We've officially entered the holiday season! I'm wearing my Christmas vest and Bella has her lovely Mrs. Claws dress! (Thus so titled by my sister Tiff.)
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| Mrs. Claws and her tree! |
Chapter 4: In the House of the Beekeeper
The
rambling rumors from the town’s spy and the messy mire between the Davis’ and
the Thomas’ could not enter the garden of the beekeeper. It was a sacred place.
During the warm spring and summer months a persistent gentle hum lulled its way
out from the manmade beehive that stood among the large drove of flowers. It
could easily be argued that these bees lived within their very own Eden. This
garden was their paradise. Every shade of flowers bloomed within the lining of the
hip-high white picket fence. This garden that led to the entrance of a warm and
welcoming home hosted verbenas, daffodils, lemongrass, daisies, rosemary, roses
of several hues, the list went on and on. The scents were lively and refreshing
to the humans who strolled past. To the bees, this garden was a delectable
café. The honey the beekeeper graciously retrieved from their keep was sweet
and thick, golden and appeasing. It was this honey alone that was sold in the
local shops, for all of Providence was in agreement that these bees were the
best.
The lauded bees would, however, be naught without their blessed keeper who kept their paradise alive. This man tended to his garden with great
care and reverence. For the most part his thoughts would clear as he shifted
the moist soil between his fingers and as he listened to the soft humming of
the bees. He would spend hours during the week pruning the bright yellow roses,
watering the damask daisies, or turning the soil beneath the legumes while his
bees merrily worked around him. In his lengthy career of rearing fauna and her
helpers, he had never once been stung by his black and yellow comrades. They
respected him because he respected them. There was an understanding between the
bees and the beekeeper that most mortals and creatures in the world around them
could not have established, but this man was different from most. He was an
aritoire, a spirit with an inherent sense of nature and its whims. There were
times when he could almost directly communicate with the trees in the forest
and the birds above. Being an aritoire provide him no powers or prominence.
Instead it gave him insight into the weight of a human’s soul and a deeper
understanding of the earth’s countless beautiful details.
There
were times when the beekeeper would catch himself humming along with the bees
as his thoughts strayed absently to the one flower more beautiful than any of
his own. It was during these moments when the beekeeper would catch himself,
sigh, and remind his heart to let it be.
For
the first time in many months, the eyes of the vampires saw the lovely,
blooming garden of the beekeeper settled nearly at the end of the western side
of town. Yet again the patron and the matron were taken aback by the beauty of
the magnificent hues. In the length of their lives they had hardly ever seen so
radiant a small field paired with so charming a house. The front of the house
with its faded yellow panels and white trim was certainly the most humble and
welcoming image coupled by the haunt of bees.
“The
garden looks beautiful, Thane,” Lin complimented the reverend.
Reverend
Tamrin smiled and blushed, beatified by such a compliment from such judges who
had seen the whole world over more than once. “Thank you,” the beekeeper humbly
said as he dismounted. “But its beauty is due mostly to the bees.” After a look
to the small pink painted house beside his own, the reverend added, “And to
Mrs. Keithly’s company, of course.” Mr. Tamrin added tipping the rim of his hat
to greet Mrs. Keithly, the seemingly mute widow who sat on her wooden rocking
chair all day. The sweet faced eldest member of town smiled merrily back at the
reverend as she silently continued to watch the day pass-by from her front
porch.
A
gentle breeze blew through the garden as Thane and his company proceeded to
enter his home. The reverend lingered at the door for a breath. One of his more
favored flowers managed to sift its way through the swirl of other floral
scents to touch his nose. The reverend deeply inhaled the scent of the
tuberoses, the flowers that a dear friend had shared with him to plant in his
garden. With one last look to the long, green shoots of the tuberoses planted
at the heart of his garden, the beekeeper sighed reverentially before entering
his home.
“Is
there anyone who helps to look after your neighbor, Thane?” Lin asked as she
took a seat on the soft padding of the couch across from the fireplace. “She is
what, in her late eighties now?” Lin stopped for a moment to consider if her
next comment would be appropriate or not, but what difference would it make if
it was not? “I mean, of course, she’s still just a pup compared to us, but she
is mortal.”
While
Thane removed his light outer jacket to hang it on the stand by the front door,
he answered, “Mrs. Keithly is still more than capable of looking after herself.
She is deceptively feeble. There is still a heart of gold in her and it’s
beating lively. I do keep an eye on her though, of course.” The reverend joined
his friends near the fireplace. He took a seat in his own wooden rocking chair,
so that he could look properly at both of his companions. “But admittedly more
to keep her out of trouble than anything else,” he added with a wink. “I take
her flowers, a vase full, every Wednesday morning and she gives me a plate of
biscuits or some other baked goods that she bakes herself. I act’ally would not
doubt it if she outlives us all.”
The
vampires smiled warmly, but neither could hold their attentions on the present
conversation while the issues they wished to address lay so heavily on their
thoughts. Howard pursed his lips then looked solemnly to Lin. She too wore a
similar expression of worry.
“So
what is the matter, you two?” Thane asked, cutting to the issue at hand.
Howard
answered as he played with the large, flat faced ring on his hand, “Thane, you
know Damien, our third?
“Of
course,” Thane answered with a shrug. Though it had been some time since he last
saw Damien, how could he forget the tall, pale skinned and generally eerie
presence of the first vampire he ever met? “What problems is he bringing now?”
The
history of Damien, Howard, and Lin was well known by the reverend. The three
vampires all came from different lands that stretched beyond all formed borders
of the earth. Howard was originally from the isle nation Ruishland in the
north, Lin from Tairwan in the east, and Damien was from the farthest habitable
lands in the Southern Half. Their vampire parents, those who removed them from
their mortal states, brought them to this land with the intention of building
their very own vampire nation. However, the elders who brought this clan
together held in their hearts wicked intentions to eventually dominate the
world in darkness. This was a task that Howard and Lin could not tolerate. A
battle of near Biblical proportions erupted among the vampires and somehow, the
youth overcame the elders. Lin, Howard, and Damien’s forces vanquished for the
good of the earth. Providence was built on the remnants of that ancient
battlefield where wolf, vampires and demons hashed out their brutal war.
Providence lies on a place where cärabadés, “victory for good,” was taken.
However, in the course of time intentions change. The reverend knew
that Damien had long since become much like an indolent, rebellious adolescent
for Howard and Lin.
Lin
sighed as she stared into the hearth where one log lay in wait for its fiery
doom. “He took our youth out for a flight the other night, which became only a
meter less than disastrous for our kind,” she answered quietly. “Had not the
majority of them remembered their lessons from you, Thane, I shudder to guess
the scope of what could have
happened.”
“What
did happen?” Thane inquired. It was
not often that Howard and Lin were so somber or ambiguous with their words and
demeanor, so surely some grave threat existed.
Howard
leaned over the coffee table before the couch as he explained; “Damien flew the
youths to Horoshone County in Viramont where he led a raid on a town there.
Many were disturbed and or killed because of his actions.” Howard paused a
moment to try to remember if Lin or himself ever explained the term “disturbed”
to the reverend, which meant that an individual was raped or viciously consumed
by a vampire. The deeply concerned expression on the reverend’s face told
Howard that the reverend had at least a general understanding. “We know this
happened because well, we have lived with Damien long enough to be able to detect
his antics when they are coming, so we sent our guards of arms to keep watch
and sure enough...”
“Damien
was practically waging war on those mortals with our youth as his army, no
less,” Lin further elaborated. “Had we not sent the Guards, I doubt that a
single soul in that town would have been spared. The place they attacked was
not that much different from your Providence, Thane.”
“Thank
God it was not Providence,” Thane quietly said, yet his heart went out to those
people in Viramont who did not deserve to die in such a way. “You know how
touchy people around here can be if you are different.” He knew what evils the
vampires were capable of performing, for they were not at all that much different
from the wickedest crimes of man. The reverend ran his hand over his face
before he asked, “Do you know what happened to the town? Surely the survivors will seek some sort of reprieve or revenge. What of Damien? Where is he? What happened to those who
followed his pugnaciousness?”
“The
town will be the easy part to sort out, comparatively,” Lin answered. “We’re
already preparing a diplomatic mission of sorts to address the needs of the
people, both financially and emotionally. Because Viramont is much friendlier to our sort, they’ll never know that our
peacekeepers are of the same clan as our mischief makers.”
“Now,
as for Damien,” Howard started coldly. The vampire matron and patron exchanged
a look that was less than a comfort for the reverend. “It’s complicated,”
Howard succinctly answered which also further verified to the reverend that
something was not right.
“And
this is why we wanted your council, Thane,” Lin informed, the twinge of
pleading fell heavily on her words and stared prominently from her shimmering
blue and black eyes. “We have the most violent offenders, including Damien, in
a chamber of our community that you have never before seen.”
“And
nor will you ever, Reverend,” Howard sternly said because he saw the flare of
curiosity bloom in the beekeeper’s light brown eyes. “It is not a place for souls as pure as yours.
Even with everything you have seen with us, there are still matters that I beg you will never be ready enough to
bear.”
“The
dark side of damnation,” Lin said reverentially, lightly biting the knuckle of
her index finger. “Do not desire to find it, Thane.”
“I
do not understand,” the reverend asked. “What else lies down there? What could you possibly be hiding from me
after everything that I have already seen?”
“Oh
no, not hiding,” Lin quickly corrected, not wanting to offend. “Sweet, innocent
reverend, you must understand – because of the evils our kind are inherently
drawn to unleashing, Howard and I must govern our youth and family with laws
not known to mortals. We must adhere to Vampire Codas if we are to maintain our
aristocracy and our relative secrecy successfully.”
“Combat
violence with violence in order to maintain our order and peace,” Howard
ruefully added, his grumbling words did not sit well with the reverend.
Thane
straightened himself in the rocking chair and as he nervously clung to the
rails of the seat he asked, “What council then could you need from a mortal
like me?” The reverend was used to the matron and the patron coming to him
every six months or so with a disaster of epic proportions to discuss with him,
but this event seemed dramatic even for them.
Howard
sighed then answered, “We realize how terrible our laws are, Reverend, which is
why we have come to you.”
“We
need your approval, in a sense,” Lin continued. “Ere we pursue justice.”
“You
have come to me for approval, but you leave me searching blindfolded for the
unknown,” the reverend responded. He was visibly frustrated with the ambiguity.
“I will pass no judgment upon such deeds that involve vampire law. That is not
my place; I have no jurisdiction or authority over such things. You know this.”
The reverend paused again. The room was becoming very warm. He loosened his
collar to alleviate some stress from the summer heat. With a sigh the reverend
continued calmly, “I cannot pass an interpretation of God’s will unless you
tell me as to what it is I am meant to interpret or deny approval.”
Though
the vampires wanted nothing more than to protect their Holy figure from as much
of their evil as they could, even if it was from themselves, they independently
and tacitly came to accept that they would have to utter what mortals were not
meant to hear.
Howard
stood from the couch to walk to the closest open window in the parlor. While he
busied himself closing the windows and the curtains, Lin explained, “You must
understand, Reverend, that we are telling you these things because you are our
reverend. We would never have told you these things as your friend. We never
intended you to know these portions of the Codas, which is why we never let you
read any of our documents.”
The
room darkened.
Howard
had closed out the sun from the room, pulling all the windows shut and all the
curtains over the glass. “You must never tell
another living soul about the conversation that is to come,” Howard firmly
instructed as he checked that the front door was locked, something that the
front aperture had never before experienced.
The
reverend was becoming rather unnerved, but his expression and demeanor hid his
anxiety well. As a man of the church, his ears were used to being singed by the
sins of others. Granted, in Providence there was little room for mischief among
the gossip, but his demeanor was still well practiced at concealing his true
feelings.
Lin
waited to speak until the part of the house where they gathered was held in a
muted light. The air in the living room already felt incredibly thick; the
reverend wondered if the bees ever felt this way in their wooden keeps. This
level of secrecy was not something unusual to the reverend with the vampires.
There was many a whispered confession or revelation he had received in his
years of knowing the Cärabadés. Some were monumental, others were more of light
entertainment, but this one certainly seemed of the former category.
Once
Howard resumed his seat on the couch, the dark conversation about how the deeds
done in the lowest chamber of the Cärabadés commenced.
The
quaint yellow house on the outskirts of town maintained its peaceful looking
virtue on the outside as the bees continued their summer solstice. On the
inside of the house, the reverend went pallid from the removal of his
blindfold.
~*~*~
The
art of baking helped to calm Ms. Grace’s temper. Good tasting food was an
extremely important aspect in her life. She loved to cook. She loved to eat. The love of food came from her parents who were for many years the prominent bakers in town. Just like them, she could bake for hours with a smile ever on her face. Baking was the best remedy to relent
her levels of frustration mostly owed to the feuding families in her schoolhouse. In her second
class with the older students, the Thomas girl and the Davis lad engaged in an
epic competition of out-reading each other as her class read aloud a revision
of an ancient play from Baradesh. Primarily done for the sake of her own eyes,
Ms. Grace thought it would be a grand idea to have the students act out the readings
instead of her reading it to them. Granted, while the vehement reading of the
Davis boy and Thomas girl did prove to make the tragedy more engaging for the
rest of the students, Ms. Grace doubted that anything of the plot was absorbed.
The
smells of the rising meat and vegetable filled pastry filled her small home. Her
stomach growled from the provocation from the warm and comforting bouquet of
rising flower and cooking pork. Though she knew that the recipe would be
absolutely delicious as it had been on all the occasions when she baked it
before, Ms. Grace had accidentally made an exceeding amount. She knew that she
could never finish the four pockets she made by herself and she certainly could
not stand to see the extras go to waste. She determined that they would have to
be shared.
With
her hands on her hips she stared at the golden, flaky rising crusts baking in
the cast iron stove. Naturally, Ms. Grace knew who she wanted to share these
pastries with because his name and face reared up in her thoughts daily, hourly
even. The thought of sharing a private meal with him did make her smile. The
heat from the oven and the September day intensified. Ms. Grace shook her head.
She made several attempts to rationalize her sudden appearance at his door with
supper in her arms. Ms. Grace tapped her finger to her chin as she continued to
imagine the many ways he potentially could greet her – most being highly
unlikely, but a heart does tend to glow for hope when it pines.
Spotting
something shiny on her bookshelf, Ms. Grace found a way to make her decision.
Rushing to the shelf to grab the coin Ms. Grace clutched the hope in her heart
like a vice. She was limited on time, for her adult class would be starting in
a short couple of hours. A decision would have to be made expediently. With a
quick prayer and an assignment to the head and to the tail, Ms. Grace kissed
the coin then flicked it up with a kick from her thumb into the hands of fate.
~*~*~
Most
of the bees of Providence lingered in the reverend’s yard, yet Ms. Grace did
not doubt that the bulk of the town’s butterflies were dancing in her stomach.
In her life she had spoken to the reverend at least a thousand times. She never
missed his sermons and she attended all of the church’s community activities. Meeting
or speaking with him was no new event. She felt so silly walking (more like
running) across town with a small basket of food and an imagination that could
not be stopped. Her palms were sweaty and she felt on the weak side. Her
stresses increased threefold as she passed Mrs. Huff’s house – she could hear
the woman rambling madly through the opened windows to whatever guest about the
town’s accountant’s daughter who was more
than of marrying age at sixteen. Ms. Grace was too excited to ruefully recall her
years of being Mrs. Huff’s ward - she was on a mission and she was determined
to see it through.
The
beekeeper’s garden was in sight. The house looked simply marvelous in the hues
of twilight. She could smell the sweet scents singing out from the forest of
flowers. It was almost as if the reverend had an inherent niche for nurturing.
His sensitivity to the earth and his ever marked gentility made Ms. Grace’s
gilded admiration for the man all the more powerful.
As
she walked to the side door of the house (it was far too formal for the
citizens of Providence to go to the front doors of their neighbors) Ms. Grace
thought that she could hear voices coming out from the open windows of the
house. Were there already guests? The reverend did keep borders in his spare room every now and then. Would she be intruding? Ms. Grace stopped her
forward progression. She was scared, not in a terrified manner, but her nerves
overwhelmed her. Should she continue or should she cut and run back to her
schoolhouse with her tail between her legs?
A
light breeze blew from the west. Ms. Grace felt the gentle, refreshing touch of
the wind push against her back, gently swaying her toward the fading white
door. Being a profound believer in signs and fate, Ms. Grace inhaled deeply
then approached the closed aperture.
She
knocked. Too late to run now.
Ms.
Grace’s heart felt as though it was about to forcefully remove itself from her
chest. She waited for a moment before she heard steps approach the other side
of the door. The handle turned and the aperture opened.
The
reverend stood rigid. The least likely person he expected stood at the door
before him, looking as bright and as radiant as ever regardless of the ware
from the heat.
Ms.
Grace’s mind went blank. The reverend was not in the jacket vest she had grown
so accustom to see him wearing. The white shirt he wore had its long sleeves
rolled up to his elbows and its top two buttons were undone. It clung to his
body loosely. Even to her blurry eyes he was incredibly attractive.
She
could not think.
He
too could not string together a single thought.
“Er,
hello, Reverend, I, I…” Ms. Grace started awkwardly, “I was cooking and I
mistakenly made too much, so I was wondering, sir, if you would want to…share
dinner with me?” she felt so stupid rambling like that, but at least her query
was out there.
The
reverend smiled warmly. Ms. Grace wanted to share a meal with him and she came all of this way to do so.
Whether she had come out of the interest of wanting company or something else,
the reverend did not care. It was good enough that she was here with him. He
had no idea of the nervousness and the happiness swelling within her heart, for
he was far too distracted with that of his own.
“We-we
could also discuss our class that Mrs. Winford has conscripted us to completing
together,” Ms. Grace added as she waited for his answer.
The
reverend chuckled, “I suppose we have been compelled to doing that earlier than
we intended,” he said with a smile. “Why should we not then do it over dinner?”
Mr. Tamrin stepped back to open his home to Ms. Grace.
Ms.
Grace was not sure that she could enter because she felt so weak and shaky. However,
after a second of thought and a boost of internal drive, Ms. Grace convinced
herself forward. On only a couple of occasions prior Ms. Grace had entered the
reverend’s house, but never before alone. When her eyes left the scope of her
immediate surroundings she realized that they were not alone. Standing in the
hallway were two familiar souls.
“Oh
excuse me,” Ms. Grace quickly apologized. “I did not realize that you had
guests. Perhaps it would be best if I returned at another time?”
That,
the reverend could not have, but before he could protest, Lin congenially said,
“How do you do, Ms. Grace? It has been some time, yes?”
“Indeed,
it has. I am very fine thank you, and how do you and your husband fair?” Ms.
Grace sweetly asked. Ms. Grace was one of the only people in Providence to whom
the vampire matron and patron were conversationally friendly. The two had long
ago been very helpful toward Ms. Grace, which was something that she had never
forgotten.
Howard
was the one to answer, “We are very well, thank you, Ms. Grace,” but his voice
trailed off as he saw Thane who had strategically moved himself behind Ms.
Grace. The reverend was mouthing to Howard “STOP-LEAVE-GO” accompanied with a
series of hand expressions depicting the same message. Even though indeed his
soul was too old to keep track of the year of his birth, Howard could not
understand why the reverend was ousting them so soon. However, lucky for the
reverend, Lin was there to save the day.
The
matron smiled sweetly then said, “There is no need to fuss over us, Ms. Grace,
we were actually just leaving.” Lin tugged on Howard’s arm to further the hint.
“To
Viramont? So late?” Ms. Grace asked automatically, but in an instant she remembered
her private postulations about these two. She and a sparse couple of other
Providence townies doubted the legitimacy to the claim that Lin and Howard were
of any relation to the reverend.
“We’re
not afraid of the dark,” Howard said with a smug smile to the reverend. Of
course the patron was offended by being ousted because he wanted to stay and
relax. But in his heart he knew that the reverend had a life outside of the Cärabadés
and that the latter presently needed him. “We had best be going indeed,” Howard
agreed loathly.
The
reverend quickly scooted himself around Ms. Grace to see his friends out. Mr.
Tamrin whispered to Ms. Grace that he would be right back as he quite literally
pushed his friends out from the kitchen, down the hall and out the front door.
The three of them heard Ms. Grace politely shout, “It was nice seeing you!”
Lin
stopped on the stoop to yell back, “It was lovely seeing you too, dear.”
It
was then when Lin and Howard gave their reverend friend teasing impish faces.
They both fully understood why the reverend ejected them so early. It was all
very obvious to them.
“Get
going, the both of you,” the reverend demanded, pointing them down the road.
His cheeks were simply burning red. He lingered on the porch for a moment
withstanding the ridicule from his friends’ muffled chuckling, so that he would
have a moment to collect himself. The reverend inhaled deeply then nervously
reentered his home to go to the kitchen. When he entered the brightly painted kitchen
there stood Ms. Grace. Her dark hair, blue dress (chalk-free), and radiance suited
as a perfect contrast to the light of the room. Simply put, she looked
beautiful. “T-um, w-won’t you sit down?” the reverend shakily invited his
guest. As Ms. Grace lowered herself awkwardly onto the bench, (internally she
was having a quiet nervous breakdown), the reverend realized to his horror that
he probably looked awful. “Will you excuse me for a moment more, Ms. Grace?”
“Of
course,” she said sweetly, for this would give her a moment to collect herself
as well. “It is your home afterall.”
The reverend quickly muttered that
he would be right back as he calmly left the kitchen only to dart to his
washroom down the hall. He quietly lit the candle with a shaky hand so that he
could properly see himself in the oval mirror. The shadows cast about the small
room did little to hide the stubble growing on his chin and cheek, stubble he
knew that he would not have time to shave. He shamefully ran his hands over his
face that did not presently meet the highbrow standards of Providence, but it
would have to do. He dunked his hands into a bowl of clean water to wash the
sweat from his neck and face. He was sure that Ms. Grace could hear him fussing
in here, but he was in a rush – he did not want to keep her waiting long. Mr.
Tamrin sloshed a white towel over his face several times before throwing it to
the ground to rush back to the kitchen. Mr. Tamrin popped back into the kitchen
looking calm and refreshed.
“I am sorry to keep you waiting,”
Mr. Tamrin apologized. As he came forward he saw that the table was set. Ms.
Grace had taken the initiative and the liberty to remove plates from the tray
on the nook’s-sill so to serve the food. “Can I offer you something to drink?”
Mr. Tamrin asked Ms. Grace, approaching the loosely stocked liquor cabinet,
“I’m afraid that all I have is wine and bourbon.”
Ms. Grace chuckled at the selection
of liquor from a reverend’s cabinet. “What? No meade or moonshine? Reverend, I
am ashamed,” she scorned with a laugh. “What will you be having?” she asked
finding herself to be much more relaxed now that she was settled in his
presence…in his home…alone…
Her
heart resumed its racing.
The
reverend chuckled as well. After the conversation he had earlier with the
vampires a bit of bourbon did not sound bad at all, but what sort of impression
would it have on Ms. Grace? “I think I’ll have the harder of the two,” he said
as though himself not convinced.
Ms.
Grace tapped her finger tips on the table top before deciding, “I probably
should not because I have to teach class in an hour and a half, but since I
will be eating; why not just a small glass of bourbon, if it’s not too much
trouble?”
The
reverend was actually impressed. “So you really are not at all like Mrs. Huff?”
he playfully asked over his shoulder as he went to the cabinet for the glasses.
“I mean, she did not influence you too seriously away from ‘the drink
that killed her husband and her brother’?” he did his best imitation of
Mrs. Huff’s high-pitched and haughty voice, which made Ms. Grace laugh, much to
his delight.
In
her years with Mrs. Huff she must have heard that line a thousand times over.
There had been not a drop of anything stronger than tea in the Huff residence
since the death of Mr. Huff sixteen years ago. “You know, my heart really goes
out to her brother.” Ms. Grace added. “Poor Aberson, I mean he only lives down
the block from her and she treats him like he’s dead. He needs his sister now
especially that he is to lose his granddaughter to a gentleman in Portland.”
Ms. Grace sighed reverentially because she would also deeply miss her good
friend Julia Joyce once the girl officially moved away.
“You
look lost, Ms. Grace,” the reverend said as he joined her at the table. “Is
there any way that I could bring you home?” the dear man placed Ms. Grace’s
glass before her which she gladly accepted.
For
a moment, Ms. Grace already felt like she had found her way back because of the
cooing sweetness of his voice. “It seems like everyone I know is either married
or engaged to be married,” she answered after a moment of running her fingers
down the sides of the cup. “I don’t know. It’s strange because I was not here
to witness most of the unions of the people in my age group. When I came back three
and a half years ago everything had changed.” She continued with more and more
strength in her voice as she became increasingly comfortable with the reverend.
“Nothing, absolutely nothing changed in Providence for ages, but the day I
leave you all, I don’t know, went topsy-turby on me.”
“But
of course,” the reverend bantered, “Didn’t you know that the town has been
conspiring against you from the very beginning?”
Chuckling,
Ms. Grace responded, “Drat, that explains a lot. I should have realized
before.”
The
pair exchanged a sweet, shy, and bashful expression before the reverend
awkwardly cleared his throat to bless the meal before them. Unbeknownst to the
reverend and the teacher, the matron and patron lingered in the garden of the
beekeeper. They happily listened in on what for sure sounded like the dawning
of something wonderful.
~*~*~
See you next week!
Your humble author,
S. Faxon
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