22- from the past
I spend Sunday morning in my studio, trying to finish a half-written song, with varying degrees of success.
Very little success. The violence outside my school made all this Beekeeper, impending disaster business unbearably real. Working on songs feels like a frivolous activity with all the chaos going on around me.
Reece calls me midday to ask if I’d like to come over to watch a movie with him and his family. My dad says okay and although I’m feeling unsettled about Reece, I say I’ll go. Six o’clock, Reece tells me. Brooke is cooking.
“Leave your phone on,” my dad says at ten to six. “Fair warning. If I call and you don’t answer, I’m coming over.”
“Fine.”
“And stay out of their basement.”
“God. No basements, Dad. We’re going to watch a movie.” My teeth grit. “That’s it.”
My dad’s brows raise. “Do I sense trouble in paradise?”
“No.” I say, then sag into a chair. “I mean, I like him. He’s just very…different from me.” To put it mildly, and it doesn’t really matter how different or how similar we are, or if he’s holding on to secrets, because that whole “murder of crows” is turning into birds and flying away in a short while. My thoughts turn bitter. He wants to focus on us until he disappears forever, but he expects me to live with these questions about my mother and Rafette for the rest of my life.
“He’s not pressuring you about anything, is he?” Dad asks gruffly. “If he is, I’ll—”
“No!” I grab my coat and yank it on. “It’s nothing like that. I think his family moves around a lot, that’s all. I’m trying not to get too attached.”
“Oh,” Dad says. “Well, that’s sensible.”
“Yeah. Hooray for sensible.”
My dad smiles gently. Knowingly. “If only the heart knew the meaning of that word.”
“If only a lot of things.” I force a smile, scratch Roger’s ears. The Lab’s brown eyes are wide and worried. He lets out an anxious whine. “What’s with you, boy? Sorry, you can’t come, although Fiona won’t be happy with me for not bringing you.” I tuck my phone in my pocket and wave to my dad. “I won’t be home late.”
It’s a warm evening. Spring replaced winter so suddenly, the ground is soggy. Tonight, the rain has eased to a balmy mist. My eyes adjust to the dark when I reach the wooded divider between the two properties. I put my hands on the rough pines to keep my balance on the uneven ground.
Halfway there, a shadowy shape moves in the dark trees. I gasp, but it’s only my crow. He’s alone. None of the others are taking up their perches in the naked branches. The bird lowers its head and caws gently, hopping to a branch in front of me before gliding to the ground. It hops toward me, head bobbing. Something pink is pressed between its beak.
I crouch down, surprised. It doesn’t usually get close to me. “What have you got there?”
The crow carefully drops a faded, water-stained bow at my feet, then hops back, as if to ensure I won’t touch him. I pick up the bow. It’s small. A soft clasp is attached to the back. I smile at this latest gift, a little girl’s hair bow that somehow escaped the locks it had been fastened to.
Suddenly, the crow distorts, bloats grotesquely. I back up with a gasp. Fear crawls into my throat, squeezes it shut, as the crow spreads its ever-enlarging wings. A thick, dark mist swirls around the thing’s legs and body, enveloping it entirely. The black vapor grows heavier. The acrid smell reminds me of the time I visited a blacksmith’s shop at a historic village with my dad. My legs are too rubbery to stand up. I scramble backward until my back bumps up against a tree.
My crow is not a crow anymore. It moves with purpose, seething, growing bigger. Much bigger. I don’t know what it is—maybe a harbinger. But if that’s the case, it isn’t transforming correctly. Something is wrong with this creature. My hand covers a whimper as the bird begins to take the shape of a half-human man with a feather-covered torso.
Two legs form, but with claws for feet. Wings spread six feet in diameter from the man’s shoulders, just for a second, before one of them shrinks into an arm—just one. The other remains a wing. Black feathers cover much of his body. One human eye where it should be, one jet black crow eye, set on the side of his head. His hair is a shock of white in an otherwise middle-aged face.
He looks like something that just crawled up from hell. My back presses against the tree, and I freeze there, too afraid to turn my back on him and run. Tiny tornados of black twist and whirl around his limbs. They migrate upward, toward the man’s mouth. The man tilts his head back and hinges his mouth open as wide as he can. He looks to be in horrible agony as the black vapor, or whatever it is, sucks inside his mouth like a vortex. Finally, the last bit of black disappears through his lips. He closes his mouth, looks at me.
I see his face, and my heart stops. Despite the distorted features, I know this man.
“I beg your pardon, Angie.” His voice is the same low, gentle rumble. It’s an easy voice to trust. An easy voice to love. “I hope I haven’t frightened you too much.”
I can’t drag my gaze away from his face. I did love this man once—my mother’s favorite and longest lasting ex-boyfriend. “Hank…”
He was my now-and-then father whenever the wind blew him our way. He had been kind to me, taken me to the arcade and took me shopping for clothes. He’d shown me some stuff on the guitar. He’d been so kind. I had learned from my father that it had been Hank who reached out to the private investigator Dad had hired to find me.
He’s a harbinger. Tears itch along my jaw and neck. My body shakes with a legion of emotions. Too much of the past intruding on the present. Too much stuff tumbling from boxes. My fingers clench around the bow. “You’re the crow that’s been…leaving things for me?”
Hank inclines his head. “I had no other way to show you that I meant you no harm. I found these little things and I hoped you would not feel threatened by me.”
An earring, a quarter, a flower, a bow. All things he gave me when I was a child. I can’t come up with a quick response, not even a thank-you. I just stare at him.
He shifts on his awkward, clawed feet. His knees bend backward, like a bird’s. It must be terribly uncomfortable to stand like this.
“I would have brought better things,” he says in a rough voice, “but I am limited by what I can find and carry in a bird’s beak.”
“No, they’re amazing,” I choke out. “Thank you. I love them. But you…” I swallow. “What happened to you?”
He turns so the crow eye is angled away. “Just a small taste of what I deserve. Punishment for not saving her.”
We both know he’s referring to my mother. “No one could. She was an addict.”
His dark eye seems to sink deeper into his head. From this angle, his face is the same. As a kid, I considered his face the gauge of true handsomeness. I adored his southern drawl and his easy smile. No one compared. Now, I see the sad, downturned edges of his mouth. The white hair that had once been dark brown. The ridges of grief etched into his face. The patches of black feathers covering most of his misshapen body.
He shakes his head wretchedly. “No. I was given a choice. I chose wrong and was punished for it.”
“Back up,” I say. “What choice? What could you have possibly done?”
“Your mom was staying in a marked town. That’s when I met her. That’s how a harbinger of death meets anyone, you know. Your parents were split up for a while when you were around a year old. I fell for her instantly. It didn’t matter to me that she had you and was still in love with your daddy. I was happy to be her rebound guy. I couldn’t stick around anyway…”
Hank’s human eye tightens with the memories. This reminiscing is costing him, opening old, painful wounds. He swallows with effort. “Your mom was making noises about going back to your dad, settling down. That you needed a stable home. I was all for it. I had a sense that the mark on the town we were in was about to expire, and I wanted her out of there when disaster struck.”
“Where was I?” I ask.
“Your dad’s parents had taken you for a week, while she was getting her head straight and figuring out what to do. And it was around that time when Rafette noticed how smitten I was and offered to keep her safe—no rules against a Beekeeper saving someone, you know. Only harbingers. Anyhow, in return, he said I had to take the Beekeeper’s curse. Thought that would free him. I didn’t believe a word of it. Also didn’t think he’d keep his word.”
He rubs his hand over his face, grief etched into every line. “The mark on that town turned out to be a fire in the motel your mom was staying at, as she was supposed to die in it. There’re rules—ancient ones—that forbid us from directly interfering with the dying, but I lost my fool head and pulled her out, thinking no one was watching. No one would care about the fate of one woman. I couldn’t stand to let her die like that, to make her baby girl an orphan. But someone was watching. Someone who knew the rules and had the power to punish.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Angie. I should have gotten her to leave sooner. I should’ve—”
“It wasn’t your fault, Hank,” I said, emotion thickening my voice. “You saved her life. But who…‘punished’ you?” I ask. “Was it Rafette?”
“Something far worse.” He smiles bitterly. “Angie, there’re more than just harbingers and Beekeepers at work in this world. Quieter, darker entities with far more power than us. One of these beings—one as ancient as Rafette, but more deeply cursed and with darker intentions—twisted my curse, condemning me to this half-life.” He spreads his one arm and one wing. “This is what Reece may be doomed to, should he try to interfere with the course of events to come here.”
My lips go numb. My heart pounds like a timpani drum in my head. “But my mother was stung. I saw her features in Rafette’s face.”
“He sent a bee to sting her, yes,” he says. “Said his bees chose her and not him, but I think he did it out of spite, revenge. Because I refused him.”
I drag in a breath and lean against the nearest tree. My legs feel like jelly. I need to sit. I need… “She didn’t try to hurt me or anyone. How?”
“Obviously, the drugs dulled that part of her brain. But I believe she had some unique biology that helped—she was a true, gifted psychic, so magic ran through her veins. The bees target those who are mentally unwell, compounding the imbalance already present, turning it into something twisted and dangerous. I don’t know, Angie. Maybe your mom was targeted by the bees and not Rafette.” His gaze rests on me fondly. He smiles, crinkling the skin around his eyes. “We’ll never know, but either way, she found the strength to fight the venom because of her love for you.”
“Love for me?” I almost choke on that, it’s so ridiculous. “She barely knew I was there half the time. We had no home. We lived in that horrible van when we weren’t shacked up with some creepy guy. And you think she loved me.”
“I know she loved you. More than herself. More than anything.”
“Then why not let me live with my dad?”
“Well, paranoia is one of the key ingredients in the Beekeeper venom cocktail. In her troubled mind, she believed she was keeping you safe.” Hank lowers his head. “It was selfish of me to let you stay with her for as long as I did. You belonged with your dad—he’d been searching for you for years—but I knew once you were gone, she’d have no reason to fight any longer.” He drops his head and lets out a shuddering sigh. “My heart died with her.”
His words hit me like a fist. I’m breathless, winded as if I just sprinted a mile.
My mother was protecting me. From herself.
I feel dizzy just trying to digest this, to change my point of view, after so many years of thinking I knew what happened. Now, following the grotesque lines of Hank’s face, I see the stark realization of the harbingers’ reality, and it is far more bleak and lonely than I want to admit.
It makes me rethink Reece’s every grin, every easy laugh. This is an existence of inescapable despair. There’s no way I can cure him of that. I’m not even sure I can stop it from infecting me.
I weakly brush damp hair from my face. “Why did Reece lie to me about Rafette stinging my mother? He knew.”
“He didn’t know,” Hank says.
“How could he not?” I demand. “You all live in a family unit.”
Hank stretches out his wing, folds it on his back. “I knew my actions were wrong, Angie. I didn’t tell anyone about Rafette’s offer or that he stung your mother. To this day, all they know is that I tried to save her and was punished by the ancient one for it. They are waiting for me to request the mortouri—death by the murder of crows.”
It feels like invisible bands are wrapped around my chest. Squeezing, squeezing.
“He cares for you,” Hank murmurs. “Reece Fernandez—as he’s named himself this time around—cares for you very, very much.”
“So that’s why you’re here? To warn me about how Reece and I are doomed.” I stagger back heavily against the tree. I sense I’m going to need its support. “You didn’t come here to reminisce.”
Hank rubs his chin. “Angie, you heard what Rafette had to say about his existence. Harbingers of death can eventually request the mortouri by their murder, and their souls are released. The curse finds another human. It’s not like that for Beekeepers. Rafette believes the only path to freedom from his curse is for him to coerce a weak harbinger into taking the Beekeeper’s curse. He claims to have heard this from one of the ancient ones, but no one can prove it.”
“Rafette thinks Reece is weak?”
“Reece is weak,” he says. “He has feelings for you. He has all but pinned a target on himself.”
“No way. We just started dating. Whatever ‘feelings’ he has aren’t something that would weaken him. He’s even told me he’s leaving after…after whatever is supposed to happen in Cadence, so I don’t get too attached.” I frown at my lap. “I’ve been trying not to.”
“Angelina.”
I look up.
Hank’s wing sags to the ground. The long black feathers brush the soggy mud. “This thing between you didn’t just begin. You were friends as children. You probably don’t remember. He’s grown a lot since then, has a different name. Reece used to come with me on visits to you and your mom. You were six or so when he stopped. The last time, we spent the day at a park. You wore a blue sundress with little white flowers. I brought you crayons and a Sesame Street coloring book. You shared them with him.”
I dig through the dirty boxes of my memories, searching through piles of anxious days and hungry nights for this one day he described. I remember the dress—it was my favorite. I wanted Hank to see me in it—and there it is! The prize on the bottom of an otherwise stinking pile of moldering crap. A golden-haired boy with a pretty smile and dark, sparkling eyes. A bright spot amongst all those rotting things.
“His name was…” I think hard. There were so many people around back then. “Steven. Shawn? Something with an S.”
“Troy.”
“Oh. Well.” I swallow hard, trying to piece it together. To connect the boy from my past to the boy I know now. “I remember you set us up at a picnic table. My mom was in the van, and you went to see her.” I sound faraway to myself, lost in this memory. “Reece—or Troy—colored Cookie Monster green and didn’t understand why I got upset about it, but then he laughed and told me we can use any color we want. I thought he was…” Cute. Sweet. He’d accompanied Hank on a few subsequent visits to us. How many times did my heart leap at the thought of seeing that kind, handsome boy when Hank would knock on the van door? My mind didn’t remember Reece as that boy, but something in my heart must have.
“Reece fell for you back then, and that’s my fault, too. When, by awful coincidence, the group found itself in Cadence, he couldn’t stay away from you. They couldn’t deny him the chance to be happy for a little while, but no one anticipated Rafette’s interest in him.” Hank’s expression turns pleading. “Angie, please. Allowing this relationship to continue could destroy both of you. Reece will do anything to protect you from harm.”
“You mean he might…”
“Not might—would. Reece would trade himself to the Beekeeper so your life may be spared. Reece has doubts this is possible, but Rafette thinks this is a sure bet. He’s picking out his curtains in hell.”
My stomach drops, twists into a knot. Reece fell in love with you, bit by bit… He was a little older than me. My recollections from before our playdates fade to basic forms, shapes. I was too little, too accustomed to chronic stress, to hold on to memories. I remember impressions, not details. He remembers everything.
“Do you think it’s possible?” I ask. “Can Rafette turn Reece into a Beekeeper and free himself?”
“I think he can,” he replies. “He wouldn’t be so intent on this course without good reason.”
“I won’t let a childhood crush ruin his life. Or mine.” My words are sluggish, as if my tongue is made of clay. They feel badly constructed because they are. The thing between Reece and me is not some flimsy crush. Hank knows it. I know it. It’s vital that Rafette doesn’t. Ever. I press a fist into my palm. “What do I have to do?”
“End it,” Hank says, simply. “And get out of this town until whatever is going to happen, happens.”
My heart squeezes, painfully. In a different life, under different circumstances, Reece and I would be at the start of something real. Maybe something forever. I’ve seen enough of the fake stuff to recognize the difference—it was all my mom could handle. I’m not sure what my feelings are for him yet, but ambivalence isn’t one of them. I’m attracted to him, and I care for him, too. Allowing him to turn into a monster like Rafette to save me is out the question. Getting out of Cadence is another issue. “Okay. I’ll talk to my dad again. See if he’ll take me with him on his business trip. And…I’ll break up with Reece. I’ll try to convince him I don’t want to be with him anymore.” The words taste bitter just trying them out. They’re going to be vile when I say them for real, knowing what a lie they are.
“You’ll have to do better than try.” Hank gives me a sad smile. “You know, your mother would be proud of you—of your talent, your strong, practical mind. Despite it all, you have a kind, balanced soul. I know you can do this—you will do this, if Reece means anything to you. If you value your own future.”
“Hank.” I reach out, take his hand. It’s solid and warm and brings back a fresh rush of memories. “Will you stay with me?”
His smile fades. Even as my hand falls from his, black vapor curls from his mouth. It doesn’t appear to be completely of his own volition, this shift back to crow form. “I can’t. And remember that harbingers are cursed creatures. Loving one would only curse you, as well. Best to learn that now, before, well…before.”
A knot swells in my throat. Even misshapen and hideous, I want to throw myself in his arms like I used to. He was warmth, safety. A set of clear, focused eyes and steady hands. I hug my arms around myself and stay where I am as he grows smaller and smaller, folding into himself until finally, a bright-eyed crow stands on the ground. It stares up at me before taking flight and disappearing into the trees.