Spiderwork (5 page)

He finally told Char it was the children clause that bothered him. Two natural born children which a chalice would provide. It was sweet, really. Jake didn't want to have children with someone else.

"I love you, Char." Again, he had asked her to marry him. "I want a family with you, not some
breeder."

"That's a harsh word." Char had taken Durga and Magda's side. "The chalices serve humanity by Asherah's command. We have no say in this. And you couldn't even have baggers with me. The hospital that stored my eggs was destroyed in the fire. We can't go against the gods' laws."

It had been so strange to hear those words coming out of
her own
mouth.
We can't go against the gods' laws.
Positively medieval.

Garrick, of all things, spurred Jake to action. The city offered to provide one of its scions to do the honors. Jake couldn't stand the thought of Garrick enjoying and corrupting all he'd built. With that possibility looming and Char taking Sanguibahd's part, he accepted.

But Char couldn't marry him, not yet. Not until she was sure. If Jake did fall in love with his chalice, she wouldn't be able to bear it.

"Faina isn't in our way, Jake. I'm in our way."

"You once asked me to ignore what happened with you and Mike."

"That was just a kiss. And it was an accident!"

"As you said. Plus you shoved him out an airlock, so I've always been pretty much convinced you didn't like him all that much."

"I can't believe you would bring up Mike."

"I'm just giving an example of how a person might have an interaction with another person, but it doesn't mean a person is in love with a person. It doesn't mean I took any pleasure in it."

"I can't believe you would bring up Mike, is all."

"I can't very well throw Faina out an airlock."

"And you're telling me you had sex with someone as lovely and sweet as Faina and you took no pleasure in it?"

Jake's face went all screwy. Ha! He couldn't deny it.

"Bees. Boom."

What the shib?
Both their heads jerked toward the clearing. The horses were undisturbed, still poking around looking for goodies in the undergrowth. Char and Jake remained still for minutes, but she didn't see anything unusual.

It had definitely been a human voice…hadn't it? She whispered, "Did you hear that?" Jake put a finger to his lips then pointed.

About thirty feet away behind a clump of birch trees, a ghost was staring at them.

The ghost was a girl, nearly as thin as the birch trunks she stood behind. With her bald head and filthy face, no wonder she'd been so hard to spot. She blended right in.

"Bees," she said again. "Boom." The words came out haltingly, and she held her hands up, palms forward, and pushed them toward Char and Jake like she was trying to make them go away.

"Hello," Jake said.

"Don't scare her," Char said.

"Scare
her
? She's the one sneaking up on people."

The ghost pushed her hands at them again, but she didn't run away when they moved toward her. When they reached the birch trees, she pushed her hands a few more times and mouthed the word
boom.

She was older than Char had first thought. Not a girl. A young woman, somewhere between twenty and twenty-five. It was hard to tell with ghosts.

She dashed away from them. She had no shoes, but her clothes were in suspiciously good shape. A long-sleeve hemp shirt, far too big on her skeletal frame, and coveralls equally huge. Dirty, but no holes or rips. In a flash she crossed the clearing and disappeared.

"Where did she go?" Char said. The horses both stared at the spot where the woman had vanished into the foliage.

"If we chase her, we'll lose her," Jake said. "It took me a week to get the ghost woman who makes the cage nets to come in. After three months, I still don't know her name."

The ghost popped back into the clearing. "Bees!" Her expression was a mix of alarm and exasperation. "Boom!" Again with the pushing hands.

"Do you want us to come with you?" Char said.

She tilted her head and crossed her eyes as if to say
well, obviously
and waited for them. As soon as they caught up to her she was off again through the brush. No one had been here since -- well, forever, it seemed. The ground was covered with undergrowth, and the bushes were so thick Char's arms were soon all scratched up.

"Please don't let this be poison oak."

"Great shibbing gods." Jake stopped dead in his tracks and Char bounced off his back. The ghost had led them to another clearing. Bigger, maybe two acres.

The air was electric with a droning, humming buzz.

"This can't be." Char stepped into the clearing, dazed. "They were lost before I was born, wiped out by neonicotinoid insecticides. Everywhere. I mean everywhere in the world. No one has seen them since."

Honeybees!

The clearing was covered with little mounds of dirt, neat row upon row of them. Atop each mound was a nest-like hive made of mud and twigs and leaves. There had to be thousands of hives.

"It's a miracle," Char said. "Where did you … how did you come by these bees?"

"Hair lady." The ghosts eyes widened and she pointed at Char's hair.

"It
is
a miracle, Jake. I think Asherah must have chosen this … this ghost to watch over a miracle." The gods did work in mysterious ways. This god did, at any rate. "Bees!"

"Bees! Boom!" The ghost pointed at the sky.

Of course. "It's the plane. Garrick's
shibdung
jet. The noise frightened the bees."

"Not to mention the exhaust," Jake said. "Who knows how delicate these bees are."

"Think of it. Pollination. Honey.
Beeswax.
This has to be Asherah's doing. She will be delighted."

"Bees boom no!"

"Bees boom no," Jake said. "But we can't ask Garrick to change course going home without an explanation." He studied the ghost and eyed her semi-decent clothes. "From my limited experience bringing in ghosts, I'd say you've been watching us. Maybe you've come down to the citadel a time or two. Picked up a few things you needed. You've decided we're safe, or you wouldn't have let us see you."

The ghost didn't deny it. She looked pointedly at Char's hair. But how could she deny anything if the only words she knew were bees, boom, and no?
 

"We're going to help you with your bees," Jake said, "but first I want you to help me with something." He crouched down on the ground and looked up at her. Brilliant. Not so intimidating. "Do you remember your name?"

She tilted her head again and assumed a coquettish look that completely clashed with her skeletal frame and dirty face—and her body odor. But it was clear. She remembered her name. Char and Jake waited.

The bees buzzed.

And they waited some more.

"Alice."

"Alice," Jake said. The ghost broke out in a smile so big Char wanted to cry. How long had it been since the poor thing heard someone speak her name?

"
Fifo
died," Alice said.

"Yes," Char said.
Fifo
. Probably a pet or a loved one. "I'm so sorry. My sister died." It was the first time she'd said it aloud. Her throat constricted and tears welled in her eyes. "Oh!" She couldn't hold back the tears.

"Sad," Alice said. "Sad." She put her arms around Char. Cripes, she smelled awful. Char hugged her back, and they both shook with violent sobs. Jake stood up and put his arms around them.

When they'd cried everything out, Jake said, "Alice, we need to get you and the bees to a safe place. A place with no boom. Out of the rain. Away from raptors."

Alice nodded. "No boom."

"No boom," Jake said. "I want you to come with us back to the citadel. As soon as it's safe, we'll take the bees to a place where you can take care of them with no rain, no raptors, and no boom."

"And you can have a warm bath," Char said. "With bubbles."

The skin where Alice would have eyebrows scrunched. Char grimaced at Jake, thinking she'd ruined it with the bath suggestion.

Alice nodded. "Bees no boom. Bath."

"Outstanding," Jake said. "Just outstanding."

He was thrilled that he'd saved a ghost and learned her name. He had no idea that he was about to become one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. But Char was a hydroponics agronomist, and she knew. Asherah had given them a treasure infinitely more precious than Garrick's oil or Luxor's gold.

Jake and Char started back to the horses, but Alice yelled, "Wait!" She ran away down a row of mud hives and disappeared into some trees.

"I guess we wait," Jake said.

Ten minutes later, Alice was back, carrying a bush that was all sticks covered with hard woody buds. "My goodness," Char said. "A lilac. A real lilac bush. Alice, you're amazing!"

Alice smiled. "Flower."

When they got back to the picnic blanket, Char tore off her camisole. Clouds were building up again, and in the chill breeze she grabbed her jacket and put it on over her bra. She dug up some dirt and packed it around the lilac roots, then wrapped that with her camisole.

Jake put Alice in front of him on his horse, and Char handed her the lilac. "At the citadel you can choose where to plant this."

Alice was a ghost, no question. In the bath, she barely displaced the water. As if she knew what she had to do to come back, Alice listened and repeated words she seemed to like. Bubbles. Warm. Bees.

Bees.
Let's hope Alice went light on that word until the bees were secure. Char left Alice to her bath.

"I'm not sleeping." Jake jumped up from the sofa and ran his hands through his hair. "So Alice must be a high-performing ghost. She said more words today than cage net woman said in a month."

Char walked Jake to the door. "I wonder if having the bees to care for made the difference."

"It makes all the difference." Jake touched her cheek. "Caring for someone." He enveloped her in a bear hug. There were tears in his eyes, and he laughed. "Ah, Meadowlark. Something about Alice and her bees gives me faith in humanity. It's a strange feeling."

Char kissed him and pressed against him in the open doorway, wishing he didn't have to put in an appearance with the early arrivals. She was in the middle of saying something like
mm-mm
when she realized someone was out there.

A young girl wearing the white shift and brown tunic of a Samaeli priest stood transfixed in the corridor not five feet from Char's door. Trancelike, she swayed, her eyes closed. She seemed familiar, but Char was confused by the priest garb. Jake rushed to steady her. The girl's face went white, and she fell backwards against the wall. Her eyes opened.

Char gasped. The girl was a chalice, gone missing from Corcovado months ago. She glanced from Char to Jake with a mix of nausea and triumph. An icy shiver ran down Char's spine.

"Maribel?" Jake recognized her too.

"It's Mother Maribel."

Right. The Samaeli called their female priests mother. What was she, sixteen?

Maribel was one of the original nine chalices Jake had rescued from orbit at the outbreak of the DOG war. She had been a sensitive and tender little girl and highly adept in all the ways of a chalice, especially trance work.

"You look fit, Maribel," Char said. "We've all been so worried about you." Maribel had always been precocious, the first to master any new technique. She undertook her first gestation at fifteen, against Durga's wishes, and it went badly. "How is it that you are here?"

"I am advisor to Garrick. As you see, I am under Samael's protection."

 
Char forced her mind past the illogic of a chalice turned any kind of Samaeli, whether priest or mere follower. That was confusing and tragic enough.

But advisor to Garrick?

"How old are you now, sixteen?"