” She grabs my arm and propels me toward the house.

  Her gun is at my ribs, now, and it twists painfully against me. I hiss in pain and walk as she pushes me. I’m still holding that broom handle and whack at her with it, but my efforts are feeble. She doesn’t even bother taking it away from me. She pulls me up the front steps. Blood pours down my leg and soaks my sock, leaving red footprints in the mud. She drags me inside and throws me on the floor. The stench of gas is so strong, it’s hard to breathe.

  My mouth tastes of bile. My ears ring, and I can’t stop shaking. This is hopeless. My fingernails scrape on the scarred hardwood floor.

  Berk kicks my hand, sending the broom handle—my only weapon—clattering to a corner. She crouches down, looks into my eyes. “The Wickerton line finally ends here, cousin. With us. Ready to die?”

  31

  Dresden

  the queen

  I see the house. Six crows circle it in agitation. Harbingers.

  Another favor owed to a harbinger. To Lish, no less.

  These birds are on the fringe—ones unable or unwilling to change to human form. They’re here to see what happens with me and Essie and the Strawman, who everyone fears. They, like Lish, are desperate for hope that they can escape their cursed existence. I can see it in the red of their eyes and their low-held heads. Not long ago, I would have scorned them. Now, I’m more hopeful than all of them.

  I smash through a windowpane in a tornado of bees—thousands and thousands of them. Essie is on the floor, bleeding, crying. She’s in considerably worse shape than last I saw her. Blood seeps from a wound in her right thigh.

  Detective Berk looms above her, gun in hand, flushed with the righteous purpose seen in faces of cult leaders and the psychotic. Dark, shattering energy pulses from her in hot, sharp waves. Although it’s unmistakable now, I have no idea why I didn’t sense this before. The Strawman may have been able to mask it. It may have been a dormant thing, only waking and raging when she was out of her police uniform.

  Berk’s head snaps up. Her mouth opens in surprise, fear, at the sight of a massive swarm of bees. Tears streak down Essie’s face. Her lips are moving, saying things I’m too frenzied to interpret. I bring my swarm straight to Berk. I cover her, covering every inch of her with bees. They know better than to touch Essie. Berk flails, swiping, jumping around like a madwoman. My intention is to sting her death, but the bees won’t do it, no matter how much of my will I try to impose on them. I have more influence in bee form, but to my immense frustration, I can get no more than a couple stings—not enough to kill or incapacitate her.

  Of course. We were not designed to do this. We were never meant to be killers, only infect with madness. I’m ask
ing the bees to do something they were not designed to do and have never done before. We’ve never killed on purpose. Not like this. I draw back and take human form.

  My hands are fists. My faces are changing so fast, I doubt I look like anything resembling human. I’m a ball of emotions, trembling with this primal need to protect this girl I’ve come to love.

  I should have told her.

  Berk kneels behind Essie and hooks one arm around Essie’s throat. Essie struggles, clawing at her cousin’s elbow while gasping for breath. Her gaze locks on mine. Her eyes dart to the open door, back to me. Go, she’s telling me with her eyes. I won’t. If it’s the last thing I do, I will get her out of here.

  I want to tear Berk’s head off her body and slow-roast it on a spit.

  “Oh look, Essie’s lover boy has arrived.” Berk presses the gun hard against Essie’s gut, and my own clenches. “Back up or I’ll make it painful for her,” she rasps.

  “You’re going to kill her anyway,” I say, circling to the right, her weaker side, since it’s opposite the gun. “Why don’t you shoot me instead.”

  “And waste my bullets?” she snarls at me. “He tells me beekeepers are impossible to kill. That you and your insects are cursed.” She watches me, pivots as I turn. “He says you are a creature to be pitied.”

  He? Ah, the Strawman must have told her many things. Things no mortal should ever know. How else would she know anything about me? And pitied? I’d find that humorous if I wasn’t quite so angry. “Think what you like of me,” I say in a growl, “but let Essie go.”

  “Get out of here or I waste her now.” Her voice pitches to a wail. She presses the barrel harder against Essie’s tender skin, twists. “This is a family matter.”

  I back up, chilled by the ice in her words. She will pull that trigger if I can’t distract her soon. “You’re not in your right mind,” I say to buy time. “You need help.”

  “I need to do this. Essie and I are the end. Do you hear me? After we’re gone, there will be no more children born to suffer. No more!”

  “And those other people you killed? Your other relatives who showed no signs of illness? Did they deserve to die, too?”

  “They carried the gene,” she replies.

  My chest tightens. “Genes have nothing to do with it.”

  “It’s hereditary! My mother was sane, but I wasn’t. Do you know how hard it was to hide it all these years? To ignore the voices, the obsessive thoughts? You have no idea.”

  I don’t think I could hate myself more. God, the suffering I’ve caused this family. I take another step forward.

  She shifts her aim to the gasoline canisters sitting in a corner. “We’ll both go painful, if you come closer.”

  “Please,” I say softly. “Essie is innocent.”

  “She’s a scourge. Just like me. Just like you, you abomination.”

  “You’re right about me, but she is nothing like you,” I say. “Nothing like either of us.”

  “I’m going to kill her.” Berk’s voice holds some real regret. She looks down at Essie, who has stopped struggling. Her eyes are closed, but I can still feel her energy. I can still save her. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I can tell you care for her.”

  “I more than care for her.” My face throbs, it’s shifting so quickly. I imagine it is nothing more than a grotesque twist of skin. Something half made of clay and melting in the sun.

  All the feelings I’ve shunned, all the everything built up over too many years of living too long, explodes within me.

  Love. Vengeance. Hatred. Injustice. Betrayal. Pain. So much pain. And love again. In the end, it all comes down to love.

  The queen bee moves inside me, pacing little circles next to my heart. If I could kill her, both of these women would be freed of my curse—just mine, though. Berk was infected by a far worse one—the touch of the Strawman. However, it may buy Essie some precious moments to escape. That’s all she needs. Just a chance to get out of this house and run.

  Reach deep inside yourself. The answer is there.

  That’s what the Strawman told me.

  And suddenly, the answer is there. So clear, I don’t know how I missed it. So obvious, I throw my head back and laugh. It was there all along, waiting for me to be desperate enough to see it and do the deed.

  The queen sits behind my ribs.

  Right there.

  I unhinge my lower jaw. Bees fly in confused disarray. I don’t think about it—I bend over and plunge my hand down my own throat. My hand scrapes over honeycomb, sticky honey. I feel the flesh of my throat tearing, ripping with every inch my hand advances. The thought flits into my mind that this should hurt more than it does.

  I’m glad Essie can’t see this. Berk is staring at me in horror.

  The queen is down there, right there. My mouth is bent at an unnatural angle. I’m not even sure how I’m managing this, physically.

  It occurs to me then, in a shocked surprise, that if I succeed at this, these are the last thoughts I’ll ever have. I’ll be done. Dead. I should be happy about that. I shouldn’t be mourning the time I won’t have with Essie, but I’m allowed a selfish thought just now.

  Lights dance at the corners of my eyes as I shove my arm in deeper. It’s starting to hurt badly now. My fingers grope through bees and honey, which drips from my nose. It’s taking so much concentration to keep doing this. Self-preservation is kicking in, and I’m fighting the instinct to pull my hand out. Only thinking about Essie keeps me continuing on, tearing myself apart. Only her.

  Finally, I feel the queen. Of the few bees that remain, she’s the largest, and as always, I know just where she is. My fingers close around the tiny body—the queen who has been my partner in this hell for so many centuries. She struggles in my grasp, stinging me over and over, but I keep my grasp on her. Only now do I pull my hand out. Stuff comes with it, parts of me, but I don’t look. My vision swirls with colors. Flashes of light explode behind my eyes.

  I have very little time. My strength, the power I’d soaked in since the tornado deserts me. Dizziness overwhelms. There’s no breathing—everything inside me between my mouth and my heart is shredded. I drop to my knees, bee clamped between my fingers.

  I squeeze.

  She pops like a grape, her tiny exoskeleton crunching like an ordinary bug, not the immortal creature she is. Was.

  I open my eyes. Dead bees—the sum total of my swarm—fall like rain, dropping by the thousands to the floor.

  Essie is starting to recover. I can hear her coughing, pulling in breath. I hope she didn’t witness this.

  Berk’s lips slide over her teeth. Her sleeve rides up above her elbow, and I see a dark mark on her forearm. It’s the shape of a handprint burned into her skin. The touch of a darkness nothing can undo.

  “Bad move,” Berk whispers, lifting the gun to the gasoline cans again. Her hand is shaking as she shoots, thankfully missing the can, but hitting a pool of gas soaking into the floorboards. It ignites into flame.

  No! She’s going to burn down the house. I am barely conscious—dying. How am I going to get Essie out of here?

  Time slows to a crawl. Dust suspends in the air. Flames cease their undulation. All movement, including my own, stagnates to one-thousandth of its normal speed, and a tall, thin man appears out of nowhere to stand next to Essie and Berk. He wears a wide-brimmed hat and looks at me through leathery, sewn-shut eyes. It is the Strawman, come to, what—delay my death? Draw it out? To punish me? Life drains from me in a slow leak.

  Then, to my surprise, Essie pushes herself upright. One hand presses to the wound on her leg. She’s not frozen. The Strawman exempted her from his power, for reasons beyond me.

  Stitches stretch as those ancient lips curve into a tight smile. You have righted your wrong, beekeeper. He still speaks directly into my mind. You are free.

  Free, but helpless to do anything, I watch as he turns to the girl I’m desperate to save. She gazes up at him, wide-eyed. She says something to the
Strawman, but I can’t make it out. My dying mind is done with thinking—done with everything. One by one, my senses gray out. My eyes slide shut, but not before I see him bend toward her, reach out a hand…

  32

  Essie

  take my hand

  Everything is still. Everything is silent, except for me and him.

  “It’s you.” I blink up at the figure bending over me. “Hello Stitches.”

  Hello Essie.

  The way he says my name in my mind sounds almost kind, but Dresden has assured me this creature is not. “Did you do this to my cousin?” I ask him. “Is she a monster because of you?”

  I breathed life into what was already there.

  His gaze moves dispassionately to Berk. He runs his fingers lightly, almost lovingly, under her chin. Over her eyelids, closing them. The moment her eyes close, her body slumps, slides to the floor in a heap. Her face is peaceful. A quiet smile curves her mouth.

  I gasp in horror. “You just killed her!”

  There’s a weary, defeated look to Stitches.

  I took her life weeks ago. Her body was soulless. Finished.

  My mind is a strange place. My thoughts are a jumble of string, slowly untangling. One by one, strands slide free.

  Free.

  I look to him, my Dresden. He just did something impossible and stuck his whole hand down his own throat. Yes, I saw it, but I’m uncertain whether it was real. It doesn’t seem possible to do something like that. He’s on the floor now, way too still. His eyes are closed. His lips are parted, as if he was about to call out, tell me to run. But I can’t. I won’t.

  Dresden is dying.

  “He is not. Beekeepers can’t die.”

  Stitches heaves a great sigh. He shifts his weight, making that crackling, snapping sound.

  He found a way. For you.

  Stitches mentioned something about this. He made me promise not to stop Dresden from helping me, but this was not what I thought he meant. And I’m not sure it worked, anyway. I don’t feel any different. I crawl to Dresden, ignoring the burning wound on my leg. It’s not far, only a handful of feet. My hand finds his cheek. It’s ashen. Blood shines on his lower lip. I gently wipe it off. “Don’t let him die.” I send the plea over my shoulder. “Fix him!”