If a day spent at Bathe House was nerve-racking, it was nothing compared to a night. The hum was dimmed, like a radio stuck between signals. The only lights were warm yellow lamps, and it was by the light of one such fixture that I looked over my notes that evening.
Truthfully, there wasn’t much to them. I hadn’t seen much that was strange, and in fact, the only source of suspicious I had was the feeling of apprehension I held in my stomach—and there wasn’t much evidence in feelings. Nothing I could bring back to the Brownings, at least.
And so, I came to the only conclusion that I could. I drew a line beneath my scribbles from the day’s tour of the house, and beneath it, wrote, ran away. The letter to her parents, the seemingly quirky, yet safe nature of the Bathe estate—never mind the forgotten detail of the dog in her note to her parents, everything pointed to Susanna Browning simply running away. Most of Habitsville’s youth had the desire to do exactly that—it just seemed that this young lady had gone ahead and done it.
I closed my notebook with a thud.
The room I had been put in was comfortable—it had a king-sized, pillowy bed with a dark maroon satin comforter, and four polished wooden bedposts. There was a window that looked over the sprawling property, the grass emerald in the moonlight—I was somewhere on the second floor, and I could hear no movement in any of the nearby rooms, nor downstairs. The entire house seemed to be asleep.
And yet, even after closing my notebook, all I could seem to do was pace. The bed that should have been inviting was instead, ominous—the window felt suffocating, and the stillness in the air, save for the hum, eerie. Thought I had no concrete proof, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong here.
Creak.
I stopped pacing. There had been a sound, the unmistakable noise of weight on floorboards. And it came from just outside of my door.
I stared at the wooden surface, my heart pumping blood loudly in my ears, my palms growing sweaty.
The old golden door handle began to twist, and a new surge of fear paralyzed me, though I had no idea what specifically I was afraid of. Slowly, gingerly, the ring of gold rotated, and with a gentle swing, the door crept open.
For a moment, I could have sworn it was Susanna Browning. I had been staring at her image for so long in the dim light that my eyes were searching for her everywhere. But when I blinked a few times, and could make out the face before me, I saw it was Ariadne, the servant girl, who now stood at my threshold.
“Ariadne—” I said, my chest exhaling quickly in violent relief. “You scared me.”
I gave her a little chuckle, amused with my own silly fear, but the girl did not return even a smile. Her slight face was hard, flat, and her brows constricted over her steely eyes.
“You need to leave.”
The meekness I had perceived upon our first meeting was gone. There wasn’t an inch of give in her expression, not even when I chuckled again and said, “I’m sorry, what?”
“You need to leave. Tonight.” Her voice was steady, and she made her demand like it was fact. Like it was something I really needed to listen to.
“I’m afraid Madame Bathe asksthat I stay,” I said, because it was true. And though I wasn’t sure who in this strange manor I could trust, I pushed a bit more. “She insisted actually. Even when I said I should go.”
Ariadne’s steel gaze broke slightly, and concern wafted from her eyebrows, the only bit of hair visible below the starched linen that covered her head. “You are here to write an article? On the house, the architecture, the history?”
I nodded, and launched into my elevator pitch. “I write for the Habitsville Gazette, and we like to pay homage to some of the traditions and founders of our community—”
“Then why were you writing notes about Susanna Browning the entire tour?”
I stopped, flabbergasted but trying to remain composed. “Who?”
“You don’t need to play dumb with me, Sam. I’ve been watching you the entire tour. There are eyes all over this house, places to peer through. I’ve seen what you’ve jotted in that red book of yours,” she motioned to the notebook on the bed. “Not much history, more investigating.”
I was in trouble. I could tell by the young woman’s face that there was no fooling her. My only hope was that I could convince her not to divulge my true intentions to the lady of the house. “Listen, it isn’t what it looks like, it’s just a story—”
“It’s not just a story.” She interrupted. Her eyes shone in the dim, colored amber in the yellow lamplight, determined and unmistakably brave. “It’s the truth. Madame Bathe has taken Susanna away, and I don’t believe I will ever see her again. I don’t believe anyone will.”
And then, Ariadne began to cry.
Over the next hour, Ariadne’s voice accompanied the manor’s hum to tell the story of what had happened over the previous three months, beginning from when Ariadne first arrived at Bathe House, to that very hushed retelling of it, there in the half-darkness.
It had been considered an opportunity by everyone who knew her, the day Madame Bathe’s crooked finger curved towards her, three months ago in the town square. As I said before, to be chosen as a Bathe girl meant you and your family were set for life, and as a girl from a family struggling to get by, it had seemed a miracle.
Aridane had hastily packed a few of her things and bid her mother farewell with promises to think fondly, write often, and return soon. She hadn’t known what to do with her life, and it seemed as though an incredibly valuable thing had suddenly fallen into her lap – a purpose.
Like I was, Aridane was overwhelmed upon arriving at Bathe House—it was much larger and richer than she was accustomed to, and besides the lady of the house, the hollow halls were somewhat isolating. She spent many of her days keeping up with chores, answering the ringing of the bell, and learning exactly what Lady Bathe liked, and what she despised. She wrote to her family when she could but spoke to no one.
She may have forgotten the sound of her own voice, had it not been for Susanna.
“She didn’t look like that when I knew her,” Ariadne told me, the two of us sitting on the dense floorboards of the guest room of Bathe house. I had shown her the photograph the Brownings had provided of their daughter, a charming landscape where their daughter beamed, freckled and joyous.
Ariadne’s finger traced the edge of the image, her eyes transfixed. “She looks so… alive,” she murmured, and her mouth turned ever-so-slightly upward. “And her hair—I never got to see her hair,” she said, and the hint of a smile disappeared.
“We were friends. She was the only thing that kept me here, long after I began to feel as though I needed to leave. Well, not the only thing that kept me here. The illusion of choice within the walls of this house wasn’t kept up long,” she said darkly, and my eyes nervously traveled to the door. There are eyes all over this house, Ariadne had told me. Hopefully there weren’t ears as well.
“Susanna had been sick. At least, that’s what she told me. She had been weak when I got here, and it only seemed to get worse.” She gazed at the photograph more, her eyes moistening again. “I begged her to tell me what I could do for her, what was wrong. I began to suspect the Madame of some sort of foul play, but I could find no motive nor any evidence that something terrible was going on.”
A sick feeling rose in my stomach as Aridane’s tale continued, the image of the Brownings, Susanna’s parents, sitting across from my desk, clearly terrified but willing to place some sort of hope in me. What was I going to have to tell them when I got back? If I got back, that is.
“Susanna wouldn’t tell me, she was very secretive. But I could tell she was scared, and her fear only got worse the longer we spent here,” she said, looking around the room with disgust. “I think she did what she could to protect me, but as it happened, the horrors of this house would come for me too.”
I opened my mouth to inquire further, but Ariadne quickly cut me off. “The Madame had two bells, one for myself, and one for Susanna, each with a different tone. One day, the Madame rang Susanna’s bell, all the way in the East wing, as we prepared bread in the kitchen. Susanna was very weak at the point—she struggled to breath with even the smallest movements—but still, she went as fast as she could towards the bell. She didn’t look back, didn’t say goodbye. Just left me there in the kitchen.” Ariadne sniffled wetly. “And that was the last I saw of her. An entire month has gone by, and there has been no sign. I’ve asked the Madame, but she’s been telling me Susanna went home to deal with her sickness. But it’s not true, is it?”
I shook my head, and Ariadne bit her lip. She cleared her throat, trying to steady herself. “ I figured as much. She was a good friend, Susanna.” She suddenly looked me in the eyes, that fire back in her amber irises. “I will help you. If it means uncovering what Madame Bathe is truly up to in her house of horrors—if it means finding out what has actually become of Susanna—then consider me on your team.”
The slight trickle of relief crept down my spine. An ally in a foreign, hostile place was just what I was hoping for. Especially if that ally is someone on the inside. But there was an issue.
“I want to get justice for Susanna, Ariadne, and I would be incredibly grateful to have your help.” She nodded solemnly. “But if we’re to work together, I can’t be in the dark about what exactly is going on here.”
“What do you mean?”
“You said Susanna tried to protect you from whatever was happening here in Bathe house, but she couldn’t.” I leaned towards her gently. “What’s happened to you here?”
Ariadne was clearly conflicted. She drew back from me, standing up off the floor. I did the same thing. Her face framed in the linen was fearful, serious, but clearly wanting to trust. “I don’t know.”
“You can trust me,” I said, knowing how flimsy it sounded. “I realize that’s an easy thing to say, but my word is all I have for you now. Help me help you. Help Susanna.”
She stared at me a moment more, and I let her read my level of sincerity. Then, her shoulders slumped, and her tension was replaced by fatigue. “Okay, Sam. If you insist.” Then, she began to do something I hadn’t expected.
Her trembling fingers reached up to the knot at the base of her chin, that secured the piece of cloth over her head. “This is what three months as a Bathe girl looks like.” She released the fabric, and gently pulled the linen away from her head.
The hum grew louder. My eyes focused. An acrid, sweet smell floated towards my nose, and as I understood what I saw, my heart fell to my stomach.
There was a wound in Ariadne’s head, along the right side of her skull. At first, I believed the headscarf to be an attempt at a bandage, an effort to heal. But as I peered closer into the wound, I could see that this was a gash that was meant to stay open, meant to grow.
Between the parted skin, and the red flesh, overtop of the bone of Ariadne’s exposed skull, was a structure. It was geometric, solid, but small—and it oozed its own amber liquid along with those expelled by Ariadne’s body as it tried to close the injury. And, crawling all over their handywork, weaving through Ariadne’s sparse hair and tunneling beneath her skin, building upon their masterpiece, were a sickening number of little wriggling shapes, singing in unison to the same dissonant song.
Bees.