Chapter 6 Isobel
Isobel
The way Arthur wrapped the black funerary ribbon around his knuckles put Isobel in mind of a boxer preparing to fight.
A fence marked the boundary between her family’s property and the Walkers’ pear orchard.
Heavy golden bulbs swayed in the breeze, the smell of harvest thick in the air.
During the transition into fall, it was common to see one of the orchard hands out between the rows, twisting pears into tightly woven buckets.
Isobel cast her eyes over the property, searching for the familiar shape of Dane Walker between his pear trees. She hadn’t seen him all week, which wasn’t usual for them, and though she missed him, just now a part of her hoped he’d stay busy a little longer.
Eight years had passed since the Walkers had laid eyes on Arthur. Eight years of her lying.
Closing her eyes, Isobel let her concerns about that reunion slide away, donning the mask that would help her through today.
It wasn’t hard. Izzy was a persona she wore often.
Izzy the older sister, the daughter, the family glue.
It was the role they expected and needed her to play, and since it was a close fit to who she wanted to be anyway, it wasn’t hard to slide into.
Stepping forward, Isobel carefully unwrapped a blue scarf from around the wooden box Dad had swept Charlotte’s ashes into. The design on the ornately carved lid resembled a beautiful dark bird.
Arthur would like that.
“Here.” She held it out. Arthur took the box, appearing resigned. Isobel bit her lip. “I’m so sorry about your mom.”
She’d spent a lot of time thinking about mothers.
Her own was long gone, taken by a tumor they hadn’t caught in time.
Isobel had been young, Eva younger still.
Their mother hadn’t been there for most of their milestones, but she still held a place of reverence in their home.
Their love was a harvest of memories and warmth.
Arthur’s relationship with his own mother hadn’t been like that. The love between him and Charlotte—if you could call it love—had more closely resembled a variant of orchard blight.
Isobel wanted to tell Arthur that Lottie had been proud of him, but she was a little afraid that the words would stick on her tongue.
Sometimes polite words were more empty than kind.
And maybe the threat of their neighbors appearing at any moment had put into her mind all the lies she’d upheld with a smile, or maybe she was just sick of false platitudes, because in that moment, all she wanted was to give Arthur something real.
So instead, she said, “I missed you, you know.”
Arthur’s eyes widened. “Oh.” His jaw worked. “I… um…”
“You don’t have to say it back, Fairy.”
The door to the cottage shut, and two figures appeared at the top of the hill. One giant. One small.
Isobel waved.
Though her stepfather and sister were complete physical opposites, they still somehow managed to move through the world in the exact same way.
Firm steps, searching eyes, fingers trailing through the field of swaying purple coneflowers.
Eva wore her favorite cornflower-blue overalls, wildflowers embroidered into the pockets with colorful thread.
They had belonged to their mother once. When Eva grew into them, the overalls had become her armor.
Where Dad’s expression was open, however, her sister’s face was screwed into a glower. By the way Eva fixed her gaze on Arthur, one would have thought she truly believed she could burn a hole in the back of his head.
Isobel sighed. That was a mess she couldn’t clean up.
“Stick around for a bit, after, won’t you?
” she said to Arthur. Maybe it was selfish to ask, with him still obviously grieving, but Isobel had a hunch that if she didn’t say something, he might just bolt again, now that the tire was fixed.
She knew how sticky it was to graft in family members like cuts of scion wood.
She’d done it with Dad, when he had married her mother. She’d done it again with Arthur.
She could be a little selfish. Despite the tension sitting heavy in the air, despite his years of distance, Arthur was still theirs.
After a moment’s hesitation, Arthur nodded.
Isobel’s shoulders dropped in relief. “Talk later, then,” she said. At the very least, he wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye this time.
A breeze moved through the orchard, making the leaves on the pear trees dance.
In another month or so, the golden turn of the seasons would spice the air with the sweet-sick tang of mulch.
As a girl, that had meant bottling jam and quilt nights with the old ladies from her mother’s book club.
Later, the smell would remind Isobel of the night Dane Walker had married her best friend under a sea of sparkling stars.
When Dad and Eva reached the hive boxes where Isobel and Arthur stood, Dad held out a rose.
Eva bristled, twirling the end of her shirt around her finger so tight it had to be cutting off circulation.
Her younger sister had never been good at hiding her feelings.
When Arthur hesitated, however, his gaze sliding from the honeyman to his youngest daughter, Eva’s patience snapped. “Just take it,” she muttered.
As though pulled by a string, Arthur lurched to obey. Isobel clocked the movement, tucking that morsel away in the back of her head.
Still magnets, then.
Eva’s grim expression grew ever more sour as the rose desiccated in Arthur’s hand.
Dad, however, ignored his youngest’s mood, taking his glasses off to wipe the lenses clean on his shirt before replacing them on the bridge of his nose.
He cut a striking figure against the azure sky, chalk-pale branches twisting out of him like some eldritch sacrifice.
It sent a chill down Isobel’s spine. “Ready?” he asked.
Arthur unwound the ribbon from around his palm. “What do I do?”
“Tie it around the hive box,” Dad said.
Arthur knelt in the grass and did as instructed. Even from here, Isobel could see his hands were shaking as he cinched the knot. The bow sagged limply against the wood.
Arthur looked up. “Now what?”
For just a moment, the clear expression on Dad’s face clouded. There was so much buried in that look. If the town gossips were to be believed, her father’s history with Lottie Connoway had been… complex, at best. Dad hadn’t told her much, but Isobel remembered the whispers.
Dad cleared his throat. “Do you have anything to say to her?”
A war of emotions flickered across Arthur’s face, but he only shook his head. Dad took a knee beside him. “I know how hard it is to miss her,” Dad said. “I’ve been doing it a long time.”
Arthur’s back was ramrod straight. He nodded tightly and unhooked the latch on the box’s lid. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Telling the bees was an old tradition rife with superstition. If you didn’t tell the hives when one of their keepers died, you tempted Fate to curse you with a bad crop, a hive box full of wax moths, or worse—
Another death.
Isobel didn’t put much stock in all that, but she did know the power of grief.
Isobel’s lips curled into a smile as she studied the fading designs on the hive box. Dad had built them from scratch, and together, they’d painted the boxes white, with little blue flowers detailing the sides. Forget-me-nots. Her mother’s contribution, painted with a shaky hand.
Her smile faded. That was one of the last memories Isobel had before they told her that her mother was sick.
“For the bees to guide her soul, first you tell them she is gone,” Dad said to Arthur. “It lets them grieve with us.”
Arthur’s mouth tightened at the corners, but otherwise he did not move a muscle.
Dad went on. “After that, you can sprinkle her ashes. Set her free.”
Arthur shut his eyes tight, nails digging into the wood of the ash box. “Why don’t you just do it?” he muttered.
“What?” Dad asked, surprised.
“She would have wanted it to be you, anyway.”
A beat of heavy silence weighed down the space between them. Isobel watched her father, holding her breath. Dad shook his head. “No,” he said. “It has to be you, Arthur.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“She needs you,” Dad repeated. He held Arthur’s gaze. “Whenever you’re ready.”