“Oh, shit!” I said. I ran into the kitchen with the men and we kept running out into the side yard, and well away from the house. I kept my eyes on the door, but the swarm didn’t follow us outside.
“Where’s Junior? He needs to handle this.”I shook my hand in the direction of the bees.
Egg shrugged and looked away. Great.
I walked back in the kitchen-side door to the house. The buzzing had died down. I ventured into the kitchen. No bees. I sucked in a fortifying breath and searched for the courageous Katie that Emily had just accused me of being, and I poked my head in the great room. Only half a dozen bees still stormed the room outside the chimney. I stepped cautiously into the center of the room, searching for a solution. A humming started again and I tensed, ready to flee, but this time it wasn’t coming from the chimney. It was coming from everywhere—under my feet, from the walls, from the ceiling. Egg appeared at the doorway with two other young men.
“You hear that? You feel that?” Egg asked.
I didn’t bother answering. I was worried about my friend. “Emily?” I yelled. “Emily?” No answer.
“You need to come outta there, miss,” Egg said. “We getting out of here, you come now.”
Yes, I thought. I need to get the hell out. But I stayed rooted in place. I watched, entranced, as Egg disappeared from the doorway. I heard the heavy footsteps of the men as they ran for the exits. The vibrations of the hum were massaging my face.
I wasn’t scared. Somehow, suddenly, I knew not to be scared.
Behind me I heard a whoosh, then a roar. I turned toward the sound in slow motion with the walls blurring, my hair lifting and swirling, and saw that the sound was a fire. Flames were consuming the interior of the fireplace and licking outward over the hearth. Now I heard the buzzing again, frantic and loud over the crackle of flame, but no bees swarmed the room.
That’s when I saw her.
She was so beautiful. Younger even than I’d thought, maybe not even twenty years old, and as tall as me. Her black eyes burned into mine. She wore her hair in twin cornrows that circled her head like a crown. Her dark oval face was devoid of all expression. She licked her lips, and her tongue was the color of a bing cherry. Without breaking eye contact with me, she tossed another piece of wood onto the fire, the waist of her blousy white shirt lifting with the movement, then she turned on her bare feet with her full skirt swishing around her calves and walked slowly out of the great room. I lost sight of her as she passed behind the wall to the vast entryway. I craned for one more glimpse. I had a perfect view of the path from the fireplace to the front door past the dining room, but I saw nothing but the solid walls of my house.
“Miss?” I called out. “Miss? Where’d you go?”
I ran after her across the concrete floor, thinking maybe she’d passed through the high-ceilinged entryway and into the study. I looked inside. It was empty except for the gungalos on the floor. She had vanished.
I leaned against the concrete wall with my hand on my throat, looking out the broken study window. The inside of my mouth tasted like ash.