Chapter 3 #3
“Are you sure?” Ghita coughs. Even as she clears toxins from her throat, concern etches creases onto her face. “The effects of the tater sponge may not last. If the Snow in the touched one's system counteracts it, she could awaken sooner than expected.”
“I'll be fast.” Shay leaves Ghita no chance to argue.
She fills her lungs once more and plunges back inside.
Shielding her nose and mouth with the leaf, she stumbles over rife foliage and mows her way to the tree.
Her joints will suffer later, but she can't think of that now.
She hugs the thick trunk and monkeys her way up as fast as she can with only one arm at her disposal.
At the tree's crest, she stretches her body across the long branch that holds the nest. The baby coos in a contented state of half sleep, all wiggly toes and dimpled arms. Praises to God, the toxic spores haven't floated up this close to the ceiling.
Shay steadies her balance and reaches into the nest.
An angry buzz. A bee swoops down and lands on her gloved hand.
Shay halts, a stop so sudden and complete, her bones feel fused.
At this vantage point, what hangs behind the flower is exposed: a hive that doesn't belong to any ordinary bee.
It's dented by two hollow sockets, the skull-like shape both fearsome and unmistakable.
Of course. Unlike most common bees, ghost bees are nocturnal.
And a single sting can prove fatal—even to someone not in the habit of regularly ingesting toxic leaves.
“Hello there, little friend,” she whispers, willing her heart to settle lest her shaking hand provoke the insect. “I mean you no harm. I only wish to take the baby, and then I promise to leave without disturbing your hive or harming your colony.”
While talking to a bee is not the most realistic strategy, Shay doesn't know what else to do.
She waits for burning pain to pierce the leather of her glove, spreading numbness up her arm and through her body.
Before she can shimmy back down the tree, she'll be completely paralyzed. Cold sweat seeps across her hairline.
The bee walks in a small, agonizing circle before it takes off and returns to the hive. Shay waits a bit longer, fearful the insect is simply seeking reinforcements. Once she's convinced she's been spared the wrath of a murderous bee army, she scoops the child to her chest.
A boy. One who looks quite healthy despite the drugs he's been exposed to. A true miracle.
He blinks at Shay and roots hungrily at the cotton of her dress.
Cradling him close, she makes the nonsensical sounds people make when soothing restless babies.
Though most of the black particles have dissipated, she continues taking shallow, sparing breaths until she clears the farmhouse.
She pauses outside the door with a glance back at the kitchen table.
The touched one remains there, still held dormant by the effects of the tater sponge. For now.
In the yard, Shay finds Ghita crouched over the body of the khala who was so frantic when they arrived.
The midwife is softly reciting passages from the old scripture, while the khala, no longer frantic, lies still amid the grass, seemingly napping.
Ghita looks up, her eyes damp and sorrowful, only smiling when she notices the baby.
“Oh, thank our merciful God. The child is well.”
Ghita stands, while the other woman remains unmoving on the ground. Even with the khala's eyes glazed in a vacant stare, it takes a stunned moment for Shay to register the absence of her breathing. “What happened?”
“She was stung by ghost bees.” Ghita wraps her arms around herself and scans the quiet countryside as though fearing more of the dangerous insects will appear.
Shay looks closer at the dead woman, inspecting the multiple red welts that pattern her face and neck. She shudders, but quickly reins in her horror. It's not the worst death she's borne witness to. “Surely from God we come, and to Him we shall return.”
The words bring her comfort, but … Shay can't help feeling guilty that the bee refrained from stinging her. The question is, why?
“Ameen.” Ghita bends and strokes her fingers down the woman's eyelids to close them. “I hate to leave the body, but we must get away while we can.”
“What will we do with the baby?” Shay wonders aloud, jiggling the fussing infant in her arms. Staring down at him, she scans the pink newness of his skin for some visible mark of the magic that must have saved him. By all odds, he should not have lived.
A loud crunch brings their focus back to the dead woman. Shay's stomach goes rubbery as the corpse withers before her eyes.
Her skin shrivels, hair and fingernails falling away, her insides melting with a sound like bubbling stew. Soon, nothing more than a desiccated mummy remains. Thin lines of honey dribble from her dried-up mouth and empty eye sockets.
Glory to heaven. The sheer number of stings must have intensified her body's reaction to the venom. It's still not the most gruesome death Shay has had the misfortune of seeing, although it ranks closer now.
“We'll worry about that later,” Ghita says, answering the question Shay forgot she had asked. The midwife steers the apprentice by her elbow toward the waiting donkey. “Hurry now, Lalla Shay.”
They've barely taken a seat when the silhouette of the touched one pops into the farmhouse's doorframe. Swaying unsteadily, she leans her forearm on the wooden jamb. “What are you doing? You fools! Don't you see that the baby has to die? Give it back to me this instant!”
“Calm down, Sayeda!” Ghita shouts from the cart. “The baby is already dead. We only wish to give the child a proper burial.”
Shay tugs the baby closer. She gives him the pad of her finger to suckle, lest his cries disprove Ghita's words.
The touched one's age is difficult to place.
There's something youthful in her voice, in how she carries herself.
While her sagging skin and wiry hair, the bend of her body under its weight, suggest a woman advancing in age, and not gracefully.
Yet she not only survived the rigor of childbirth, but she has strength enough left to stand there, issuing her bloody demands. Shay cannot understand it.
“Dead? Are you sure?” The woman wobbles her head and pauses. She looks back at Ghita, her white eyes gleaming with deadly intention. “The moon says you're a liar, khalti.”
The touched one's fingertips kindle green.
Shay clucks her tongue twice. “Go, Jarjeer. Faster than you've ever gone.”
The cart jolts forward. Shay shoots a backward glance at the touched one. She looks as thin as the moonlight surrounding her, her glowing hands thrown toward the sky.