Light Boxes

by Shane Jones

  But you, said Thaddeus, looking at the girl who smelled of honey and smoke. You poisoned me. You made me see spring. When my daughter was taken from her bed, it smelled of honey and smoke and the window was open.

  Like I can control what I do and how you are affected. I believe I was only doing it for the safety of my husband. Someone told me to do it, and I did it. I, too, have been mislabeled as a girl who smells of honey and smoke. I’m a Housewife. And as for the smell of the room, Housewife whispered, February is a cruel being, capable of such tricks.

  So it is still February, said Thaddeus. All this time February is still occurring.

  I’m afraid so, she said.

  None of this makes sense, thought Thaddeus.

  We feel the same way, said House Builder.

  How did you hear that.

  You said it out loud, said House Builder. The girl who smelled of honey and smoke nodded.

  There was a war planned by underground children, said Thaddeus. It’s against February. Or is it against you. I shouldn’t have called it off. Should I have called it off. I need to get back to town. And Thaddeus headed to the door.

  Please, said House Builder. I know you won’t understand this, because I believe it’s impossible to understand, but I’m not the cause of the town’s troubles. I’ve been pushed to the edge of town. Look back to the two holes in the sky. That’s where the problem is. Or the problem is willpower and what you think you can control. I, for example, got labeled February and my wife here as a girl who smells of honey and smoke. Such nonsense. How awful.

  When Thaddeus opened the door, it was snowing again and the trees were coated in ice. He ran back to the town as fast as he could, tripping and falling several times. He screamed in torment, his face pressed into the hard snow.

  The girl who smelled of honey and smoke woke up before February each morning. She’d crawl out of bed and walk through the darkness of the unfinished home and sit down at a wooden desk where she’d click on a small green lamp. She would read through the stacks of papers, the fragmented paragraphs, the half sentences and abandoned dialogue, and finish these lost riddles to her liking. A long time ago, she showed Bianca the sun. Yesterday she told Thaddeus to walk back to the house of a man wrongly accused of being February to ask more questions. She supplied the blacksmiths with the tools to build a ship. One by one she revived the children buried underground after February kidnapped them, and she was the one who dropped the scraps of parchment from the sky that Thaddeus and the War Effort collected. The girl who smelled of honey and smoke told the children nursery rhymes and supplied them with lanterns as her hands carved out the maze of tunnels. There, there, she said, hushing them to sleep under thick winter blankets, their bodies huddled against a curve in the tunnel. And deep inside their dreams, she fed them the images of a final War Plan against February. There, there, she whispered, tucking the squares of parchment under their pillowed heads.

  Thaddeus called a meeting with the War Effort.

  I apologize to everyone, he said. The past weeks I believed it was spring when in fact the attacks from February have never been worse. I believe we should go on a full-scale attack against February. He doesn’t live at the edge of town. That is House Builder and his wife, who is a worker of spells and who tricked me to protect her husband. What I do know is that the real February is the Creator who lives in the two holes in the sky. We should have known this. We will immediately construct a fleet of balloons and ascend into the air.

  There were about thirty people in Thaddeus’s home, and they immediately began to object. A few people shouted that flight is impossible. The Professor quieted them and spoke.

  But we already have a plan under way, he said, and handed Thaddeus the bundle of parchments gathered from the homes and shops left by the underground children.

  Fine, go ahead with it, he said. But I’m going in the opposite direction. I need to get into the holes in the sky.

  Should someone go with you, asked a war member.

  No, said Thaddeus. The children’s War Plan is a plan that will work, but I can’t leave without seeing what’s in the sky. I will attempt to fly tomorrow by myself. Everyone else can begin the children’s War Plan.

  That night everyone ate dinner together at the inn. They had steamed carrots, apple-glazed pork and boiled potatoes. They ate all the food in the town. They told stories of how New Town would be warmer. They drank and dreamed of blooming fields. A calendar was created, void of the season of February, and at the end of the night they brought it out and everyone cheered.

  They talked over the War Plan one last time and went to bed early. People questioned Thaddeus on how he was going to fly when flight was impossible. Thaddeus shrugged his shoulders, said he didn’t care, that he just had to try.

  I miss you both, said Thaddeus that night into his pillow.

  He thought about the man and the woman at the edge of town. His head was spinning.

  I love you both, he said into the pillow.

  And then he fell asleep.

  FEBRUARY WOKE ONE MORNING AT THE same time that the girl who smelled of honey and smoke was getting up from the bed. He decided to follow her. He crawled on his hands and knees across the floor and looked into the next room where the desk was. The girl who smelled of honey and smoke was sitting there writing something. She was folding sheets of paper and tying them with blue ribbon and reaching her arm through a hole in the floor. February stood up and walked to the desk. The girl heard him. She turned around.

  Go ahead, he said, you can write whatever you want, he said. I don’t care anymore.

  I will, she said. You took away a man’s wife and daughter for no reason. You’re cruel. I’m going to show them happiness, she said, wondering if he knew about the underground children, the notes she had given them.

  I’m sorry, said February. I’m sorry for everything.

  February turned and walked back to the bedroom. Just before he entered, a sharp pain ran from the bottom of his foot to his hip. He fell back on the ground and twisted his foot up near his chest. He saw three dead bees crushed into his heel.

  Later that same day the girl who smelled of honey and smoke sat at the desk and lit fires in the town. She had Bianca start at one house and work in a descending circle, burning it all down. She then collected the papers in a stack, tied it with ribbon, and placed it in a box she titled Light Box.

  Bianca began at the edge of town and worked in a descending circle, dipping and tilting her lantern into piles of brush that the War Effort had placed the day before the death of Caldor Clemens. On a parchment it looked like this:

  The last home she set fire to before escaping down one of the tunnels was her own. When she ran inside, her chest hurt from breathing so hard and her blue dress was covered with ash. She looked out the window and saw the plains burning and the blacksmith ship sailing away in the distance. She walked around the house, lighting the walls with a growing flame as the children and townsfolk yelled beneath her.

  Come on, Bianca, they said. Come now before you burn to death. Their fists pounded the soles of her feet.

  She slid a floorboard to the side and saw all their dirty little faces underneath.

  In you go now, said one of the smallest children from deep below.

  As she climbed down she thought she heard her father scream her name.

  Six Reports from the Priests

  1. We can see Bianca in the distance.

  2. She runs from brush pile to brush pile dipping her lantern and sparking flames that are spreading throughout the town.

  3. She’s wearing a blue dress and yellow socks, and drawings of kites on her hands and arms glow in the light of the fire. She is a streak of color with long black hair.

  4. There are seven of us here in the woods. We have no place to go without the direction of our Creator and with the fire reaching the first line of birch trees. We fear for our lives.

  5. The snow turns to pools of water around our toes. There’s a
loud creaking sound that echoes through the woods.

  6. The last thing we see is the blacksmith ship moving through the town. It divides shops in two. Splinters of flaming wood spin through the air.

  The Girl Who Smelled of Honey and Smoke

  I write in huge letters

  FLIGHT RETURNED

  TO TOWN and fold it into a little square and go back to bed with February.

  When I wake in the middle of the night, I have an idea. I make a drawing of a New Town on parchment, and that, too, I fold into a little square.

  In the morning I take the folded squares and place them under the pillow of Thaddeus Lowe. Thaddeus repeats out loud the sentence FLIGHT RETURNED TO TOWN and smiles.

  Thaddeus wore the light box on his head when he ascended in the balloon toward the holes in the sky. Beneath him the town was flames and dark smoke. It filled the sky around him. From a great distance, where the rest of the town was climbing up from the tunnels and into their new homes, they could see the balloon glowing with each pulse of flame and a box of light flickering in the darkness.

  What’s going to happen to him, said one of the children.

  Maybe he’s going to die, said another, throwing a large burlap sack of clothing onto the ground.

  He’s not going to die, said another child. He’s going to be with the Creator.

  Bianca was in her new home. She watched out the window the old town in the distance burn to the ground. She saw the balloon light and disappear, and she played the ancient game of Prediction. She saw a box of light sitting on the shoulders of her shouting father. The kites on her hands and arms burned. She wanted to throw the kites out from her fingers and into the sky and tie them to the balloon and pull her father back to earth. She saw the balloon ascend to the two holes in the sky. She saw the balloon stop.

  The top of the balloon was stuck. Thaddeus climbed out of the basket and up the side of the balloon. He had draped thick ropes there for this purpose. When he came to the edge of the hole in the sky, he pulled himself up and kicked against the balloon. He crawled on his stomach until he was completely inside a large room that looked just like House Builder’s home. It was dark except for a small lamp that sat on a desk. The room smelled like honey and smoke, and Thaddeus walked around a little before hearing footsteps and hiding behind the furniture. It was the girl who smelled of honey and smoke. She carried a steaming cup. She sat down at the desk and began to write. All around the desk were little squares of paper tied with blue ribbon.

  Hello, whispered Thaddeus, peeking over a piece of furniture.

  The girl who smelled of honey and smoke didn’t hear him.

  It’s me, he whispered a little louder.

  The girl who smelled of honey and smoke turned around.

  You, she said. Go away. What are you doing here. I’m trying to save you from February.

  I know what’s going on, said Thaddeus. I know that February lives here and he is a mean man who named House Builder and his wife February and the girl who smelled of honey and smoke.

  She looked at him. He’s not a mean man, she said. He’s just confused. He didn’t know what to do with your town. But I’m helping now. It’s over. February has given up. I’m giving you a New Town and a new life. You really should go.

  How big is our town, Thaddeus asked, looking back through the hole in the floor, the sky of the town.

  I have no idea, said the girl who smelled of honey and smoke. I mean it when I say you should go back. Everything is going to be fine now.

  Is February here.

  Yes, but he’s sleeping.

  Thaddeus said, I want to see February.

  No, you can’t. There’s no point in it.

  I want to see February, said Thaddeus.

  Fine, said the girl. But very quickly.

  The girl who smelled of honey and smoke led Thaddeus into a cold bedroom. A man was sleeping under the sheets. His hair was brown and curly. He looked sad.

  That’s him. That’s February.

  Yes, said the girl. Are you happy now.

  I hate him, said Thaddeus. I hate him for what he did.

  Thaddeus stood. His chest rose and fell. He felt the sharp tip of the knife in his pocket.

  The Girl Who Smells of Honey and Smoke Creates New Town

  After the smoke cleared from the skies, the sun came out big and glorious and the leaves on the trees looked like they were on fire. Crop fields and flower beds bloomed. Some of the children went blind from staring in disbelief at the sun. They had to walk around with cloth tied around their eyes. Bianca told everyone that the sun possessed this power, but even she stared at it and now saw black spots in the corners of the new sky.

  Scraps of Parchment Written by the Girl Who Smells of Honey and Smoke

  Everyone smiled in New Town.

  No one mentioned the old town ever again.

  The season of February existed only in the old town.

  Caldor Clemens unhanged himself from deep in the woods and came to New Town. He walked into a shop and asked, Did I miss anything, and everyone laughed.

  Selah, frozen in the river, was seen one morning crawling from the muddy shore. She remembered nothing.

  February at the edge of town and his wife came to New Town and explained how his name was House Builder and not February. He told the story of February the Creator and his war with not only the town but with a girl who smelled of honey and smoke.

  Only Thaddeus Lowe was missing.

  February

  I hear a man breathing. I hear the girl who smells of honey and smoke say,

  put down the knife.

  Thaddeus

  The girl who smelled of honey and smoke told me to hide. So I did. I watched from behind a curtain as February got up from his bed. He was a skinny man. He didn’t look scary. He said something to the girl who smelled of honey and smoke about hearing her talking to someone. A man. She denied it. He asked where the light box was, and she said that she thought he was finished with it.

  February said, No, I’m not. I don’t think I am after all.

  The girl who smelled of honey and smoke handed him a box. February uncovered it and took out a stack of parchment.

  New Town, he said. What is this.

  I heard a dog, no, a wolf, howling. Then I saw February run from the room with the stack of parchment. I heard heavy footsteps near the top of my head. Where was I.

  FEBRUARY UPSTAIRS SCRIBBLES THADDEUS Lowe drowns. Thaddeus Lowe is attacked by bears. Thaddeus Lowe has a heart attack. Thaddeus Lowe chokes to death on an apple. Thaddeus Lowe’s mouth fills with snow.

  Downstairs, the girl who smells of honey and smoke writes, Thaddeus Lowe becomes a famous balloonist. Thaddeus Lowe has three more children and becomes New Town mayor. Thaddeus Lowe lives to be a hundred years old. Thaddeus Lowe forgets the definition of sadness.

  She hears a bear growling in the closet where Thaddeus is. She hears Thaddeus say his heart hurts. She hears Thaddeus say he is having a wonderful life, but the closet is filling with water and he doesn’t know how to swim and his mouth is filling with snow and he’s choking.

  FEBRUARY FLIPS THROUGH THE STACK of parchment and finds a single sheet that says, THADDEUS WORE THE LIGHT BOX ON HIS HEAD WHEN HE ASCENDED IN THE BALLOON TOWARD THE TWO HOLES IN THE SKY.

  February didn’t remember writing that. He ran back downstairs and searched the room.

  Is he actually here, he asked the girl who smelled of honey and smoke. Is it actually possible that Thaddeus is here.

  The girl who smelled of honey and smoke said nothing. She stood with her hands behind her back, a pencil in one hand, parchment in the other. She had grown to resent him for what he had done to the town. She had loved him. She had hated him. February looked at the closet, the slight wavering of the fabric.

  Thaddeus trembled. He had his knife drawn. February reached his hand out and pulled the curtain to the side and felt a blade sink into his chest, stopping at the bone. Thaddeus pushed February acro
ss the room. The two spun in circles before falling to the floor. The town looked up and saw the sky shake. February hit Thaddeus on the side of the face with a closed fist. A tooth fell from the sky. The knife sank deeper, twisted to the left, then the right. The girl who smelled of honey and smoke screamed, STOP, STOP. She tried to separate them, pulling at flailing arms and legs. February bit Thaddeus’s ear and drew blood. Thaddeus took the knife out and drove it down, hard, at the shoulder. Then into his stomach, where he zigzagged a deep path. He kept stabbing February, sinking the blade in deeper and faster with each hit. Blood soaked February — a lake growing from his chest. His hands waved near Thaddeus’s face, pulling at his mouth and poking his eyes. February screamed, coughed up blood and a white flower petal, and then the resistance of his body loosened. When the town looked up, they saw bloodred vines twist through the sky. Giant flowers bloomed over clouds. The vines and flowers grew in layers until they reached the outstretched fingertips.

  Note Found in February’s Pocket by the Girl Who Smells of Honey and Smoke

  I wanted to write you a story about magic. I wanted rabbits appearing from hats. I wanted balloons lifting you into the sky. It turned out to be nothing but sadness, war, heartbreak. You never saw it, but there’s a garden inside me.

  Thaddeus moved from the body of February and leaped through the hole and back into the balloon. He heard the girl who smelled of honey and smoke crying. He looked at the blood that covered his hands and arms. He trembled. The balloon descended into the town of flowers, bumping, getting caught several times on the vine growth. When the balloon reached the ground everyone was cheering. It was a New Town. Thaddeus didn’t smile or cheer. He simply looked back up at the two holes in the sky and waited for something to happen.