Agnes
I am about halfway up the path when I realize that I’m being followed. I saw her watching from the window the other night
and I wondered how long it would be before curiosity got the better of her.
Vera. She’s a little soldier. Once she resigned herself to living with me, she took over the care and feeding of herself and
her sister, got them both enrolled in school, signed up for the school bus route, which will pick them up at the end of the
drive starting next week. Of course. She’s Sadie’s daughter; she’d be in charge of everything because Sadie could barely manage
herself. I have to admit, I’m surprised Sadie found the intrinsic motivation to “take care of” Mac. But then again a wild
animal backed into a corner is capable of pretty much anything.
“Don’t let them come back here to visit him or me,” Sadie said over the phone last night, a collect call from jail. “Mac’s
going to die and I’m going to prison for the rest of my life. They need to move on.”
“They want to come,” I told her. I wanted to see her, too. If only to say goodbye. “They miss you.”
She was silent on the phone; I could hear the chaos of clanging and shouting voices on the line. I experienced a flutter of
panic. I was losing my sister. I could feel her fading. Though in many ways she’d been lost to me for years. What I was losing
was hope, the hope that she’d return to the fold.
“Sadie.”
“Agnes. You know what to do.”
Then she just hung up.
It’s part of the code, the one handed down through our female ancestors. If you get caught, you pay the price in silence.
You don’t defend yourself. You reveal nothing about yourself or your practices, your garden, or your recipes.
The path now is narrow but well-worn, the night humid and starry. Little Vera probably thinks she’s being quiet, but she’s
clumsy behind me, not accustomed to the dark. A twig snap here, a trip, a brush against the branches. I keep moving, then
come to a stop at the locked gate in the high stone wall and turn around.
“I hear you,” I say. “Come on out.”
She slips from the shadows, moves closer then comes to a stop. She’s the perfect blend of Sadie and Mac, wide mouth and high
cheekbones, Sadie’s deep-set dark eyes and auburn mane of hair, Mac’s freckles and pale skin. She wears Mac’s skeptical frown.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“You come out here every night. What are you wearing?”
I’m wearing a white vented beekeeper suit with a hat and round veil. The bee, another venomous creature. But like most, they
only defend what’s theirs. They’re not predators. They’re creators—they make hives and honey, are friends to trees and flowers.
“Are you a beekeeper?” asks Vera.
“Not exactly.”
“What is this place?” She stares at me, at the wall. I wonder if she knows. I’m not sure what Sadie has told her, or what
is coded into her DNA. I remember when our mother brought me here for the first time, I felt like I had been here a thousand
times before. It was known to me. I heard the centuries whispering, full of secrets.
“Answer me,” she says. There’s fire in this one; that comes from Mac. He is the one with rage in his spirit. The other one is ice. That comes from Sadie; a practiced smile that masks a cold heart. Both properties have their dangers—and their strengths.
“If I take you inside with me tonight, you won’t be able to unlearn what I teach you.”
She’s very still in her tattered jeans and baggy sweatshirt, Converse high-tops. I think she might turn and run. I reach into
my sack where there’s another suit, hold it out to her and wait. There’s a scurry in the underbrush. An owl hoots, questioning.
Some of us decline the life, The Knowledge. Sadie declined to practice, to the very bitter disappointment of our mother. But
The Knowledge stayed strong within her. I’m not sure which way Vera will go.
Finally, she offers a quick nod, reaches for the suit.
I unlock the gate.