Caretaker by R.J. Halbert

Author:R.J. Halbert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eald Talu House
Published: 2024-03-28T20:14:32+00:00

Twenty-One

When the two of them arrived back at the house, it was eerily silent. Vegetables that had been abandoned remained on the countertop, drawers were open from searching for the keys. It all looked the same minus a few remnants from the commotion of the night before, but it wasn’t the same. Not at all. Ian stood at the bottom of the steps still processing how close they’d come to losing Zach.

“Dad, come look at this.”

Ariel had rushed up to her room to start packing and was standing outside Zach’s room. Ian practically ran up the stairs to join her, fearing that it was happening all over again.

They stood in the doorway to Zach’s room staring. Ian gently placed his arm around Ariel. Together they silently soaked in the magnitude of what had happened the night before.

“Dad, how? Where did the bees come from?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense.”

The hole in the wall remained. The carpet was littered with plaster and dust. Just beyond the hole was the now empty space that was once home to the hive. While the medics worked on Zach, the firefighters cleared out the hive to make sure the bees wouldn’t return.

Would they return? Ian wondered. He shivered involuntarily.

“Ariel, you pack. I’m going to go find Marshall.”

On the drive home, Ian had told her that he planned to find Marshall to see if he could help them understand what was going on. He wanted to understand why so many families had come and gone from Farr Hill. There were too many strange things happening to his family, too many disparate pieces of a puzzle he couldn’t piece together. And he didn’t like the story those pieces were telling. Marshall must have some answers.

Ian pressed her to remember exactly where she and Zach had gone when they discovered the shack. He asked her to make a map of whatever she could remember. She worked on that while he gathered travel bags from the large closet in the hallway.

“Here you go.” She handed him a crude map. “It’s the best I can do. The details are a bit foggy.” She laughed an awkward laugh. “Foggy, like the woods.”

Ian gave her a hug. “I’m sure this will help.”

She handed him the map and went back to packing. As he went down the stairs, he heard her call out, “Be careful, Dad!”

Studying the map in his hands, he didn’t look up as he stepped into the back yard. When he finally felt like he had a sense of which way to go, he looked up and noticed smoke hovering over the fire pit. He went over to investigate the smoke. This must have been how they destroyed the hive, he thought to himself. But why would firefighters leave a fire pit burning?

As he stood there looking at the pit, he asked himself for the hundredth time, How did a beehive get in the wall? It made absolutely no sense. Very little over the last several days made sense.

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