Of Bees and Mist (23 page)

T
welve blocks east of Willow Lane lay the burgeoning neighborhood of Magnolia Avenue. Property number 70—two-story, plain, but full of light—stood in the middle of the shop-lined street. Formerly a bakery, the ground floor hosted a retail space with a kitchen, a dining room, and a little garden tacked to the back. Upstairs were three bedrooms, a bath, and a living room. Counted among the surrounding shops were a confectionery, two booksellers, a clockmaker’s studio, clothing stores, eateries, and specialty boutiques. At sundown the white lanterns strung between the two sides of the street came on, and performers rushing from Independence Plaza joggled for space in the sidewalks to compete for coins.

Meridia bought new furniture for the house. Putting Eva’s haggling skills to good use, she acquired a handsome dining set at a deep discount; a sofa, chairs, coffee table; a four-poster bed for the master bedroom. Noah’s room she decorated with a bright blue rug, an ancient toy chest, stenciled animals along the walls, and a bed built to resemble an ark. The garden she planted with orchids and bougainvilleas—a cramped yet quiet retreat from the hullabaloo of the street.

The shop was an instant success. The high quality of stock and service, combined with aggressive pricing and strategic location, worked not only to retain old customers from Willow Lane but to draw new ones off the street. Unable to handle all the demands, Samuel introduced them to two renowned dealers, both trusted and longtime friends of his. New partnerships were quickly established. Three months after opening, the shop became one of the most frequented businesses on Magnolia Avenue. In this way, the couple began to accumulate wealth, which they no longer stowed in a hole under their bed, but in a venerable bank on Majestic Avenue bearing the flags of seven nations.

As much as the change in fortune delighted Meridia, it was nothing compared to the taste of freedom. The absence of Eva’s daily requirements—in fact, of Eva altogether—was a perpetual source of wonder and celebration. For the first time in her marriage, Meridia felt liberated from the bees. The anxiety, the tension, the petty arguments between her and Daniel disappeared. Her house was now her own, a sanctuary where Eva exerted no more influence than a visitor. She could dress and raise Noah as she pleased. She could eat any food she liked out in the open. She could stop glancing over her shoulder when she went to the market or the beauty parlor.

Meridia hosted her first dinner party the following spring. Leah, Rebecca, their husbands, and four other neighbors from Willow Lane. She spent the entire day cooking and cleaning. When night fell, nothing could stop her from exclaiming in horror—the dessert was not ready, the guests were due in fifteen minutes, she had not had time to sweep the stairs or clean the windows. “Relax,” said Daniel, grabbing a broom from the hook. “They won’t notice a thing once they see that mustache on your face.” Shrieking, Meridia brushed her hand across her lips and saw it smeared with molasses.

The guests declared the house lovely and welcoming. Rounder now that she was expecting her first child, Leah found much to admire in Meridia’s new furniture. “I want that chair before the baby comes,” she threatened her husband. “And I don’t care what your
mother says, that curtain will look divine in our living room.” Rebecca and the other two women focused their assault on Noah. “How handsome you look in that suit! And how grown up! Tell your mother you’re going home with Aunt Rebecca tonight.” The boy acted indignant, not to mention scandalized, but it was evident from his reddening ears that he was pleased.

At dinner, Meridia earned raves for her dishes, especially the seared golden prawns and the duck roasted in a clay cooker. Daniel took a bite of the duck and told her, “It’s better than Patina’s.” Meridia beamed, pleased that she now could turn flour into delicious pastries, stew meat without spoiling the vegetables, and add just the right amount of salt to any dish. All through dinner good humor abounded. While the women clamored for recipes, the men made sure that not a drop of sauce was left on the plates.

Later, while the guests were departing, Rebecca pulled her friend to the side and whispered, “You must visit us often. Willow Lane is haunted without you.”

Meridia laughed. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s true,” Leah joined in. “Numbers 173 and 177 swear there’s a woman living in your old house, though the agency claimed no one has rented it since you left. They say she has the wise look of an old woman, but the unlined face and thick hair of a little girl’s. Evidently she likes to cook. The house smells of food at all hours of the day.”

“I heard her skin is like water,” said Rebecca sensationally. “So clear you can see right to her bones.”

Meridia felt hairs standing on the back of her neck. “Have you seen her yet?”

“We waited for an hour one night, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Smelled the cooking all right, but the house remained dark and there was no one inside.”

“They’ll never get another tenant for it,” said Leah. “Not with a ghost that looks like she’s settling in for good.”

“Just as well,” said Rebecca. “Any neighbor after Meridia will be a letdown.”

AFTER PUTTING NOAH TO
bed, Meridia went to her room and saw Daniel waiting for her with a blue velvet box in his hand.

“I found an old friend of yours,” he said. “Say hello.”

“What is it?” Meridia took the box and opened it. Her jaw dropped the instant she recognized the contents.

“How did you find it?”

“Pilar.” Daniel grinned. “I ran into her the other day and scared her into talking. It’s a shame the pawnshop already sold the bracelet and the earrings.”

He took the diamond necklace from the box and put it on her.

Meridia’s voice was breaking, but she blinked back her tears. “I didn’t think I’d see it again,” she said. She took Daniel’s face in her hands, moved forward, and kissed him, so hard he thought he might bleed.

Later, entwined and exhausted in the dark, Daniel tugged at the necklace and said, “Where do you think Patina went?”

Meridia considered this a moment before answering. “A place far away where good souls rest. Even if I knew where she was, I would never disturb her.”

IN THOSE YEARS, NOAH
was an easy child in all ways but one: he became extremely sensitive when teased. One time when he was four, he saw a pretty rabbit doll in a shop near Cinema Garden and could not take his eyes off it.

“The little fellow wants the rabbit,” Daniel said to Meridia with a wink. “Shall I get it for him?”

Playing along, Meridia replied, “Only if he kisses his mama on the cheek.”

Noah instantly turned away. “Who says I want an ugly thing like that?”

Back at the house, Daniel surprised the boy with the doll, having purchased it without his knowledge. Noah took one look and tossed it to the floor.

“I told you I didn’t want it! I won’t play with it!”

Meridia put the rabbit on top of the ancient toy chest. That night, after Noah retreated to bed, she heard strange noises coming from his room. Together with Daniel, she approached the boy’s door and opened it without sound. Sitting on the floor with his back to them, Noah was playing with the rabbit, laughing joyously as he burrowed his nose on its belly. The parents traded a smile and returned to their room.

To Ravenna, Noah behaved like the perfect gentleman. On those special days when Meridia caught her mother’s scent drifting in from the window, the boy would run to his room to comb his hair and change his shirt. As soon as Ravenna walked in, he greeted her with a formal bow he had learned from a street performer. “Grandma,” he would say brightly. Her wild-eyed expression did not scare him, nor did her gaunt face when it came so near he could see her wrinkles. When she patted his cheek, he grinned wide with pleasure. Her scent of lemon verbena lingered on him long after she was gone.

Gabriel was a different matter. Every year on the boy’s birthday, despite the number of presents he unwrapped at breakfast, there was no curbing his tears as Meridia dressed him in his new clothes. “Stop that,” she said. “I won’t have your grandfather think I’m as bad a mother as I am a daughter.” Unmoved, she led him downstairs and out to follow the sun. During their walk Noah raised no objection. When they entered Gabriel’s study, he held his shoulders up the way she had trained him. Together they walked past the towering shelves, his hand digging into hers but his eyes looking directly in front. Stopping before the desk, he uttered the greeting he had carefully practiced. “Come here, boy!” bellowed his grandfather. Though his knees quaked, Noah covered the remaining distance by himself—so small, yet so brave and determined. Gabriel lifted him
from the floor and placed him on his lap. Being so close to that terrifying face could not have been pleasant, but Noah answered all his grandfather’s questions without a tremor. When they left the study, his shirt was always damp. As soon as they reached the sanctuary of Ravenna’s kitchen, Meridia loosened his collar and hugged him. “I’m so proud of you,” she whispered again and again, laughing and crying at the same time.

WHILE HE FEARED GABRIEL
and worshipped Ravenna, Noah remained unimpressed by Elias’s repentance. For a long time after the accident, he howled like a kicked dog when he saw his grandfather, cupped both hands over the scar on his temple, and refused to be pacified until he drove the jeweler out of the house. Elias brought him gifts, sang, read, walked like an ape, bleated like a goat. The only thing he accomplished was annoying his grandson.

Over time, Noah developed the skill to ignore the jeweler. Meridia had little idea how deeply this affected Elias until one afternoon in the boy’s fifth year. Elias, seated on the sofa, was reading aloud from a book. Noah, occupied with his toys on the floor, paid no notice. Meridia was dusting a shelf behind the sofa when she heard Elias’s voice stopped in midsentence. She turned, surprised, and regarded the back of her father-in-law’s head. It was still and oddly bowed, two birthmarks on the smooth, glossy surface. She inched closer until she stood behind him. Looking over his shoulder to the book he held, she saw tears dropping onto the page. Quietly she retreated from the room.

That night Meridia sat down with the boy and talked to him.

“You’re being cruel to your grandfather Elias. That scar was an accident—he will never hurt you again. Why don’t you be kind to him?”

“He never leaves me alone, Mama! Always asking if he could play with me. Sometimes I don’t want to play with him.”

“He’s sad because he thinks you’re angry.”

“Then tell him to stop making those noises. He doesn’t sound like a goat.”

Meridia sighed deeply. “Be kind. Your grandfather’s a good man.”

“How can he be good if he gave me this scar?”

At a loss for an explanation, she placed one hand on his cheek and stroked it.

“Few people can stand up to your grandmother Eva. One day you’ll understand.”

“Are you one of those people?”

“Absolutely.”

“Papa?”

“When he chooses to.”

“What about me?”

Meridia pushed her nose against his. “By God, I hope so! Now go to sleep.”

E
va’s mistake had been grave, and no one knew it better than herself. Without intending to, the blow she had aimed for Meridia had missed and struck Noah. At present, Magnolia Avenue did not welcome her. When they met, Meridia spoke no more than two words, barely troubling to conceal her displeasure. Daniel acted curt, full of insufferable excuses. He no longer came alone to Orchard Road as in the old days, but brought his wife and child with him. Did he think he needed protection from his own mother? There he would sit in her living room, drinking her tea yet consulting
her
opinion every three minutes as if he had none of his own. “What do you think of this, dearest? Should we do as Mama suggested?” Though Eva was too proud to breathe a word, his behavior wounded her. Why was he punishing her for something that was clearly an accident?

Noah added to the insult by refusing to greet her. Every time they met, he kept his lips pursed and his expression hostile. And every single time, his blasted mother had to make a production out of it in front of everyone. “Where are your manners? I didn’t raise you to be a savage. Greet Grandma. Don’t you see her? She’s right there.
Repeat after me. ‘Good afternoon, Grandma.’” And the boy just stood there, mortified, and gaped! Eva had no doubt this was a routine they had rehearsed often and to perfection.

They had deceived her, of course. Somehow, all her vigilance notwithstanding, they had pilfered money from Willow Lane. Or rather,
she
had pilfered money. How else could they afford a house and open a shop? Something was amiss. Daniel said Meridia had received a loan from her father—a plausible but unlikely story, given how that adulterous boar had declined to fund Willow Lane in the first place. Oh, if only she could expose their treachery and breathe life back into stupefied Elias!

For he was no longer the same man. Since the accident, he had been spending more time glued to his rocking chair on the terrace, not to read those tiresome books that were now collecting dust on the shelves, but to contemplate his hands. He lost interest in his caged birds, and the bees swirled round and round without even stirring him. One by one, the birds died from neglect, the bees dropped from exhaustion. Elias began to limp, and his face took on the look of a shriveled fruit. From the few roses left on the lawn and the odious sea of marigolds surrounding them, Eva gathered that Lotus Blossom Lane was in trouble. But what did the shop matter to Elias when the memory of Noah’s scar so tortured him he had to knuckle his eyes raw to stop it?

Exasperated by her husband, Eva turned to her daughters for comfort. She took immense satisfaction in the fact that Malin, almost twenty, had caught the interest of a handsome suitor. The son of a wealthy silk merchant, the young man wooed Malin so ardently that the indifference with which she treated him only served to fuel his passion. Judging from his spellbound look and the number of gifts he sent to the house, Eva predicted marriage before the year was over.

Without Patina to abuse, she concentrated her faultfinding on Permony. The girl’s face, weight, and manners became permanent and delectable topics of castigation. Given the severity of her cen
sure, it was a miracle that Permony grew up to be a charming and complacent young woman. Now in her seventeenth year, she was no longer shy or awkward, but carried herself with an easy grace. After Patina disappeared, an armor seemed to descend and isolate her from the bees; however ripe with spleen, their droning went into one ear and fell out the other. Permony alone possessed the magic to roust Elias from dejection. All this was lost on Eva, who resented the girl more when she realized she no longer took her scolding to heart.

Once she realized the futility of cutting more roses for the shop, Eva took to casting her eyes vindictively in the direction of Magnolia Avenue. There to the southeast, in that plain two-story house cramped with nondescript others in that noisy street, they neither needed nor respected her. Her son and grandchild, corrupted by that detestable woman to scorn her. How could she right this wrong? Remedy this gross injustice? After months of consorting with fury, the answer came to her loud and clear.

ONCE SHE MADE UP
her mind, Eva was unstoppable. Aware of Meridia’s opposition, she came up with ironclad excuses to visit Magnolia Avenue. One day she brought sweet rolls filled with condensed milk, which she knew Daniel liked; the next, she brought Permony to play with Noah. Shrewdly leaving her bees at home, she made amends with her grandson by giving him coloring books and jigsaw puzzles, things she knew Meridia would not object to, and feeding him milk candies and lemon cookies on the sly. She learned from Elias’s mistake not to become a nuisance to the introverted boy, but to flatter him with a few choice words and then withdraw. One morning, three months after her campaign began, Eva reaped her first reward. When Noah saw her climb the staircase from the shop, he broke away from his mother and ran to her. “Grandma,” he said warmly. Meridia looked as if a thunder had struck her deaf.

Soon, other victories. When Eva deliberately stayed away for a few days, Noah grew restless and pestered his father to inquire if she was ill. The next time Eva showed up, he welcomed her with a hug, causing Meridia’s heart to leap to her throat. Sensing the enmity between his mother and grandmother, the clever boy used it to his advantage. When Meridia forbade him to play past his bedtime, Noah retorted, “Grandma Eva will let me. She says I can do anything if I live with her.” Too taken aback for anger, Meridia let him stay up another hour.

“Your mother is plotting something,” she told Daniel that night. “Noah is always irritable after her visits.”

In bed, Daniel raised his brows but did not close the book he was reading.

“I think it’s good she’s making an effort to befriend him. Would you rather they bicker like enemies?”

“She never came near him before. Now suddenly she can’t get enough of him.”

Daniel cocked his head and regarded her with amusement. “Noah seems to take to Mama. You’re not jealous, are you?”

“Of course not,” she said, a little abrupt. “I don’t trust her, that’s all.”

“She won’t dare harm him again. She knows we’re watching her.”

“Are you? Watching her? I know I am.”

He smiled wryly, then fixed on her the helpless look he used to humor Noah.

“What do you suggest I do? I can’t tell him to stay away from his grandmother.”

His teasing tone aside, Meridia knew this was fair. Particularly since she had not heard the slightest buzzing of bees. Before she could reply, Daniel’s smile had widened.

“Why are you smiling like that?” she asked.

“You know I love you, dearest,” he said. “But just now, you sounded exactly like Mama.”

To make his point, Daniel snapped open his book until the spine cracked. Meridia, reminded of how Eva used to pester Elias to the most remote corner of his encyclopedias, hurled a pillow at Daniel.

“Laugh all you want,” she said. “But the second your mother slips, I’m going to be all over her.”

A few days later, Noah asked her if he could have a bird for a pet.

“Like Grandfather Elias’s. I want it to talk to me when I’m bored.”

“A bird?” said Meridia, intrigued. “But you can talk to me when you’re bored! Believe me, once I put my mind to it, I can be more entertaining than a bird.”

Noah, thinking he was being teased, kept his face long for the rest of the day.

When Eva showed up with a white cockatoo in an antique brass cage the next morning, Meridia realized it was her mother-in-law who had put the idea into Noah’s head.

“I hope you don’t mind, dear,” said Eva. “Noah’s been telling me how much he wanted a talking bird. I managed to get one with the voice of an angel.”

As if on cue, the cockatoo trilled out Noah’s name. The boy ran into the living room and hollered, “Grandma! What did you bring me today?”

“Just a minute…Ask your mother first if you could keep it.”

“Oh, Mama! Could I keep it? Please…please…”

Aware that she had been trapped, Meridia could do nothing but nod.

“Give Grandma a kiss,” said Eva. “The other cheek, too.” Smiling broadly, she handed Noah the cage. “Careful, don’t scratch your mother’s beautiful floor. Shall we put it in your room, right next to your bed?”

Holding the cage high, Noah shot his mother a triumphant glance. Had he forgotten it was Eva, too, who had branded him with the scar?

In no time, Meridia grew convinced that the cockatoo had been enchanted. Enslaved by the same sorcery Eva had once practiced upon Elias’s caged birds. But instead of shrieking “Fire!” or “Thief!” the bird declaimed, “Who loves Noah dearly? Grandma Eva…” The mischief did not stop here. Fueling Meridia’s suspicion that black magic was at play, the bird could sense, from any position in the house, every single time she undressed to bathe, and would shrill “Filthy! Shame!” at the top of its lungs before whistling innocently the instant she charged out of the bathroom. Daniel heard nothing, stared as if she had gone clean out of her mind with only a towel around her. Once again, Eva had kept her alchemy hidden from him.

The change in Noah was startling. Bewitched by the bird, he no longer called for Meridia when he awoke, shunned her kisses, and preferred the cockatoo’s lullaby to her bedtime tales. He developed a rash when she tried to hug him, stopped speaking to her for three days, and could only swallow her cooking with the utmost difficulty. At the same time, he ate everything Eva brought him and insisted she spend every morning at the house. The grandmother, jumping at the invitation, settled herself comfortably on his bed until dinner. All day long they laughed and whispered, arms linked around each other while the cockatoo squawked obscenely. Even without the bees, Eva’s pearl white smile was enough to darken her daughter-in-law’s blood.

Meridia’s attempt to remove the bird met with a scream more deafening than gunshot. Feet thumped angrily on the floor. Hands clawed at the scar as if the boy wished to reopen it. Meridia had no choice but to withdraw. Eva wisely stayed away for two days until the heat cooled. When she returned, Noah ran to her and squeezed her with all his might.

Daniel was not the slightest bit troubled. “Noah is proving to be a good influence on Mama,” he told her with the air of one who had been right all along. “I’ve never seen her so happy and active. Now that she’s taking care of him, you have some free time for yourself. Didn’t you say you wanted to plant more flowers in the garden?”

Meridia looked at him with eyes that could freeze fire.

More humiliations followed. Even as she refused to believe that Noah had sided against her, her head swelled to the width of a pumpkin. Her face clouded with angry purple pustules, which burst and multiplied painfully at the touch of a finger. Not willing to be outdone, her neck sprouted a hard lump the size of a peanut, which in a day’s time grew as big as an egg, and later still, a gourd. An alarmed Daniel sent for a doctor. The man needed only one glance at Meridia to declare that she had fallen victim to a viral plague overtaking the town.

“All you need is a week’s rest until the virus clears,” the doctor assured her. “Funny, the ailment only afflicts strong-willed young mothers in their twenties.”

Swallowing with agony, Meridia did not question him. After he left, she whispered to Daniel hoarsely, “It’s the bird. It’s been cursed to make me ill.”

“Half the women in town have your symptoms!” he replied with impatience. “Are you saying that harmless little bird brought on the epidemic? Enough suspicions. Mama had nothing to do with this. The sooner you rest, the quicker you’ll feel better.”

For the next four days Meridia could not leave her bed. Alternating between feverish sleep and oppressive wakefulness, she vomited twelve times in half as many hours—red and green bile, though she had consumed nothing but water. As her face continued to swell, ponderous thoughts clamored behind her eyelids, and all her muscles ached as though she had performed a tremendous labor. One afternoon, kept awake by the cockatoo’s mocking cry, she overheard Eva saying to Noah outside her door, “You can live with me if your mama doesn’t get better. I have a beautiful room all prepared for you.” Meridia scrabbled to get up, a scream and a curse knotted in her throat, but what she heard next drained the anger from her head. Noah was laughing, clear and bell-like, accepting Eva’s offer as if it was the one thing he had been hoping for.

On the sixth night of her illness, a giant birdcage dropped on her chest and smacked her awake. Neck thick as a pillar, shoulders sore, she squinted her eyes in a stinging daze and craved water. The lone dim light pressed heavy around her. It was not yet midnight. Daniel must still be doing the books in the office downstairs. Next to the clock on the nightstand was a half-filled glass, which she could not command her hand to reach despite her thirst. Her hearing ebbed and flowed—one second revelers whooped in the street and then the next there was nothing.

Suddenly she realized she was not alone. With difficulty she rolled on her back and faced the door. Noah. He made no move when their eyes met, but studied her with Gabriel’s old expression as though she were a specimen in a glass. Had he come to laugh at her? Inspect and report back to Eva?
She’s half blind because her nose is swallowing her eyes, Grandma.
How long had he stood there recording her deformity?

“Mama,” he said.

The cockatoo shrieked. The revelers whooped louder. Meridia could not speak, could not lift her head. Fire raced across her lungs as tears dampened her cheeks.

“Mama!”

His voice was stern now, angry. Before she could make a sound, he slammed the door and was gone. She scrambled to get up, thinking now or never, but the giant birdcage flew back out of nowhere and crashed down on her head.

In a dream, the cockatoo shrieked and shrieked and shrieked.

Meridia awoke the next morning as if she had never been ill. Along with the swelling, the pain and pustules were gone. Her mind cleared and strength restored, she sprang from the bed and went outside. Golden light flooded the hallway. She opened Noah’s door and found him sitting in bed.