Where The Bee Sucks

by William Stafford

  Harry looked up. His top hat was floating in the air a couple of feet above his head. He stretched up to snatch it back but it danced out of his reach. The hat sailed up the street and came to a halt a few doors up.

  Harry turned a sickly grin to his group. “The next stop, ladies and gentleman.”

  He hurried towards the hat, which dropped onto his head. Some of the tourists applauded this unexpected bit of street magic. Truth be told, the young man’s conjuring was better than his storytelling.

  “Even in the nineteenth century, people were still afraid of witches in their midst. One old woman by the name of Jane Ward, fell afoul of public paranoia when she -”

  But the tourists weren’t listening. They were huddled together and emitting yelps as invisible hands pinched and prodded them.

  “What the hell is that?” the American bellowed. “How the hell are you doing that, son? Ow!” He flinched as unseen fingers squeezed his cheek.

  Harry was as baffled as they were. All of a sudden the commotion ceased. Harry considered resuming his story of the old witch woman but then the American’s wife screamed.

  “I smelt it!” she grabbed Harry’s hand. “I smelt the bad breath of the axeman! Right there, behind my ear.”

  “Now, honey,” her husband said in a patronising tone, “you know I had garlic mushrooms for lunch.”

  “I know what I smelt, Murray!” she snapped. She pleaded with Harry. “Please tell me it was just a trick.”

  “Well, I -“

  “Tell me!” Harry could feel her fingernails through the wool of his glove.

  “Sometimes, madam, the mind is susceptible to -”

  Gasps and cries from the others cut him short. A window in the upper storey of the building was the focus of their terror. A glowing apparition was waving at them, the figure of a little girl. She looked delighted to see them. She coiled her intestines in her hand and waved them too.

  One woman fainted. The little girl vanished.

  “I think you’ve gone too far, son,” the American shook his head but didn’t stoop to assist the woman.

  “Behind you!” another woman cried out. Harry spun around and then flattened himself against the wall. The glowing shape of a man in Medieval shirt and breeches was lumbering towards the group, emerging from the door rather than through it. In one hand he carried a bloodied sack; in the other, an axe gleamed, clean as a new pin.

  The group backed away, stepping off the kerb and into the street. A passing taxi honked angrily, startling them. The tourists split up and ran off in different directions. The American, pulling his wife and daughter along with him, cast back over his shoulder, “You’re a fucking menace, you know that?”

  Harry was alone. The axe man had disappeared along with his tourists. Harry steadied himself against a windowsill.

  “Did I not do well, Master?”

  Harry looked up. Ariel was there, grinning proudly.

  “What?”

  Ariel’s face changed to the little girl’s and then he grew in stature to form the shape of the axe man. “I heard your stories, Master, and thought I would help you in the telling.”

  “That was - that was all you?”

  “Ta-dah!”

  Harry slumped against the wall. Ariel was puzzled.

  “Did you not appreciate my efforts, Master?”

  “Stop calling me Master!”

  “Apologies, Master.”

  “Fuck’s sake!”

  Harry walked away. Ariel skipped alongside him.

  “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

  “But I did, Master; for the whole afternoon.”

  “Cheers. Now piss off again.”

  “I do not piss, Master. Although I can command water.”

  “Then command water off then!”

  “You are displeased, Master.”

  “Stop calling me Master!”

  “Sorry, Master.”

  And so it went on, all the way back to Harry’s house. Harry went directly to bed, without changing out of his costume or taking off his make-up. He thrust his head under a pillow and hoped and hoped the madness would go away.

  ***

  Hank Brownlow headed out of the library and into the night. The police on door duty let him through, lifting yellow tape over his head. As he crossed the paved area he passed the amphitheatre into which Banner had crash-landed. It was masked off by police hoardings that gleamed in the blue flicker of an ambulance. The cops were satisfied the old man had murdered the attendant and ransacked the room. Everyone else was free to go.

  “Mr Brownlow, wait!” A voice and running footsteps behind him. Brownlow turned, half-expecting an autograph hunter; you had to be ready to face your fans at any time of the day in his line of work. It was the security guard from the roof.

  “Hello,” said Brownlow, wondering where this would lead.

  “Bad business,” the guard made a gesture that took in the roof and the covered pit and everything around them in one economic move.

  “Sure is,” said Brownlow. He took out a pack of cigarettes. The guard shook his head. Brownlow lit up - he wasn’t a habitual smoker but sometimes it served to fend off unwanted attention. The security guard showed no signs of disapproval. If he proved troublesome, Brownlow would direct his exhalations directly in the guy’s face.

  “What’s your theory, do you think?”

  “Theory?”

  “What was he after, in the Shakespeare room?”

  “Fucked if I know,” Brownlow lied. He took a huge drag, preparing to blow smoke in a more literal manner.

  “I suppose they’ll go through their inventory to find out what’s missing...”

  “I guess so. Or, they could just search the body. What’s left of him.”

  The security man nodded.

  An idea flicked into life like Brownlow’s cigarette lighter. Search the body... The other pieces of the staff would still be in the bastard’s pockets!

  Brownlow dropped his cigarette and stamped on it. He patted the security guard on the shoulder.

  “Good man! Thank you for your help.” He strode away, disappearing from the security man’s line of sight around the far side of the ambulance.

  The security man chuckled. It had worked. The interfering American was off chasing wild geese and that should keep him distracted for a while. He would find no pieces on the old man’s corpse, if he ever managed to gain access to it. The old man had had sense enough to stash those pieces away safely long before he entered the library. Now it was a matter of the security man opening the locker and retrieving them -

  Oh, the red plague take me for a fool! The being inside the security man guessed the key to the locker was in the old man’s trouser pocket! He was no better off than the American - No! He was worse off than the American. The American was a step ahead and closer to the old man’s trousers and the key they contained.

  The security man chewed his dry lip. What to do? Follow the American and eliminate him? Offer the American assistance and then double-cross him? Or perhaps he should make another transfer and assume the American for himself?

  Thirst drove him back indoors to the vending machines in the foyer. The police, seeing his uniform, let him back in without question. He bought two bottles of water and gulped them down.

  Instantly, his thoughts became clearer. He was a security guard, after all, employed by the Library. He should have no problem in getting a master key or something to open the locker. It would be the work of minutes.

  Feeling better, the security guard headed towards the lockers - but which ones? There were banks of them on every floor for public use. Which one had the old man used? He searched his memory - but it was the security guard’s memory not the old man’s.

  Curse it! H
e would have to work his way through the bloody lot. From the ground floor up. There were still too many people milling around on the top floor for comfort. Curse the limitations of the human form! Had he his mother’s powers - or better still, his father’s! - nothing would stand in his way.

  Curse everything!

  ***

  The Group had assembled yet again. The lettings agent had, as instructed, replaced the candles and doubled their number but anonymity was still preserved by the heavy hoods and the fact that the members didn’t have to say anything.

  When they were all settled, one of them stood up. He held a roll of paper which he attempted to unfurl but the sleeves of his robe kept getting in the way. After several tries, he rolled up his sleeves and showed the scroll who was boss.

  “Brothers and indeed sisters,” he spoke in the voice of one accustomed to public speaking. It was a nice voice, the other members considered. The kind you’d like to read an audio book of your favourite novel to you until you fell asleep. “I bring word of our mission. I bring word of our purpose and word of our identity.”

  It was an impressive start. The Group sat up straight and cocked their cowled heads to show they were listening.

  “We are to be known as the Sons of Setebos,” the speaker continued. A couple of the Group cleared feminine throats. “And daughters, too, obviously. Goes without saying.”

  The throat-clearers’ heads dipped in nods. They wanted it said.

  Someone else raised a hand. The sleeve of his robe slipped down, revealing a hairy forearm. “Excuse me. Doesn’t that make us the S.S.? Is that the kind of association we want to make?”

  The speaker turned his hooded face in the direction of the raised hand. “Don’t forget the ‘of’! We’re the Sons OF Setebos.”

  “So, S.O.S. then?” The hand went down. “Sounds like a distress call.”

  “And, excuse me,” another hand went up,” is that how we say it? With the emphasis on the ‘of’?”

  “And what about the daughters?” said one of the women.

  “All right, all right!” the one with the scroll snapped. “We shall be S.A.D.O.S. Bloody hell.”

  “Saddoes?”

  The speaker threw up his hands, scroll and all. “Never mind all that. We’re a secret society. No one outside these walls is to ever hear of us or what we call ourselves.”

  A moment of silence elapsed.

  A tentative hand went up.

  “Then how will they know we’ve done what we’re going to do? How will they know it’s us?”

  The speaker’s hand disappeared under his cowl as he ran his palm over his face in dismay. “Give me strength,” he muttered.

  He unrolled the scroll and displayed it to the circle. In the centre was a design, a black silhouette, a stylised representation of an octopus with a large, bulbous head like a light bulb and truncated tentacles, curled like talons.

  “Behold!” the speaker announced. “The sign of Setebos!”

  Oohs and ahhs emerged from several hoods.

  “We stamp this little beauty on things so that the world will know.”

  “What things?” someone asked. “Like letterheads, do you mean?”

  “Well... not as such. But if we send a list of our demands, then we could sign off with this at the bottom.”

  “Looks hard to draw.”

  “I’ve ordered a rubber stamp.”

  More oohs and ahhs. The prospect of a rubber stamp made the entire enterprise seem more credible.

  The speaker walked slowly around the inside of the circle so that everyone could get a closer look at the sigil.

  “Um, that’s all very nice,” one member ventured to state, “But you haven’t told us yet what our purpose is.”

  “I was getting to that; bloody hell.” The speaker rolled up the scroll and used it as a baton to add emphasis to his gestures. “Bring your chairs in closer, lads - and lasses - and listen very, very carefully...”

  Ten.

  Harry groaned from beneath the duvet. His hand reached out to grab the mobile phone that had woke him up. He fumbled with it and uttered muffled oaths until he could shut off the music.

  He pushed back the bedclothes and sat up.

  “Good morning, Master,” beamed the weirdo from the foot of the bed. “What unusual music the spirits around here make!”

  “What the fuck are you on about?”

  Ariel nodded towards the phone in Harry’s fist. “If you wanted an alarm call, I could always sing to you, Master. I have a sweet and mellifluous voice, if I might be permitted to sing my own praises.”

  He placed a hand to his chest and began to sing, something about shaking off slumber - Harry was more taken by the tone of the weirdo’s weird voice. It was like birds. It was like birds playing flutes and running wet fingers around the rims of wine glasses, and a whadyacallit, a Theremin, making unearthly whoops and whistles beneath the words. It was beautiful.

  “Um, thanks,” Harry swung his feet to the floor, waving at the weirdo to be quiet. He saw he was still in his ghost walk costume from the night before. Which led him to remember everything else. He stood up and waved an angry finger. “You - you lost me my job last night! Will you stop the fucking warbling and listen to me? No; better yet: get out! Get out of my room, get out of my house, get out of town, and get out of my life!”

  Ariel paused mid-note. His large eyes blinked.

  “Master is displeased with me.”

  “Master is going to kick the shit out of you if you don’t stop with this ‘master’ shit.”

  “I do not shit, Master, therefore -”

  They were both surprised by the ringing of the mobile phone. Harry dropped it on the bed. It continued to blare out the theme from Psycho and Mary’s name flashed on the screen. Harry fumbled to pick it up and answer.

  “Hello?” he listened. Ariel watched him listen and saw Harry’s expression change from one of timid apology to amazement and incredulity. “Yes, yes,” he assured his employer. “I’ll be sure to. Thanks. Bye.”

  He hung up and dropped the phone on the bed. Ariel watched it bounce.

  “That was work,” Harry gestured at the phone, “not some spirits of the air as you seem to think. Apparently, the ghost tour was wildly successful last night. Mary - my boss - has had a load of comments this morning from last night’s participants, along with the cleaning bill for a pair of Bermuda shorts. She’s taking me off the Shakespeare tours and putting me on Ghosts permanently. Do you know what this means?”

  “You can go back to bed, Master?”

  “Yes - no! Well, I could if I wanted to, I suppose. No, the point is, whatever you did last night with the -” he mimed the girl with her guts hanging out, “and the -” he mimed the axe man lumbering along the street, “you’d better do it tonight as well, or I’ll be for the chop.”

  Ariel chuckled. It was like rain falling on sleigh bells. “Very good, master: you know, axe man...for the chop...”

  “But first, my fine freaky friend, you’re going to sit right there and tell me exactly who or what you are!”

  Harry pointed at the bed. Ariel obliged him by sitting cross-legged at the centre of the mattress. Harry tipped some clothes off a chair and placed it so he could sit face-to-face with this weirdest of weirdoes.

  “Begin at the beginning. Please.”

  “There was an almighty bang and all matter was formed. After millennia, dust particles coalesced to form the planets and one of those planets is this one and -”

  Harry waved him down. “Perhaps you could skip ahead a little bit. I just want to know who you are.”

  Ariel blinked. “I am Ariel.”

  “And... If it’s not too delicate a question - fuck it; even if it is a delicate question - what are you, Ariel?”

&nbs
p; Ariel giggled his wind chime laughter. “I am a tricksy spirit. Is that not so, Master?”

  “But what does that even mean?” Harry cried. He put his face in his hands. He was getting nowhere.

  Something bumped against the back of his hands. He glanced up to find his tattered copy of The Tempest hovering in front of him. Ariel nodded in encouragement.

  “It’s all in there, Master. You wrote a play, remember, so I would never be forgotten.”

  “Oh, not this again!” Harry snatched the book from the air. “I didn’t write this. Just because you first met me with a false beard and a Shakespeare suit on doesn’t mean I am a man who has been dead for four hundred years. Jeez.”

  Ariel smiled. It was as though he hadn’t heard. Harry felt like throwing the book at him, in a decidedly non-figurative sense but he stopped himself. An idea occurred to him. He flicked through the pages until he found the introduction. He read.

  “Edited and introduced by Auberon Cheese.”

  Of course! If there was anyone who would know about this shit, it was the Big Cheese himself.

  He tossed the book onto the bed.

  “I’m going to have a shower,” he told the spirit. “Don’t you move.”

  “I shan’t peek, Master,” Ariel laughed. “Although I could get you washed and dressed in the twinkling of an eye.”

  “No, thanks,” Harry snatched some clean socks and underwear from a drawer, “I’ll stick with the old-fashioned way for now.”

  He headed towards the bathroom. Alicia nipped in just ahead of him.

  “Morning, Harry. Sorry, Harry,” she said, slamming the door in his face.

  “Witch,” Harry scowled. He crossed his arms and leant against the wall to wait. Just in case Olly tried to get in next.

  A minute later the bathroom was full of screams, high, piercing screams. Alicia yanked the door open and burst out, wrapped in towels and swatting at the air. She ran into Olly’s room, bouncing off the walls and door jambs as she went. Harry looked into the bathroom with trepidation. Apart from a little steam in the air and condensation on the shower cubicle, he could see nothing that would set Alicia off like that.