Keeper of the Bees Read online

  Detective Berk and Agent Gray are in our kitchen because a young man was murdered last night, and some remains of another woman floated to the surface of Pember’s Lake the day before that.

  The young man was a soon-to-be freshman from Florida, visiting family in Concordia while taking summer classes. He’d been planning to study horticulture, although why Detective Berk felt that detail was important is unclear. His name had been mentioned, but blood had been roaring in my ears so loudly, all I got about him was Florida and horticulture. The guy had been strangled, then moved to a bathtub. This hadn’t taken place in his dorm, but a vacant house for sale on the other side of town. A real estate agent and their prospective buyers noticed a smell when they’d entered the house, apparently, and made the discovery in the upstairs bathroom. He had been there for several days.

  The woman’s story was even worse. After her head and torso floated to the surface, divers found her feet tied to cast-iron cookware, like my great-grandmother had been found. Although the medical examiner hadn’t finished his full exam, she suspected the woman was strangled, too.

  Killers seem to favor strangulation, according to the murder shows my aunt likes to watch.

  “What does this have to do with Essie?” Aunt Bel must be weary of asking this question. And never getting a solid answer in reply. “I mean, you can’t think Essie overpowered this man, then hauled him upstairs into a bathtub. Or-or tied frying pans to that woman and—” She cuts off, the back of a hand pressed to her lips.

  “She clearly couldn’t have,” Detective Berk said, drumming her blunt fingers on the table. “Also, there was a perfectly fine bathtub on the first floor. The problem is, some details in Ray Archer’s murder”—that was his name—“exactly match those of the late James Roane’s suicide, as I’m sure you are aware. His wrists had been cut, although that was not the cause of death. And then there’s the, ah…carving of a Bible passage onto his torso.”

  I groan. “Was it Revelation 21.5: Behold, I make all things new?”

  “Why, yes.” Agent Gray perks up. “How do you know this?”

  I never met my Uncle James. He died before I was born, at the age of seventeen. My age. Detective Berk doesn’t show us the picture of the new victim, thankfully, but I know how the carved words would look. It’s a short sentence, but actually a lot to cut into oneself.

  Uncle James was committed to his task, no question. He even did it upside down, starting with “Behold…” below his belly button and working up his chest, so he’d get it right. “Grandma Edie describes it in detail during every Christmas dinner,” I explain. “He was her son.”

  Aunt Bel clears her throat and glances back to the hall to make sure her mother isn’t within earshot. “James was her youngest and my brother,” she said in hushed, clipped tones. “This is very unpleasant to relive. I can’t believe someone would recreate these horrific events.”

  “And you know, the female victim, who has yet to be identified, died in identical fashion to one…” Detective Berk glances at her notes, “Jessica Webster-Wickerton, a great-grandmother of yours. Ours.”

  “We now have three murders staged to imitate suicides of past members of your family.” Agent Gray folds his hands on the table. He leans forward as Detective Berk leans back. “With a little investigating, it has been determined that all three victims have genetic links to the Wickerton family.”

  “What?” Aunt Bel asks sharply.

  “Miss Leeds was a Wickerton?” I look between Detective Berk, who I know, and Agent Gray, who I don’t, and wonder where they’re going with this conversation.

  Agent Gray nods. “Mr. Archer is your second cousin, once removed. Miss Leeds is your third cousin. We thought it odd that the connection hadn’t surfaced sooner”—he glances pointedly at Detective Berk, who shrugs—“until we discovered that those in your family who don’t suffer from the Wickerton disorder are quite determined to disassociate themselves from the rest of the family.”

  There’s a cigarette clenched between Aunt Bel’s index and middle fingers. She taps ash into a glass sugar bowl whose life as an ashtray began about fifteen minutes ago.

  “Oh yes. It’s quite a stigma, being a Wickerton,” she growls. “So whoever killed these people has an obsession with the condition that afflicts some of us and is targeting living relatives.” Aunt Bel has seen a lot of true-crime TV programs.

  “It’s a strong possibility.” Detective Berk’s gaze is heavy as it moves between me to Aunt Bel. “Which is why I’ve been taken off the case. I am a Wickerton, as you know.”

  Aunt Bel gives Agent Gray a distasteful look. She is not trusting of outsiders. “And now the FBI is taking over?”

  “Yes,” Detective Berk replies. “Agent Gray is taking over the investigation, but I agreed to stay close to the case, to help. And to make you feel more comfortable, Essie.”

  I don’t feel comfortable. Not at all. My gaze falls to the black, burned handprint on Detective Berk. It’s now encompassing her entire forearm, spreading like a rash. “Why isn’t that healing?” I ask her, momentarily forgetting to stay on task.

  Her brows twitch into a frown, but she dips her arms beneath the tabletop. “There’s nothing on my arms, Essie.”

  “Okay, so what do we do?” Aunt Bel cuts in, ignoring my question to Detective Berk. “Do we go into hiding? Move into the witness protection program?”

  “Nothing like that, Ms. Roane.” Agent Gray’s smile is mild and condescending. “The FBI is in on this because the male victim was a juvenile. As well as the likelihood of these murders being linked. We’ll be investigating, the police will be closely watching all known Wickerton family members, but at this time, there’s no reason to believe the killer is targeting you. Remember, all the victims have been those unaffected by the disorder.”

  “What about me?” Aunt Bel asks. “I’m not affected. Am I a target?”

  Agent Gray gives her a level look. “You do not fit the current profile. The victims have been young adults. Teens, early twenties.”

  “Is Detective Berk considered a target?”

  He nods. “Possibly. It’s why her help is so welcome.”

  “A goddamn serial killer is running loose in Concordia,” Aunt Bel mutters, but if we weren’t in the middle of it, she would be eating this up.

  My aunt is a head nurse at the trauma unit, caretaker to Grandma Edie and me, yet she watches murder investigation shows in her free time. Sometimes I think she submerges herself in death and pain and sickness so she doesn’t glimpse all she’s missing in life. If that’s the case, it’s the saddest thing ever.

  “We don’t care for the words ‘serial killer,’” says Agent Gray. “It incites panic.”

  “As it should,” is my aunt’s tart reply. The air is thick with smoke. She forgot to open the window, and the agent from St. Louis is starting to look a little green from breathing it. “So I assume you FBI agents are going to question us all over again?”

  “Yes, and explore more of your family history, anyone who has access to these details or has shown more than average interest in it.”

  Aunt Bel throws up wild hands. “Everyone has access to it. It’s all well-documented in the town library. There was a book written about it that you can find easily enough. Plus, there was that horrible news segment that ran a few years back.”

  “I know,” he says. “We have the footage. And a copy of the book.”

  “Did you actually read it?” I ask with a totally inappropriate snicker that everyone ignores. But really, The Wickerton Curse is a terrible book. Like, truly, truly awful. Much of it is wild speculation written to sound like facts. The thought of this Agent Gray spending nights in his motel room reading it makes me pull up the neck of my T-shirt over my mouth and giggle behind it.

  “Look, we’re going to keep many details quiet.” He ignores me. Everyone is doing that these days. “But there’s going to be renewed interest in your family. In Essie.”

  Aunt Bel casts a worri
ed glance my way. “We’re not equipped for this sort of thing. You know how things are.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I put in, but again, no one’s listening. My voice comes out wispy, faraway sounding.

  A pang of despair twists behind my ribs. I’m starting to slip. I can feel it. My father’s visit, and oh, these poor people being killed. No matter how hard I fight, no matter how many pills I take, I can’t turn back an avalanche. Eventually, I’ll get buried. It’s just, no matter where I turn, there’s pain, anxiety. Worrying that Bradley Roane will get me committed to Stanton House. Worrying about the disastrous “event” that’s going to happen in Concordia, the one that drew Dresden here, and oh, Dresden. I miss talking to him. I wonder what he’s doing right now.

  Also, there’s the worry that the murderer will come for me or my aunt next, although that’s actually not at the top of my worries. It should be, I guess. I’ll add that to the list of things wrong with me.

  “Essie, has anyone recently approached you? Shown undue interest in your family or you?” Agent Gray asks, but he isn’t looking at me when he asks. He isn’t talking to me at all, but rather the space around me. He doesn’t see me as a person. To him, I’m an object, like an inkjet printer, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.

  “No,” I answer. “Just you and Dr. Roberts. But he’s always asking weird questions.”

  He jots something in a notepad. Checks his phone. “How did you lose the hat which came to be in Miss Leeds’s hands?”

  “These questions have been addressed already,” Aunt Bel cuts in, her tone sharp with warning.

  “Yes,” Agent Gray says. “And will likely be addressed again.”

  “It fell off in the woods,” I reply. “I wasn’t aware of it. I didn’t—”

  “Thank you, Essie.” Agent Gray looks up with another smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m looking forward to talking with you further,” Agent Gray says. “I have a background in psychology, you know.”

  Ugh, another one. Aunt Bel’s eyes narrow to slits. “Well. Isn’t that fancy.”

  Their voices begin to fade. Aunt Bel’s cigarette smoke becomes a fog that envelops the room and sets me adrift in a sea of fragmented thoughts. The space between me and the people around me stretches, lengthens, until they’re reduced to a vague idea I don’t find interesting. I’m sliding away from the noise, the questions, the fear. I could fight it. I could push back like I usually do and force myself to stay present, but it’s easier to retreat into the soft edges and discordant noise of oblivion. For once, the manifestations of my damaged mind are not as disturbing as reality.

  20

  Dresden

  the truth in rumors

  The harbingers of death are living well off the misery of Concordia.

  People die here, like everywhere, but the murder rate is currently higher than it’s been in years. Henrik and I are to blame for that, although mostly me, with my bees’ excessive stinging, and now the town is really starting to hum with fear. It’s crept past the town center and into the sleepy residential streets. It emanates off residents like static, and helps charge up my depleted, corrupted cells. It soaks into my blighted self like water to a dried-up sponge.

  It feels good. I’m less tired, and my bees are content rumbling around in my chest, rather than pinging against my teeth at the whiff of an unbalanced person.

  It’s a small bit of peace in a sea of turmoil. And I will need the energy when I leave Concordia and find this person who used to be a harbinger. They could be anywhere, and compared to harbingers, beekeepers have a short battery life, to use a modern metaphor. As in, we don’t thrive straying from our strict pattern of following harbingers to new places of imminent disaster, squatting there, then following them when they leave. We lack the homing skills they possess.

  I suppose we could go anywhere, sting away, and create our own chaos, but since no one does this that I know of, it’s safe to assume we’ve all become dependent on the fear energy generated by a big chaotic event. Perhaps it’s laziness on our part, but the charge is so powerful, we can’t stay away. It’s a foul thing to live on, people’s fear. It’s utterly disgusting to feel good from it.

  I don’t react as Michael sits on the chair next to me. We’re on someone’s front porch, diagonally across the street from Essie’s house. The occupants are not home, and judging by the condition of their yard, haven’t been for quite some time. They were thoughtful enough to leave some folding chairs on their covered porch, which come in handy for observing Essie’s house under the cover of darkness.

  Michael sits gingerly, as the hole in his gut isn’t done healing. This is our first meeting since I smeared honey in his wound. I have conflicted feelings about that, now that I have some distance from it. I’m relieved that I won’t be expected to cough up some honey every time one of those harbingers get a scratch, but I’m also surprised that I did it at all.

  A few short months ago, saving him wouldn’t have occurred to me. I meant what I said to Adele—I have as much business interfering with the cycles of his curse as he has meddling in mine. I also feel a weird, uncomfortable pride. For once, my bees and I did something constructive, rather than destructive. My curse brought relief, rather than pain and death. It throws the definitions I have of myself into question.

  “Hey, what’s up?” he asks.

  It’s a nice night, as nights go. No wind. Quiet. Aside from a few glowing TVs in the windows, most of the neighborhood is asleep at midnight.

  I can just make out the peak of her roof, the back end of her aunt’s car. Her aunt, who apparently had to take a leave of absence from her job to stay close to Essie and her grandmother because the home aides who used to come have quit.

  “Nothing.” We speak in hushed tones, so as not to be overheard.

  “Ah, in a mood, are we?”

  “No,” I say. But yes, I am in a mood.

  “I wanted to say th—”

  “Don’t even think of thanking me again. Once was enough.”

  “Okay,” he says conversationally. “Actually, I wasn’t going to thank you for saving my life. While I’m grateful to not be dead and stuck in a crow’s body, it’s your act of mercy—as self-motivated as it was—that I’m thanking you for. It’s raised the spirits of my group. They don’t hassle me about hanging around you anymore. That, alone, is a wonder.”

  I shake my head. “Who knew Concordia would be filled with such a thing?”

  “Yeah. Wonders are rare in our world.” He sends me a quick grin. “You go and do two things no beekeeper has ever done before—fall in love and save a harbinger’s life. Seriously, don’t do that last one again.”

  I grin back briefly. “I won’t. And it was self-motivated. Don’t forget that.”

  “You can’t deny it anymore. We’re friends, Dresden. That means something to you.” He keeps his gaze on the yard in front of us. “It means something to me.”

  Bees rumble in my chest as I tense up. I am hating this conversation, hating that he’s right. I do care. I suppose I can thank Essie for uncovering this mess of emotion, although it’s not something I’m grateful for. It’s the purest agony I’ve ever known. “I was sparing myself years of you as a child,” I say to him. “You are an utter wretch until you turn twelve or so.”

  “I am, aren’t I?” He leans back, pleased with himself.

  “Intolerable.”

  Michael laughs, then sees the house my eyes are glued to and falls silent. He nods toward Essie’s home. “How is she holding up?”

  “Decent, I think,” I reply. “I hope.”

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “I know what I can see from a distance, or what my bees can see.”

  Michael raises his dark brows and scratches his impressive jawline. “You should talk to her.”

  I let out a sigh. “I want to. I’m not sure I should.”

  “Why?”

  We go still as a police car glides down the street. They patrol ever
y ten minutes or so, and I’m glad to see it. The more sets of eyes on her, the better. “Because I don’t think clearly when I’m with her. I fear telling her my true feelings and frightening her.”

  “Really?” he asks. “Even though it seems she feels the same way?”

  “Does she?” I murmur. “Or is it some variant of the curse that’s causing her to have these feelings? She says her mind clears when she’s around me. Considering that I am the one responsible for this condition she endures, that’s hardly a coincidence.”

  “So you think she likes you because of the bee venom she inherited.” He scratches his chin. “I can see why you’d think that. But I’ll tell you this: I’ve seen a lot of reactions to your venom. The infected do many sorts of things, but falling in love has never been one of them.”

  I nod slowly. He’s right. But there’s no telling if what Essie is feeling is love. “You know the curse works in bizarre ways. I can’t continue on with her while she’s still infected. If she lacks choice because of the bee sting to her ancestor, then nothing between us is real. I won’t take advantage of something she has no control over.” Only my lips move. The bees are quiet. “No matter how real it is to me.”

  After a pause, Michael says, “What if there is no way to cure her?”

  I let my eyes fall closed. “Then there is no cure.”

  “Then, that’s it?”

  “What other option is there, Michael?” I look at him, genuinely open to suggestions. “I can’t stay here if I can’t cure her, and currently, between the Strawman and this psychopath on the loose, the best way for me to keep her safe is to watch from a distance.”

  Michael snorts. “Spoken like a true martyr.”

  “Martyrs are noble.”

  “Martyrs are idiots,” he replies. “You are staying away because you think it will hurt less when you have to leave. If you have to leave.”

  I turn slowly, look him right in the eye. “I would kill everyone on Earth to keep her safe.”