Ariadne showed me her exposed, honeycombed skull in an almost shameful way. When it had seemed like I had had an eyeful, she stepped away from me quickly, slinging her linen back over the wound, the soiled parts matching up to each oozing sore like a puzzle piece.
“That’s…” I started to say as she stared at the floor, but since I had no end to that sentence, I said instead, “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, and I swear the faint buzzing noise grew louder. “Nothing to be sorry for.” Her fingertips gently grazed the edges of her head covering, her gaze distant. “And there’s nothing that can be done.”
I tried to rid the horrible image from my mind and instead focus on the resigned young woman in front of me. “Surely that isn’t the case, right? A doctor could definitely get rid of them,” I started, but still, Ariadne seemed vacant. “An ointment or something, or a surgery? Even smoke, I remember seeing that on television once, where the beekeepers put all the bees to sleep with this smoking thing—”
“Sam, stop.”
I ceased rambling and looked at Ariadne, whose face was now screwed into a wince. In the silence I could hear a change in frequency, a strain of the ever-present humming growing higher in pitch, more frenzied. The linen on her head shifted slightly, small shapes beneath the fabric crawling with fervor.
The bees were angry.
As we both remained quiet, the buzzing diminished, as did the movement. The high pitch rejoined the background sound, and Ariadne’s face relaxed. “Can they… understand us?” I asked, though I knew it was a ridiculous question. Bees living beneath the skin of someone’s skull was one thing. Bees that understood English were another.
Ariadne sighed. “They know what I know.” A chill ran down my spine at how matter-of-fact she said it. But it was far less disturbing than what she said next.
“And now, Sam, I’m sorry.”
I blinked. “Sorry about what?”
“They know what I know, see what I see,” she said, and suddenly her dark brown eyes seemed empty and ominous. “And now they know that you know about them. But you had to know, in order to help. It just means you don’t have much time here, before it starts. You have to be careful.
I didn’t know what she was talking about. “Before what starts?” I asked.
She hesitated, her eyebrows pushed together, conflicted. She tugged at the rigid material of her dress. “I don’t want to scare you, Sam, I just—”
She was interrupted by something strange. For just a moment, sharply, her words cut short and her face dropped all expression. The hands that had been nervously fidgeting fell to her sides, and for just a second, the only sound was the hum.
“Ariadne?”
Her vacant state was gone as quickly as it had arrived. “She’s calling me,” she said hastily, already moving towards the door. “I’ve heard the bell.”
She stepped one foot out into the hallway, looking both ways to ensure she hadn’t been seen. “You haven’t told me much of anything,” I said in a hushed whisper, frustrated and deeply afraid all at once. “What’s going to start? What do I need to be careful of?”
She wanted to leave immediately, I could see that plainly, so strong was the pull of the bell. Her large, brown, worried eyes gazed at me with a mixture of pity and hope. “It’s too much to explain now. Lady Bathe calls to me.” Then, with just a crack of the door still open as she stepped into the hall, I heard her voice whisper:
“Just do your best not to fall asleep tonight.”
And then, it shut.
That night, it wasn’t Ariadne’s hushed warning that kept me up. There was no way I was ever going to be able to sleep in Bathe Manor after what I had seen, cryptic whisper or not. But still, it frightened me. I sat in the room and waited for the rest of the great house to fall into slumber, determined to keep my own eyes from slipping closed.
To pass the time until I thought it may be safe to roam the halls, I attempted to tally the circumstances in the Manor that may pose as a threat to myself during my investigation, as well as may have posed as a threat to Susanna Browning, wherever she may be now.
As far as I could tell, there was no immediate physical threat, no great brutish presence, no mysterious monster. I most likely wasn’t going to be beaten, eaten, or anything of the sort. There was only an old woman, and what appeared to be ordinary bees.
I could almost feel the spoonful of honey I had endured earlier, sitting, a congealed crest of amber in my intestines. The sick sweetness lingered in my mouth. I could still feel the ooze of it, the recollection matching up perfectly to the same ooze I had seen dripping between the layers of Ariadne’s skin, muscle, and bone.
I shut my eyes as a jolt of nausea swept through my body. I thought again of Susanna Browning’s parents, so scared, trusting me with this quest for the truth. I thought of Ariadne, and how frightened and wounded she was, and of how many young women from Habitsville had suffered much the same and worse—I only had to keep wait long enough until it was safe to roam the halls for answers.
And yet, it had been a long day, and I was only human. Sitting upon a lavish bed, eyes closed, feeling a bit ill, and with the background hum of the manor lingering like white noise, I began to drift off without my consent. My conscious mind sank farther and farther down, until, before I knew it, I was gone.
I dreamt of nothing. I would come to think of it later as the dull, empty scape of a medicated sleep. I have no doubt that there was some sort of sedative in the honey. But this suspicion wouldn’t help me in the moment. No, I slept for a few hours, and woke, bleary, surprised, and in a tremendous amount of discomfort.
Pain pulsed in my right ankle, sharp and surface-level. I sat up quickly, and twisted onto my side so I could see the irritated area more clearly. What I saw sent a wave of dread through my very being.
They were eating.
The tiniest, most deliberate bites I had ever seen. Five bees, sitting upon my skin, with slim black arms and imperceptible teeth burrowing in my flesh and eating the morsel they had stripped. They had eaten a wound into my leg, blood splattered on their butter-colored bodies like scarlet pollen.
I shook them off quickly, my chest aching with the sudden jolt of fear, after being so soundly asleep moments before. I pulled the blankets over myself suddenly, and watched as the five bees swirled around me, trying to get back to the nest they had started. After finding the blanket impenetrable, I watched as they flew up to the ceiling, and filed one by one into the air vent.
I was breathing hard, my skin crawling. I slowly pushed the blankets back so I could look at my ankle, which had streaked the cream sheets with red. With the blood brushed away, I could see what was left—a raw hole in my flesh that stung and wept streams of thin, pink honey.
I had no doubt that had I slept even a few moments more, I would have found honeycomb formed in my leg. I ran my fingers over the rest of my flesh quickly, feeling for wriggling figures beneath my skin as I tried not to let panic overtake me. Feeling nothing, I finally let myself stop.
Ariadne had warned me not to fall asleep, and now I knew why. The swarm knew I was here, and if I let my guard down, they would make their home in me, too.
Eventually, my heart quieted. There was no sound in the house but the distant hum. I looked at my watch—it was two in the morning, long past the bedtime of an old woman. It was time to explore.
It was a truly gothic scene. The only light I could muster up was a half-burned candle in a silver holder, and I held it aloft in front of me as I tip-toed down the Victorian halls.
Sconces and painting lined the wall-papered sides of the hall, everything casting their own wavering shadow against the candlelight—it was almost dizzying. I tried several door handles, turning each as gingerly and silently as I could, but none gave way. Perhaps Eliza Bathe always kept a very secure house—or maybe she suspected I may try to have a look around that night.
Either way, I wasn’t turning back, not with the sting of my ankle still fresh. A sick, sweet smell occasionally drifted up to my nostrils as I walked, the crystalline residue of the bloody sap the bees left behind reminding me of the horror I had awoken to.
I kept waiting for a break in the strange timelessness of the manor, but the more I walked and tried each door, the longer I went without coming across anything from the 20th century or beyond. The few lights that were on hissed with gas, and had been turned dim. The paintings continued, thick oil slathered on canvas. They were mostly paintings of Madame Bathe herself, in various ages, but always with a few streaks of iron gray hair.
There was the man again, too—I had never heard of Eliza Bathe having a husband, but the evidence of him was everywhere. He looked much like he had in the foyer’s painting, stern of face and suspicious of eye, like he was always looking over his shoulder.
Ffffftpt.
My head shot away from the portrait to the open hallway in front of me. I had heard something quick and soft, like fabric against floorboards. I held the candle aloft and squinted.
All that was there was a shadowy darkness and the distant hum. I didn’t dare to speak, so instead I took one ginger step forward. The aged wood groaned under the weight, and as it did, something happened.
Fffffpt.
There was no mistaking it that time. I had seen something at the end of the hallway, moving quickly from one side to the other. It seemed like a person, a little taller than I, so I knew it wasn’t Ariadne or Madame Bathe. The sweeping sound had been a long coat the figure wore, dark in color.
“Hello?” I just barely whispered.
There was quiet. I leaned forward, stretching the candle out in front of me as far as I could. The light just barely licked the end of the hallway, and in it, I could see a figure emerge.
It stepped slowly, the bottom of shoes clicking lightly on the hardwood floor. The long coat moved with the figure, and continued to move when the figured stood still. It waved just slightly around him, as though blown by an invisible wind.
He stood there, seeming to stare at me, though I couldn’t see his face. “Hello?” I said again. I didn’t hear a response from the man, but I did hear something. The hum. It was growing louder, and higher in pitch. An invisible frenzy all around was intensifying, as though the very walls of the house were screaming.
But still, I stared at the man, and he stared at me, his coat still quivering around the edges. And a noise melded together with the hum came through, a rasping, horrible noise. It came from the dark space where the man’s face would be. It was the sound of agonizing breath being drawn through an aching throat, in quick, short bursts. The man stood there, hyperventilating and motionless, the humming growing loud and tinny, and I was growing more and more afraid, though I wasn’t sure why.
“Are you alright?” I said, but the man didn’t answer.
Hhpt. Hhpt. Hhpt.
Like an old dog panting, the man breathed at me. Then, he took one step forward, and a deep pit grew in my stomach.
I really, really didn’t like the way he moved. It was almost puppet like, as though he didn’t have full control over his limbs. He lifted from the wrong muscles, his leg dangling loosely in the air as he threw it forward. I jumped at the sharp clack as his foot slammed onto the floorboard.
Hhpt. Hhpt. Hhpt.
He took another step forward, and I took a step back.
Hhpt. Hhpt.
The marionette man lurched once again, and again, I retreated. I wanted to turn and run, but to do so I would have to take my eyes off of the horrible figure before me.
Hhpt.
One more step, and then we both stopped. The thrumming sound in the background dropped to its regular hum. I still couldn’t see the man’s face, but I could see how he held himself now. Loose, arms slack at the shoulders. Head crooked at the neck and low, as though he didn’t have the strength to hold it up.
Drip.
I was startled as something wet and thick hit my cheek. I reached up and felt it, and my fingers came away viscous, smelling of the now familiar earthy, sweet scent of Bathe honey.
I looked up. There, in the wallpapered ceiling, there was a small hole. I could see the edges glisten wetly in the candle light as another long strand of honey gently dripped down and onto my shoulder. For a moment, I swore I could see movement in the hole—and as I stared longer and deeper, I saw something that shook me to my very core.
Ffffffpt.
My head shot forward. The man at the end of the hall was gone, and I could no longer hear his struggling breath.
I waited a moment, then, when it seemed like the man wasn’t coming back, I turned my attention to the ceiling.
There, framed in the amber midnight dripping honey and plaster, was an eyeball, unblinking, staring down at me.