Long after they were gone and the Apple Tree Man had already stood up, I lay there on the floor, shivering and nervous, my heart beating way too fast.
“What in tarnation was that?” Aunt Lillian said.
I sat up then and gave the ‘sangman a wary glance, waiting for more of the bees to come buzzing out of his mouth, but it looked like the stream of bugs was done coming out of him. The Apple Tree Man stood up and closed the door he’d opened earlier, but not before I caught a glimpse of what lay beyond.
There was a hillside meadow out there, not much different from the one that lay outside the apple tree in Aunt Lillian’s orchard, ‘cept everything about it was … I don’t know how to put it. More, I guess. It was like the difference between a black-and-white movie and one you see in color. That hillside pulled at me like an ache in my heart. I didn’t have me but the one peek at it, but I felt myself drawn to it like no piece of land had drawn me before. I was actually on my feet and making for the door, when the Apple Tree Man closed it shut.
“You don’t want to go out there,” the Apple Tree Man said, though we both knew that’s all I wanted to do.
“I’d almost forgotten the ache that place can wake in a body,” Aunt Lillian said.
She was looking at that closed door like her best friend had just walked out, never to return.
The Apple Tree Man shook his head. I thought it was because of what Aunt Lillian said, because of what he knew I wanted to do, but it turned out I was wrong.
“This is never going to work,” he said.
“What’s not?”
He looked at me. “I was going to take the two of you with me to the ‘sangmen’s hold. To bring the little rootman back to his kin and see if maybe they’ve got an idea or two that might get you out from the middle of this feud of theirs. But I can’t bring you into that world. You’ll never want to return. And when I do bring you back, you’ll spend the rest of your lives heartsick for the wanting of it.”
I didn’t argue. That one glimpse I got me made me think what he was saying might well be true. But Aunt Lillian wasn’t buying none of it.
“You need to give us a little more credit than you do,” she said. “Sure, we’ve got the wanting to be in that place. And maybe, when we come back, we’ll be pining for it. But we’re stronger than you think. Everybody lives without things they figure they’re desperate to have. That’s just part of living. The sick person wants to be well. The rejected suitor can’t stop thinking of the girl who turned him down. One person needs a fat bank account, another what that money might buy.
“We don’t get what we want, life still goes on. We make do. We don’t shut down and lie down in a corner and cry for the rest of our lives.”
“Some do,” the Apple Tree Man said. “Some people come back and they’re never happy again.”
“Maybe,” Aunt Lillian replied. “But I’m not one of them. And I find it insulting how you keep on insisting I am—like somehow you know me better than I know my own self.”
“I just think—”
“Too much sometimes,” Aunt Lillian said. “No reason to be ashamed of it. It’s a failing common to my people as well.”
They stood there looking at each other, no give in either of them, until finally the Apple Tree Man gave a slow nod.
“My apologies,” he said. “I should learn to take folks at their word.”
“Would surely simplify a lot of things,” Aunt Lillian agreed.
“And you?” the Apple Tree Man asked, turning to me.
I looked at Aunt Lillian, but she shook her head.
“I can’t help you here, girl,” she said. “This is one of those things that each of us needs to work out on our own. You understand what I mean?”
I nodded. I didn’t like it, but I knew what she meant. I turned my attention to the Apple Tree Man.
“I guess the bees will be out there,” I said.
“But they won’t be concerned with us,” he said. “Not unless we run into the bee fairies before we reach the ‘sangmen’s hold.”
“How did they get to be inside the ‘sangman in the first place?” I asked.
“It’s part of the bee-sting magic. Their fairy shots are poison, through and through—there’s no denying that. But they also give rise to new tribes of bees. What we saw coming out of the ‘sangman was like a new hive—born in fairy blood and bee venom and now out swarming to make themselves a new home. They’re going to be too busy to bother with the likes of us unless someone sets them on us.”
“That’s not where bees come from,” I said.
I was always a good listener and I could remember any number of Elsie’s stories about bees, from the old beegum hives that people used to make out of the hollowed sections of black gum tree trunks to how the best honey came from the nectar of sourwood tree blossoms.
“It’s where these come from,” the Apple Tree Man said. “If you hadn’t pulled out all of those arrows, they would have consumed the ‘sangman before they swarmed. As it is, there was just enough venom in him to make a small swarm, but not enough to harm him.”
“But—”
“You’re stalling,” Aunt Lillian said.
I was. The truth was, I didn’t know if I could do it. I didn’t know if I was as strong as Aunt Lillian. I found myself remembering one of those stories of hers, the one about folks crossing over, how they came back either poets or crazy and I sure couldn’t rhyme more than the odd verse or two of doggerel.
“You can wait for us here,” the Apple Tree Man said.
I thought Aunt Lillian would take offense to that, considering how she’d been going on earlier about us being stronger than the Apple Tree Man gave us credit for. But she just gave me a kind look.
“There’s no shame in staying behind,” she said. “Considering all the stories about the trouble one can get into on the other side, maybe it makes more sense to stay clear of that land.”
I could tell she meant it. That she wasn’t going to think the less of me if I stayed behind. But that stubborn Dillard streak wouldn’t let me off the hook as easily as Aunt Lillian would.
“No,” I said, wondering if I’d live to regret it. “I’ve got to see this through now.”
Nobody asked, was I sure?, or tried to argue me out of it. Aunt Lillian just gave me an encouraging smile. The Apple Tree Man picked up the ‘sangman’s basket, and off we went, through the door and away.
Awful Sharp Thing, A Bee Is
Adie and Elsie
“I’m starting to get worried,” Mama said.
Adie shrugged, a gesture that was lost on her mother since Adie was lying on the couch, idly flipping through a magazine while watching some boy band on the music video channel with Laurel and Bess.
“Oh, you know Janey,” she said. “She’ll jump at any chance she can get to be up at that old woman’s place.”
“She didn’t say she was staying overnight. I’m going to have words with that girl when you bring her back.”
Adie sat up straight. “When I bring her back? Why do I have to go? Elsie’s our nature girl. She’d jump at the chance to go into the woods.”
“I’m sure she would. And you can certainly take Elsie or any of the other girls with you. But you’re the oldest and if something happened to Sarah Jane on the way back from Lily’s place, I’d feel better knowing you were there to deal with the problem.”
Adie had to smile. That was Mama for you. Always making you feel like something you didn’t much care for was actually something special that only you could do for her. Even at nineteen years old, and knowing this trick of Mama’s, Adie couldn’t quell the flicker of pride that rose up in her.
Closing her magazine, she got up to find her running shoes.
“And take this with you,” Mama said when she had her shoes and coat on and was making for the door. “You can put it in a knapsack.”
Adie sighed when she saw the jar of preserves and bag of muffins Mama was holding out to her. It seemed like
you couldn’t say hello to someone on the road around here without exchanging some kind of food or other. But she dutifully fetched a knapsack and loaded it up.
“And no dawdling,” Mama said. “You tell Sarah Jane she’s to come straight home.”
Adie rolled her eyes. “There’s nothing to dawdle over between here and Aunt Lillian’s.”
“Be that as it may …”
“See, this is why we need a cell phone. If we had one right now we could just call Janey and tell her to get her butt back home.”
Mama smiled. “And you’d be happy with her taking it with her whenever she goes to see Lily?”
Adie thought about how often her sister went to the old woman’s place and shook her head.
“I’ll just go get her,” she said.
She found Elsie in the pasture, carefully drawing a study of some little animal’s skull she’d discovered in the grass. Mouse, vole—Adie couldn’t tell. Elsie was still like a little kid in this. Fifteen years old and she’d just get all excited about finding a nest or a feather or some little animal’s skeleton. But she knew more about what went on in the fields and woods around the farm than any of them. Adie supposed there was something to say about paying the kind of attention Elsie did to every little thing she came across in her wanderings.
“Come on, skinny knees,” she said. “Mama says we’ve got to go look for Janey.”
“Just a sec.”
She waited while Elsie finished her drawing, made a notation under it and dated it, then carefully stowed away her pencil and journal in her own knapsack.
“How come we have to get her?” Elsie asked.
She stood up, brushing grass and dirt from the knees of her jeans.
“She never came home last night and Mama’s worried.”
“I just thought she was staying over.”
“Well, she forgot to tell Mama that, so we’re stuck fetching her back.”
“You don’t think anything’s happened to her, do you?”
Adie thought of teasing her, but then realized that she was carrying around a little nag of worry herself.
“What could happen to her between here and there?” she asked.
She held up her hand as Elsie was about to answer. Elsie, being the family expert on everything that grew or lived in these hills, could probably come up with a hundred things that might have gone wrong.
“No,” she said quickly. “I don’t need to know. Everything’s going to be fine. We’ll find her and Aunt Lillian hoeing the garden or shucking peas or whatever it is that they do up at that place to keep themselves busy.”
But they didn’t.
It was strangely quiet around the Kindred homestead an hour or so later when they came into the last meadow and started up the hill to the house. The little nagging feeling in Adie’s chest blossomed into real worry as they called ahead and got no answer. It grew stronger still when they heard Root barking from the barn. There was a frantic quality to his voice that made Adie’s pulse beat way too fast.
The two girls ran to the barn, fumbling to unbar the door. When they finally got the bar off and the door open, Root bounded by them and took off up the hill, running into the orchard. Adie and Elsie exchanged worried glances, then hurried after him. They found him lying by an old apple tree half choked with thorn bushes, whining, his head on his paws as he stared at the tree.
“What is it, boy?” Adie asked. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s the Apple Tree Man,” Elsie said.
“The what?”
“The Apple Tree Man. It’s what Aunt Lillian calls the oldest tree in the orchard.”
“And that means?”
Elsie shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just what she calls it.”
Adie looked away from the tree, back to the house. She didn’t come up here very often. It wasn’t that she disliked Aunt Lillian. She just found it too weird up here. You couldn’t even use the washroom to have a pee because there wasn’t one. There was only the outhouse where you knew there was a spider getting ready to climb onto your butt as soon as you sat down. Adie couldn’t imagine living without electricity or running water—especially not on purpose.
“It’s too quiet,” she said.
“It’s always quiet up here,” Elsie said, but she sounded doubtful.
Adie knew just what she was thinking. There was something wrong, but neither of them wanted to say it aloud.
“I guess we should check the house,” she said.
Elsie nodded.
Adie remembered what Mama’d said to get her to come up here.
You’re the oldest and if something happened to Sarah Jane on the way back from Lily’s place, I’d feel better knowing you were there to deal with the problem.
Maybe she was the oldest, but she didn’t know where to start right now. She didn’t feel at all capable. All she felt was panic.
She swallowed hard.
“They’re just inside,” she said, “where they can’t hear us. That’s all.”
“Then why did they lock Root up in the barn?”
“I don’t know, okay?”
Elsie looked like she was going to cry.
“I’m sorry,” Adie said quickly. “I’m worried, too.”
She took her sister’s hand and started off toward the house.
“Come on, Root,” she called over her shoulder.
But the dog wouldn’t budge. All he did was stare at that stupid old tree and whine.
“Everything’s going to be fine,” she assured Elsie as they approached the house. “They’re probably just gone off hunting berries or something.”
Elsie nodded. “That’s right. Janey said they were going out after ‘sang yesterday. Maybe they went today instead.”
“There. You see? There’s nothing for us to worry about.”
They both jumped at a sudden loud, moaning sound, then laughed when they saw it was just Aunt Lillian’s cow having followed them up from the barn. Henny lowed again, long and mournfully.
“She sounds like she wants something,” Adie said.
“Maybe she needs to be milked.”
“But they would have done that before they left.”
Elsie nodded.
They were on the porch now.
“Hello!” Adie called inside. “Is anybody home?”
They went inside, nervous again. They found no one on the ground floor and neither of them wanted to check the upstairs.
“This looks like last night’s dinner dishes,” Elsie said as they looked around the kitchen.
Adie dropped her knapsack by the door and nodded. “I guess we need to look upstairs.”
Reluctantly, they went up the stairs, wincing at every creak the old wood made under their feet. The stairs took them into an open loft of a room. It had been where Aunt Lillian slept until her own Aunt Em passed away. Now it was just used for storage, though there was little enough of it. Some old books. Winter clothes hanging on a pole and draped in plastic. By the window there was a large trunk.
“There,” Adie said, only barely keeping the relief out of her voice. “You see? There’s no one here.”
“What about the trunk?”
“You think someone’s hiding in the trunk?”
Elsie shook her head. “But you could put a … you know …”
She didn’t need to say the word. It sprang readily to Adie’s mind. Yes, the trunk was big enough to hold a body.
Crossing the floor she went over to it, hesitated only a moment, then flung it open.
“Still nothing,” she said. “And nobody, either. There’s just a mess of drawings.”
Elsie joined her by the open trunk and looked inside. She picked up the top drawings.
“These are really good. Who do you think did them?”
Adie shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe Aunt Lillian.”
“I didn’t know she could draw.”
Elsie continued to explore the trunk while Adie used the vantage of a second floor window t
o see if she could spy any sign of Aunt Lillian or their missing sister.
Under the loose drawings Elsie found numerous sketchbooks, each page filled with sketches of the hills around the house. They were like what Elsie did in her own journal, cataloguing the flora and fauna, only the drawings were so much better than hers. Further in she found stacks of oil paintings on wood panels—color sketches done in the field in preparation of work that would be realized more fully in a studio. Under them were still more drawings and sketchbooks. Many of these had a childlike quality to them and were done on scraps of brown paper and cardboard.
She looked at the paintings again. There was something familiar about them. It was when she came to one depicting a black bear in a meadow clearing that she caught a sharp breath.
“What is it?” Adie asked.
“I’ve seen the finished painting this was done for. Or at least I’ve seen a picture of it in a magazine. The original’s hanging in the Newford Museum of Art. But that means …”
She started looking more carefully through the paintings and drawings and began to recognize more of the sketches as studies for paintings she’d seen in various books and magazines. Then she found what she was looking for inside one of the earlier sketchbooks.
“Look at this,” she said.
Adie gave the pages a quick study. From what she could tell somebody had been doodling various ways to write their initials.
“L.M.,” she read. “What does that stand for do you think?”
“LilyMcGlure.”
“And she is?”
“Apparently the name that Aunt Lillian painted under,” Elsie said.
“I thought she was a Kindred.”
“I don’t know about that. Maybe she changed her name. Maybe it’s just a pen name. But this is amazing.”
“Why?”
“Why.” Elsie repeated. “The Aunt Lillian we know is really Lily McGlure. What could be more amazing than that?”
“So?”
“So, she’s famous. They often talk about her like she was one of the Newford Naturalists, even though her work was done a few decades after their heyday. But you can see why, when you look at her paintings.”