Even in the humblest of communities, there is royalty—and Liza Bathe is Habitsville’s.
She lives along the town border, her manor far, far away from the quaintness of our small town, instead nestling between two great hills. Moss spreads across the mounds like mold, but Bathe house remains untouched, towering and gothic, surrounded by immaculate gardens. The mansion is said to house the largest collection of exotic flowers this side of the country. Not that any outsiders, botanists or otherwise, are allowed to see it.
Until me.
I’m not a member of the police force, nor a private investigator—I’m just a journalist who writes for the least read column of the least-read paper this side of the country—so it’s quite out of the ordinary for someone to approach me about a missing person.
They were a middle-aged couple, seated across from my desk on borrowed chairs, on a Tuesday afternoon. Their faces were grim, their hands clasped together in identical, tight-knuckled solidarity, as though shared trauma had twisted their physical forms to reflect one another’s.
Their daughter, Susanna Browning, was missing.
The police weren’t doing anything because their daughter was nineteen years old, financially independent, and she regularly sent her parents letters describing how charmed her life was, now that she was a Bathe girl. And as everyone in Habitsville knows, there is no greater honor a young woman could attain than becoming a Bathe girl.
But just in case you’re an out-of-towner, let me explain.
Bathe girls are young women hand chosen by Madame Bathe to be her maidens in waiting. She only chooses one at a time, and that lucky individual is invited to live in Bathe manor, tending to the Madame when she requires it, but otherwise being gifted a large sum of money and a home on a great estate.
Though the work may seem menial, Bathe girls tend to move on to greater opportunities after their time of servitude is spent, and they have enough money to leave town (though personally, I have no idea why anyone would want to live anywhere other than Habitsville.)
It’s an old-fashioned tradition, to be sure—but it’s kind of charming, right?
I mean, as long as the Bathe girls come back.
Which brings me to the Brownings and their missing daughter, Susanna. Like I said, the police felt that there wasn’t enough evidence to launch an investigation, and no reason to think that Susanna Browning was anything but fine. But after hearing what her parents had to say, I believed that I might disagree.
Susanna had been chosen by Madame Bathe a few months prior, and at first, she and her family had been thrilled. They sent away their only child to look after a rich old woman with the promise that on the other side of it, Susanna would find prosperity, security, and perhaps some wealth to share with her parents.
But a few weeks after Susanna left, things began to turn… strange.
It was the letters that gave it away. After Susanna started visiting home less and less, then finally not at all, her letters dried up as well. They grew short, indistinct, and eventually, they stopped altogether. She didn’t come home for Mother’s Day, only sent a gift basket of bread and fresh honey. And then, a few days before the Brownings made their way to my desk at the Habitsville Gazette, they got the letter that convinced them that their fears were far closer to reality than they had hoped.
Dear Mom and Dad,
Thank you for the care package, but you don’ t need to worry about me! Lady Bathe takes excellent care of all of us here in the manor. I’m sorry I’m not writing so much, but I’ve been quite busy. I’m glad to hear that Uncle Max is feeling better, send him my love.
Give extra treats to Petunia!
Love,
Susanna
On the surface, the letter was ordinary, maybe even a bit boring. But the devil was in the details, particularly in the last line. “Give extra treats to Petunia.” According to the Brownings, Petunia had been Susanna’s beloved bulldog, and the two had been an inseparable pair throughout Susanna’s childhood. It would have been impossible for Susanna to move to Bathe house and leave Petunia behind, and she had only taken the opportunity to be a Bathe girl after Petunia had died a few months prior.
So why would Susanna be instructing her parents to give treats to a dead dog?
It was clear what the Brownings thought. This letter hadn’t been written by their daughter. And though that seemed far-fetched to me, they were so grave and so certain that something was wrong that I decided to do something—something that I would later come to regret.
I decided to help them.
Getting into Bathe manor wasn’t as difficult as I thought. I had feared that Liza Bathe’s insistence on a private lifestyle would hinder my entrance—but as it turns out, those with copious amounts of wealth tend to warm up when a reporter with a camera shows up, offering an increase to their already widespread fame and notoriety.
I made the trip, farther and farther away from the familiar center of Habitsville towards the outskirts, where the sky grew grayer and the leaves were a deeper emerald, like there was a ring of darkness outside of town, a vignette on an old photograph.
Soon I was pulling up the first hill, and I approached the crest, I could see it. Bathe House was just as I imagined, tall and imposing even with being nestled in a valley. It was all sharp angles and pointed spires, made of stone that burned a deep maroon. There were a few other buildings on the grounds—a shed, an empty stable, and a large building with no windows, probably a workshop of some sort.
I pulled up the drive and parked, took a deep breath, then opened my door. Immediately I flinched—not at the sight, nor the smell, nor the surprisingly chilly nip of the breeze.
It was the sound.
At first, I thought my ears might be ringing, but after a few head shakes I quickly realized that the odd noise was emanating from Bathe House itself. It was a low, wavering hum, with different pitches all contributing to the same background tone. It reminded me of falling asleep with the television on and waking up to static, only the static sounded much more urgent and hung in the very air in the valley.
I made my way up the grand walkway, then found myself standing, small, in front of the largest door I had ever seen. I reached up to the door knocker, the metal cold against my sweating palm, and let it hit the towering slab of wood three times.
The hexagonal doorknob turned immediately, and soon, I was face to face with a young woman. I scanned her face quickly, my heart daring itself to hope—but it wasn’t her.
It wasn’t Susanna Browning.
“Welcome to Bathe House,” the girl said in a pleasant, if meek, voice. I knew what she was as soon as I saw her—a Bathe girl, in the old-fashioned garb the lady of the house insisted for all of her servants. It was a plain white dress, that reached the floor and covered the length of her arms, with a high collar that looked just a bit too tight. A starched linen covered her hair and tied around her chin. But other than that, nothing about the girl seemed uncomfortable. She held the door open to me, and I stepped inside.
“Thank you,” I said, and she nodded and smiled.
“The Madame will be out shortly,” the girl said with a curtsy, before leaving the room through a side doorway. I had a few moments to poke around before Liza
Bathe made her grand entrance, but I quickly realized it would take more than a couple of minutes to get a good look at Bathe house—even just taking in the foyer was overwhelming.
It was like stepping into another time. Everything was polished mahogany, and each side table was shined to perfection, every single one propping up a vase of carefully arranged flowers. It was an odd juxtaposition—the flora should have made the space seem homier, more welcoming—but the cerise velvet curtains blocked out any sliver of sunlight that might otherwise leak into the room, and a must hung in the air. It felt a bit like the interior of a deluxe coffin.
There was a grand staircase, which split in the middle and led up to opposite sides of the second floor. Each side of the divide was watched over by two of the largest oil paintings I had ever seen: one was a woman, with a streak of gray in her blond hair, which was piled up onto her small head. Her eyes were large, but sunken, permanently in shadow, and her lips were only slightly turned downwards into a grimace.
The other portrait was a man, with gray hair and a long face. There was something odd about him, something strange—and then I saw it. It was his eyes—the painter, though obviously talented, had gotten the position of his pupils slightly off. Instead of staring forward, as though looking back at the painter, they were just barely positioned more towards the right. As though the man’s portrait was trying to keep an eye on the woman’s.
The resonant hum I still heard suddenly grew louder, and when my ears made sense of what it was, I jumped—just in time to scare off a large bumblebee which had been circling my head.
“Are you allergic?”
I gave another start, this time at the voice that emanated from the far corner of the room. Though I hadn’t heard her enter, there was a woman, with iron gray hair that had choked out the blonde, sunken eyes, and that same hardened frown on her withered lips. She looked as though she didn’t belong here. Not on the property, that she matched as well as a doll in its house. Much like the rest of the mansion, the woman’s appearance did not belong in the 21st century. Her dress was modest and starch, coal colored and hanging down, dragging across the warped floorboards as she moved. It had a collar, scalloped and cream, a small brass pin plunged into the fabric over the left of her chest—a bumble bee, frozen and metal. This was Liza Bathe, in the flesh.
I swallowed, hard. “W-what?” I stammered.
Her wrinkled mouth split into a smile, crisp and sharp at the edges, like her face wasn’t used to the expression. “Bees, dear,” she answered simply.
“Oh,” I said with a nervous laugh. I shook my head, “No, not allergic. Just a little afraid to be stung.”
Her grin settled into a small smirk. “I understand. Just stay out of their way, and you have nothing to fear.” I returned her smile, but my stomach grew uneasy—I suspected Madame Bathe was talking about a bit more than the bees.
“Let’s start the tour, shall we Sam?” she asked, and my heart skipped a beat at the sound of my name in the old woman’s authoritative tone. Then I shook myself—I was being silly. Madame Bathe knew I was Sam Singer, and that I was from the Habitsville Gazette—she just thought I was doing a historical piece on the Bathe House, not searching for a lost young woman.
Old ladies and little bumble bees—that’s what she must think I’m scared of, I thought to myself, but said aloud, “I would be happy to. Lead the way.”
Following Lady Bathe around her ancient home was like tracing a fleck of ash from its ember—all twists and turns down passageways I couldn’t see until I had entered them. It would be impossible to trace my way back, especially on my own, and as we winded through the dark and decadent halls, the stubborn feeling of dread settled deeper and deeper into my chest. I wasn’t going to be able to find my way out without Lady Bathe’s help, and yet all she was doing was leading me farther into the unknown.
It was hard not to be distracted by the elaborate décor of the manor, as well as the steely voice of the old woman reverberating off of the towering walls, but I had a job to do. Down each corridor and in every sitting room, inside every bed chamber and around every vanity, I was searching for signs of Susanna Browning. And I wasn’t finding much of anything.
Until we got to the kitchen.
It was like a picture out of a magazine. Huge wheels of cheese lay stacked on wooden countertops, uncracked, in fermented perfection. Fresh breads were nestled into baskets, and home-jarred glasses of honey and jam were lined up beside them. It should have been lovely. In fact, my stomach had been growling before I arrived at the house. But all this sight did was nauseate me.
It just… wasn’t right. It looks fine, there was no one thing I could point to as the source of my unease. But it was too untouched, like no one lived there, ate there—like the entire place was made of wax. I wondered if anyone was ever able to open the cheese or taste the bread and honey—if Susanna was ever able to. Or was it just to send back to the girls’ families, to prove that they were alright?
“Are you hungry, dear?”
Lady Bathe’s voice broke me from my stupor. “Oh no, I’m fine—” I started to say, but then my stomach gave a betraying gurgle, unmistakable in the eerie stillness of the house.
The old woman smiled, and I grimaced. “No need to be polite, Sam. How will you write about the wonders of Bathe Manor if you don’t taste its sweetness?” Then, she swept over to the counter and retrieved something I hadn’t noticed: a small silver bell. She rang it, only once, the shrill tone cutting through the room like a knife through cheese.
Hardly five seconds later, a figure appeared in the doorway of the room: the girl who had answered the door the first time, now with her face flushed and her breath quickened, as though she had run to the kitchen at the sound of the bell. “Yes mistress,” she said breathlessly.
“Open a jar of honey, will you, Ariadne?” Liza Bathe said, motioning towards the glistened glass containers stacked on the counter.
“Yes mistress,” the girl, called Ariadne, answered. She stepped quietly over to the sweet substance, walking carefully, as though she had been instructed at one point or another to not make any sound. She hesitated before the jars, then, with her slight hands, chose one. With a heave of effort, there was a great suctioned pop, and the smooth surface of the honey was exposed to the air.
Ariadne put the jar down, then waited. Madame Bathe held onto the bell for a second longer, then put it down. As she did, the girl’s shoulders seemed to relax, as though she had been holding her breath.
“That will be all,” the old woman said, and the girl curtsied. Then, she moved quickly and silently towards the doorway.
There was a moment, before Ariadne crossed the threshold, that I swore she met my eye—but it was only a flash, or else nothing at all, and before I could make any sense of it, she was gone.
I looked after her, but quickly returned my attention to Madame Bathe when she picked up a spoon in her heavily ringed hands. The metal scoop bit into the soft amber substance, and then with three quick steps, she held it right in front of my face.
“Don’t be shy,” she said, her hand lacking even the slightest human tremble, “Have a taste.”
If there was even an ounce of instinct left in my body after a millennium of evolution, it was screaming at me then. My gut was shouting a simple phrase, “don’t try the honey, don’t try the honey—” but the old woman was staring at me, and looming ever closer, and there was just one drop of gold that was about to stain the floorboard below—
And so, I wrenched open my jaw, and let Madame Bathe place a spoonful of honey onto my tongue.
The taste was sweet. Too sweet. A floral flavor, but like pressed perfume flowers in an old book rather than the fresh blooms of a garden. I wanted to spit it out, but there was the woman, staring at me intently, like a governess giving medicine to a child. I swallowed it, ink down the back of my throat, and breathed out a hot puff of sickly sweet air.
“Delicious,” I said, suppressing a gag.
My compliment earned me a tea-stained grin. “Isn’t it? I made it myself. Or rather, my bees did,” she said proudly. “But what are bees without their queen?” Then, there was the bell again, and in a moment, Ariadne appeared. “The lid,” Madame Bathe said, and immediately, the girl moved towards the jar, placing the covering back on.
I was trying to catch the young woman’s eye, but she seemed determined to look only at the jar of honey. Perhaps I had imagined our moment of contact after all—or maybe she didn’t want to risk Madame Bathe seeing anything suspicious.
Either way, I was quickly grabbed by a firm wrinkled hand on my elbow and guided out of the kitchen.
Madame Bathe continued to lead me around her great estate, and I continued to pretend to take notes on history and architecture in my notebook—though truthfully, I was doing some amateur detective-work. I was making notes on where the mistress of the house took me, and where she didn’t; what rooms were kept closed, and hallways skipped; I even tried to map out which floorboards creaked.
But I must admit, I’m still more amateur than detective, and by the time we stepped out of the house to look over the sprawling grounds, I hadn’t come to any conclusions about what had happened to Susanna Browning. Or, if anything had happened to her at all.
The air was heavy and damp outside, and to my surprise, I saw that the sun had begun to set. “I didn’t realize it was so late,” I said, “I really should be going.”
The old woman didn’t stop her pace. “Nonsense,” she called over her shoulder as her feet trampled the deep green grass. “No one who hasn’t seen the outdoor facilities can say they have truly seen Bathe House. We want that articles of yours to be thorough, don’t we?”
It was the sort of question that didn’t require an answer. I tried to slow my pace, but Madame Bathe kept walking, over one of the hills and towards the large, windowless building I had first seen during my arrival. “Really, I should be going,” I said louder, and I stopped walking. Something about that building, and the growing darkness, created a pit of anxiety in my stomach, down where the honey had dripped.
And then, of course, there was the sound. It was the same hum I had heard all along, though back in the main estate I had become so accustomed to it that I ceased to hear it at all. But here, about 10 yards away from the odd, lonely building on the green, it grew far louder. Dissonant tones overlapped each other, with a sensation like movement all around my head.
Madame Bathe stopped walking. She sighed. “Alright then,” she said, disappointed, though her admission made me feel nothing but relief. She turned back towards the house, and we began our trek back. Up the hill we went, and I eyed the safety of my car, parked in the driveway.
“You’ll stay in the guest room,” the old woman’s voice said behind me, and a chill crept into my veins. “I really must insist you see the bee house, first thing in the morning.”
The bee house. The large, windowless building was a bee house? I didn’t want to stay. “That’s truly generous, Madame Bathe, but not necessary—” I started to protest.
“I insist.” The old woman repeated herself, and I realized she had not made a generous offer at all.
She had made a demand.