by David Towsey
‘Best put the veils on,’ he said, pumping the bellows. A lattice of white cotton covered the landscape, as if he were half asleep. The hives slipped into view. At first glance they resembled stripped tree trunks, cut and laid on their side, ready to be hauled away. He squeezed her hand. ‘Don’t be afraid, the smoke will make them sleepy.’
He unclipped the lid of the first hive and blew more smoke into the air. Rachel peered over his shoulder. The hive boiled, like the under-mutton stew; shapes floating into sight and then drifting back into the roiling mass. He glanced at his wife.
‘Now,’ he said softly, ‘I know you want to, but don’t touch anything yet.’ Her breath flew past him, dancing on his veil. ‘It’s too early for honey, we’re just checking on the lady of the house.’
The queen was on the central frame. She was longer than the others and had no stripes. But it was the blue dot of paint with which he’d crowned her that gave her away.
‘Well, that’s a shame,’ he said.
‘What’s a shame?’
Nathaniel pointed to an area of the comb that wasn’t yellow like the rest, but a milky white.
‘That’s the succession. She’s been with me for a good many years now.’
‘What will happen to her?’ Rachel sounded genuinely concerned; she had such a love for all living things. He knew she hadn’t killed that huntsman.
‘Either they will let her die naturally, or smother her.’
‘That’s terrible.’
‘I’m not sure which would be the greater mercy. If it were me, I’d rather not see my replacement.’
He returned the frame and checked the hive wasn’t damaged in any way. With winter slowly taking its leave there was little to do except make sure the workers were alive and safe. Over the next few weeks, as spring took hold, there would be an explosion of breeding and gathering and a new queen to dot. It was a good time for Rachel to see the colonies, while they were small and quiet.
‘How about the others?’ she said.
‘Let’s take a look. Those queens are younger, so should be all right.’
The other two inhabited hives were fine, healthy-looking colonies. The final hive was empty.
‘I may move a colony there this spring, haven’t decided yet.’
‘They feel so different from one another, like different people. It’s odd.’
He turned to her. In the smoke, amongst the workers, and behind the veil, her hair looked darker. He had to blink away the image of Lydia, standing there, smiling at him. Breathing suddenly felt painful.
‘We— We should be heading back.’
She took his arm.
‘I know this wasn’t easy, because of her. Thank you.’
Nodding, he led them back to the house.
*
The bed sheets were cold against his back. He wriggled, enjoying the feel of clean cotton. The candle had burnt itself out. Moonlight sketched the room in chalk on a black canvas of bed, floor and bodies. A window was open; he could see his breath as he sighed. Rachel was still awake. He felt her breathing through the grass mattress, but not slow and deep.
When they got back he’d washed his hands in a bucket outside, pressing a day’s worth of dirt from the wrinkles. He’d looked at himself then, in the muddy water that blurred his face. The water had been warmed by the fire, by her.
He shifted onto his side. Her back was bare and silver-streaked; it rose to his hand and Nathaniel winced. Soft. How could he deserve that kind of soft? There was nothing he did, in any part of his day, which could justify his touch on her back. But he ran his hand down from her shoulder. She’d said, their first time together, that he could play with her back all night.
Rachel turned her head and he kissed her. Her hair tickled his dry tongue. She pressed, kisses snatched and pushed. He tried to match them, but kissed her neck instead. She murmured.
She would want to face him now. Let him take control as she lay back and watched the whole act play out. A cuddle. A kiss. And goodnight. Strip the food, cook, and eat. She would do it all thinking of him.
He wouldn’t be thinking of her.
Wood smoke wrenched at his nose. He wanted to see Lydia’s hair spilling down onto the sheets in black ringlets. He wanted something to change. She started to twist, but he dropped his hand between her thighs. Her breathing became heavy.
He imagined Lydia’s face on the pillow. Her body felt wrong.
He pulled at her and closed his eyes.
He grabbed her thigh, her stomach, her breast. She slapped against him. She was bigger, fatter, a different woman. She moved, and he followed.
The calm of the past five years shattered to the pounding of blood in his ears.
For once he was eager. Her sweat stung his tongue. That was how she tasted.
They tensed and Nathaniel fell on her back; ragged breaths against her skin.
He could feel Rachel’s surprise. His hands shook as he pushed himself out of the bed. The moon glared large in the window and he had to cover his eyes.
‘Why didn’t you burn her?’ Her voice was quiet and even.
Cotton lined his mouth.
‘Because I love her.’
‘Would you burn me?’
‘No.’
1 : 9
Luke Morris wasn’t in church. This weighed heavily on him for a number of reasons. Foremost, he was the Pastor’s acolyte. As such, there were duties he usually performed on the Sabbath. He lit candles. Greeted the men and women and their families and closed the doors after them. Handed out prayer books. But without Luke the Pastor would have to do these menial jobs. Or worse, his wife.
This was the first Sabbath service Luke had missed in all his years. Even when he had itching-fever as a child he insisted he attend. He had slowly worn his mother down until she had no choice. He sat at the back with two pews between him and anyone else. It was one of the best services he could remember.
Now, instead of sitting on a pew, he was hunkered down on hard rock. He hugged his knees under his chin. To lean against something, to sprawl like an ignorant farmer, would be an unacceptable luxury. The black wool of his cassock scratched his chin. He hadn’t shaved for some days. A beard wasn’t appropriate for a single man, but he was sprouting bristles harsh enough to brush a floor.
He worked some saliva back into his mouth. It was a clear spring morning, not hot but dry. The Col River was fifty or so paces in front of him. It looked silky today, barely making a sound as it flowed by. He could feel the water in the air. It stroked his cheek and pressed on his forehead like a soothing cloth. When he breathed through his nose he could taste the cool water. But he didn’t open his mouth. He’d taken a handful of water at dawn and sucked it down greedily. That greed, that base desire, earned him a thirsty day.
Luke was in exile for Lent. He had wandered out of Barkley with no direction. There was no destination. He left town for wilderness, buildings for bluffs, and sin for purity.
Would the Good Lord be upset with him for missing the service? He was holding a service of his own, in a way. His self-denial was an act of prayer. He didn’t have a roof over him, or pews, or a congregation. But wasn’t this spot, a shady bend in the Col River, just as good a place to worship as the church in Barkley? The Good Lord was everywhere. It made sense for His flock to be everywhere too. He imagined giving a sermon to the river, gesturing to the bluff behind him, to the little holes that riddled the rocky face. Casting his gaze wide over a congregation that covered the Redlands and stretched all the way to the horizon.
He shook away the fantasy. He took the Good Book from his pocket, determined to focus his mind on something holy. He read until his tongue felt like a leather belt and his ankles ached. Then he read some more.
*
The next day Luke woke to the sound of angels. Their trumpets were high-pitched and glorious. Their radiance warmed his face. He opened his eyes. His face was pressed against the rock. Fine gritty sand grated his skin. It wore away these rocks
and it would do the same to him. There were no angels.
Luke sat up. There was a man on the bluff. He was fat, but somehow managed to move nimbly from ledge to ledge. He was whistling. Luke would need a suitable penance for his foolish and probably blasphemous half-dream. He looked around for his glasses. Before sleeping, he put them a few paces away so he wouldn’t roll on them. They were scratched and old – old long before his mother insisted he needed glasses. He put them on and the fat man suddenly had edges. Almost at the top now, the man visited each of the little holes he could get to. He would need wings to reach the rest. Then he climbed back down, all the while whistling. Luke recognised it as a hymn. Probably the hymn the congregation sang yesterday. He wished he had been there. He envied this fat man. That was a deadly sin. But it wasn’t Luke’s fault. He was supposed to be alone in the wilderness. Not visited by whistling ignorants with no understanding of holy matters. Luke winced when the man came towards him. It was Caleb Williams.
‘I’m sorry, acolyte. Didn’t mean to wake you,’ Caleb said. The man seemed to wriggle in his fat folds. ‘I just like to whistle when I’m checking the traps. Otherwise I have to listen to ’em whimper.’ He held up his hand. A brace of under-mutton hung limply from their ears. Luke’s stomach growled. Was this farmer trying to tempt him? The devil chose a strange garb, but then Lucifer was guile incarnate. He would not appear to Luke in his hornèd finery, stepping brimstone and spouting evil. Caleb was sweating.
Luke tried to clear his throat. ‘I should have been awake at dawn,’ he said, eventually.
‘You look like you needed the rest. In a bed.’
‘The Pastor knows why I am here.’
‘I’m sure he does. Can I offer you meat?’ Caleb held up the under-mutton again. Luke gave a dry retch, his hand to his mouth just in case. He shook his head. Caleb paled, but said nothing as he headed off towards town. His cart must have been near by. Luke couldn’t imagine the man walking far.
Glancing at the sky, Luke noticed it was almost midday. His slovenliness was added to the tally. He went to the river to get away from the smell of dead under-mutton as much as for some water. He allowed himself half a handful.
*
Luke spent the afternoon wandering along the river bank. He took off his sandals. The damp mud cooled the bottoms of his feet. After a while he looked back and saw his footprints. They made him smile; they were his journey. Not just away from the bluffs where Caleb Williams checked his traps, but from his role as an acolyte. Soon he would be a Pastor in his own right.
He needed to find another suitable spot to continue his period of Lent. Shelter was important. He would risk sun-madness without the shade and too much wind distracted him from his reading. Sprinkling some oats into his hand, he chewed a pinch-full at a time. His stomach tightened around the flakes of food. The persistent ache of hunger was becoming less and less important to him. This week of fasting was perhaps the most exciting time in his life. Maybe even more exciting than the day he became an acolyte, or when they burnt Jared Peekman. He was growing, spiritually. He could feel it. He smiled as he chewed his oats.
But he had to be careful of self-worth. Pride. He put his sandals back on. The blisters on his feet were worthy of this moment. His body wanted to go barefoot. His soul demanded sandals.
He eventually found another set of small bluffs. This time both sides of the wide river had rocky formations the height of Main Street. He would miss the view from his old spot, but for tonight it would suffice. He sat down and watched his shadow lengthen.
1 : 10
If the offering is a burnt offering from the flock,
from either the sheep or the goats,
he is to offer a male without defect.
Leviticus
BOOK 2
2 : 1
Someone just pushed Lois Wellins. Mary had wanted to do that before – Lois was an annoying little brat. She would cry to get attention and then blame you for it. She’d attached herself to Eunice recently, like a bloodsucker. A big, green-eyed bloodsucker.
She heard Mrs Gray yell something and all the children stood still. She felt inside her bag, rubbing her thumb along Stripe’s sack-weave. Michael was being told off. He probably didn’t do it.
The other boys and girls gradually started moving again; chase and the silly games they played. Noise bubbled louder and louder, like a cooking pot. Mary went to a corner, where it was quiet.
She knelt down, her back to the patch. There were no houses around the school. She looked out onto an open area, trying to find something to draw. There was the grass, a couple of rocky bits, and a thin tree. It wasn’t much of a choice. With her finger, she started at the bottom of the trunk. She made it tall and mighty. Straight up into a big cloud of leaves. Next, she imagined a red-wink underneath. It was difficult to draw something small in the sand with her finger, so the red-wink was the size of the tree. She giggled. The red-wink could trample the tree. It would eat everyone.
‘Mary McDermott!’
Mary looked round; Mrs Gray was blocking out the sun.
‘You scrub that out this instant,’ Mrs Gray hissed. So far none of the other children had noticed what Mary was doing. She stood up and kicked at the sand.
‘You’ll stand by me, right here, until we go inside.’
Without a word, she did as she was told.
*
The schoolroom smelt like old skin. It was the smell of many fidgeting hours, over many fidgeting generations. The taste of a child’s desire to be outside.
Mary stood at the front of the class. The other children, all in their seats, looked at her with wide eyes.
‘Mary has done something very naughty. Later, we will talk about why it was naughty,’ Mrs Gray said. She was holding the switch. Mary held out her hands, knuckles facing up.
The air whistled and her hand stung. She winced. It didn’t hurt that much, but doing nothing was a bad idea – Mrs Gray took that as a challenge. Another thwack. Her fingers caught fire; red knuckles. That one did hurt. Mrs Gray had hit the same spot twice. The last one luckily missed the marks, but the tips of her fingers now throbbed.
Mary went back to her seat. She sat in the fourth row of chairs and on the left-hand side. Everyone was ordered by their age: youngest at the front, eldest at the back. Girls on the left, boys on the right. Like the pews in church, the chairs were hard wood with straight backs. There was no comfortable way to sit on them. Mary was tired and it was difficult to sit up straight.
That morning she had woken up with stones jabbing in her back. Beside her, the Col River lapped at its bank like a wrinkled blanket. The sun had been rising but wasn’t full enough to chase away the shivers. Picking up Stripe she returned to her home, to her mother.
She hadn’t found her father.
Now, she watched the dark crowns of the children in the rows in front. There was little else to look at. Blank walls in a blank room full of blank faces. The ceiling was low; she had spent many mornings staring at the flowing wood grain.
These days, Mary was one of the lucky ones: she sat by a window. Wagons passed, but each one was the same as the last. The men driving wore the same black trousers and white shirts. With the playing patch between Mary and the road, she couldn’t see their faces.
Mrs Gray’s voice droned on at the front of the class. Was everyone else listening? Or were they falling asleep too? The teacher was reading from the Good Book. The only book. Those same pages flooded Barkley; a copy in every house and in every hand. All other writing was forbidden. In school, they were taught how to read from that one book and nothing else. Mary wanted more; she had a thirst as deep as a well.
The two older girls in the school had once told her that far away, where non-Leyists lived, words were written on people. They’d whispered, in the corner of the playing patch. Mary had pretended to be impressed, but knew they were lying. She didn’t think Eunice and Siaha knew anything of the world outside Barkley. They only cared about losing their braids.
‘“—yoked together with unbelievers—”’
The words came lifelessly from the page, out of Mrs Gray, and into the musty air of the room. She was reading it all wrong.
‘“—what communion hath light with—”’
Mary didn’t listen. She didn’t have to. If pushed, and it would take some pushing, she could recite almost all of Corinthians. Her father used to give the epistle power and understanding. Without him, it shrivelled and died. Weak like that, she found holes and questions. Not answers.
She’d brought the questions to Mrs Gray. Cupping them in her hands, like precious water, only to have the teacher spill them onto the sand. Mrs Gray answered Mary with the verses she already knew. In the following weeks she had got as far as the steps below the Pastor’s door, before his fiery head passed a window and she ran.
Mrs Gray closed the Good Book. It never closed quietly; as if it was angry.
‘And now, children, we turn to the spoken teachings of J. S. Barkley, founder and father,’ Mrs Gray said. Spoken, not written.
‘Amen,’ the children said. Three repetitions, followed by Mrs Gray’s own lesson for the morning, and the day would be half over. It was only Tuesday.
‘“Live a plain life: family, worship, and the soil – repentance for our ancestors.”’
The children echoed the teaching. Their piping voices sounded foolish to Mary, they twisted and broke the words.
‘“The Second Fall was born of the written word. Only the Good Book is to be written and read.”’
The children echoed the teaching. All, except Mary.
‘“Jesus Christ rose from the dead. He was the Good Lord’s first example, and we follow it by burning the body.”’
The children echoed the teaching.
One of the small boys in the front row raised his hand.