Jilo (Witching Savannah #4)(93)
“Stop it, Brother,” said the man in the top hat—she still thought of this creature as a man, though only due to his appearance, which was more normal than that of his peers—causing her imitator to turn. The visitor shifted in appearance as it looked away from her, gaining in both height and girth, its skin lessening in pigment, its hair retracting inward, leaving nothing but a snowy bald pate. “This one is not for you,” the man in the hat continued. “At least not until she has accomplished what we need of her.”
“What you need . . . ?” The words squeaked out from her, but she had no sooner begun to speak them than the world around her began to change. Before her very eyes, the walls of the kitchen unfolded, peeling down and away, exposing the world around them. Soon the kitchen had disappeared, and the entire house seemed to dissolve and retract, sinking beneath the earth. Without moving an inch, Jilo found herself beneath the wide sky, looking out on her backyard. Only the table and chairs with their weird occupants remained—any other evidence of the house that had sheltered her family for decades had been erased, and although her feet told her that a solid floor remained beneath them, her eyes swore to her that she and her visitors floated at least a yard above the earth.
Jilo noticed a movement, just at the edge of the tree line. A figure stepped out from the grove of live oaks, her movements as graceful as the steps of a dance. Covered head to toe in lace, this odd woman—Jilo thought of the creature as female because of its dress and sashaying movements—began drawing near, holding her gloved hands overhead and slightly behind her. Her fingers wiggled, like she meant to tickle the sky. The sun followed her as she crossed the dry, gray field, so as she came closer, morning passed to high noon, and noon passed to dusk, the sun scraping the sky red as the figure in lace teased it along behind her. This can’t be real. This can’t be the real world. Dreaming. I must be dreaming. The sight of twilight approaching on the horizon caused Jilo’s thoughts to turn to Robinson. In the real world, was the sun also setting? Would her boy be crying? Was he worried about his mama? For the first time, Jilo wondered if the everyday world was permanently lost to her. Had she somehow died and found her way, if not to hell itself, at least to some kind of purgatory? Were these creatures the same ones Pastor Jones had believed to be angels?
The veiled creature stopped mere feet from her and howled with laughter. “No, child, we’re not angels. I’ve never even seen one of those things.” She did a final twirl, the lace of her veil and of her skirt flitting up as she did. “What do you think?” she said, though now she seemed to be addressing the man in the top hat. Without waiting for him to answer, she extended a hand toward him, not in greeting, but as an impatient signal for him to hand her the bottle he held. He rose and offered it to her. Only then did Jilo realize the creature most resembling a normal man was the only one of the four remaining; the other three had disappeared from their chairs with no notice, as if they had been unwilling, or perhaps unable, to remain in the presence of the veiled one.
“You ever see one?” The woman whisked back the veil, revealing an even more absolute void than Jilo’s soul could have ever imagined. Not even a spark of light lived there. She swiped the bottle away, tilting it back to where Jilo reasoned her lips would be, were she not an abyss bound up in lace.
“No, can’t say that I have,” the man said, “though maybe they exist in the hidden places in between.”
For a moment, absolute silence fell all around them. Then the female lowered the bottle, hissing like an angry cat as she let her veil fall back over the emptiness. “Do not speak to me of the hidden places.” She hurled the bottle at the man with such force that it shattered against him. “My piss fills your hidden places.” The man stepped back, trembling, and the veiled one spun back toward Jilo. “These bastards. It pleases them to know there are things that remain hidden, even to me. But those things are few”—she stopped and turned again on her companion—“and oh, so very far between.” The man stood frozen in place, seeming to be too terrified to move, until the creature once again turned her attention from him to Jilo.
She drew closer, the shape of a head bobbing up and down beneath the lace. She circled Jilo, as if she were examining her, then came to a stop in front of her and leaned in, making a sound like she was sniffing. “And no,” she raised her head, stepping back as she did, “you don’t smell dead, though you would be if I hadn’t been keeping an eye on you.” Another burst of raucous laughter rose and fell away.
“I don’t understand,” Jilo said. “Who are you? Why are you here?”
“Oh, dearie,” the woman said, her veil sucking in and puffing out, as if a heavy breath were causing the movement, “I can tell you what they’ve called me, but I could never tell you who I am. Your grandmother May called me ‘the Beekeeper,’ as did her mother, Tuesday, before her. I reckon you might as well do the same. You humans are, after all, so dependent on labels.”
“You knew Nana?”
This Beekeeper took a few sashaying steps away, then turned back. “We were dear friends, these women and I. Long ago, I saw that I would find you through them, though I never guessed you wouldn’t share their blood. Not till the outsiders took your mama. Swept her up into the skies. Impregnated her with you. You,” she said, anger returning to her voice, “were one of those tiny mysteries, emanating from those damned spaces in between.” She turned again toward her companion, her rage emanating from her as a visible wave in this otherworldly ether. “Long ago, I sensed your coming.” She turned back toward Jilo. “I saw your destination. But I didn’t understand your essence. I do understand you now. I can see your path, even if the fools around you do not.