Read While You're Awake Online
Authors: Amber Stokes
While You're Awake
Seasons of a Story Publishing
www.SeasonsofaStory.blogspot.com
Kindle Edition | Copyright © 2015 Amber Christine Stokes
All Rights Reserved.
This novelette is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and events are either products of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. Actual brand, TV show, band, and song names are used
only to set the scene, and no endorsement or copyright infringement is
intended.
Scripture quotations are taken from the King James
Version of the Bible.
Cover design:
Lena Goldfinch at Stone Lily Book
Designs
Cover image: © Golyak | Dreamstime.com
To my
coworkers in Marketing. Thank you for making this new season of my life so
wonderful!
And to my
Heavenly Father. Thank you for giving me rest and helping me rise again…and
again.
There were two things
in life I feared above all others.
Bees, and
inconveniencing another person.
The latter dread
resided deep within me—a calcification built layer by layer, glare by glare,
reprimand by reprimand. Little instances that solidified into cold, hard fear.
That’s why I didn’t ask for help when the bees came.
It was just last
spring. I lived in a small rental home on the edge of town, where the grass
grew a little wild because I had never bought a lawn mower and the nearest
neighbors weren’t near enough to care.
I liked the solitude.
Any freelance editor would. And I was proud to have my own space after several
years of rooming with strangers while building up my business.
But the bees found me
after only several months of peace.
I had known they would
find me, eventually. The kind of knowing that friends mock but always proves
true. Maybe a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Still, I wasn’t
prepared for the battle that awaited me in my own home.
Empty.
Ava closed
the mailbox more firmly than necessary and headed back up the gravel drive. The
spring wind blew steadily while the sun shone warm on her uncovered head.
She paused outside the
front door, wondering if it wouldn’t be nicer to bring her laptop outside for
the remainder of the afternoon. Squinting at the cloudless sky, she shook her
head. Too hot. She was bound to get uncomfortable just as she settled in at the
picnic table with its scratchy bench and sticky stains. And there could be
bugs…
Maybe tomorrow. Today, a
glass of orange juice and her soft couch promised to be much more agreeable.
Ava opened the door and
shut it behind her with a soft thud—a noise her ears barely registered over an
entirely different sort of sound. Her heart pounded as her eyes skimmed the
main room.
There. The window facing
west writhed. A curtain of black rose and fell as she stood frozen, her back
against the door, hands trembling by her sides.
Bees. Dozens of them,
climbing and falling and hovering over the inside of the glass. The buzzing was
the breathing of a monster, filling up her small place in an angry, desperate
fashion.
Clearly the bees wanted
out. But she couldn’t set them free. That would require going near them, and
not even the pull of morbid curiosity could take her one step in their
direction.
A phantom pinch in her
finger began to throb.
She couldn’t tell what
kind of bees they were. Bumble bees, wasps, honey bees… All she knew was the
drone and rumble that threatened to consume her.
A swarm of thoughts flew
through her mind. She hadn’t made any friends she could count on in this new
place. Her family was too far away to help. She needed every penny to pay for
rent and groceries, so a hotel wasn’t an option. And she couldn’t inconvenience
the neighbors, even if she knew their number. What if they were allergic?
Nothing made sense, least
of all the bees’ presence in the first place. With dismay she realized that
she’d have to pass them in order to reach her laptop. No Google, then.
Releasing a belated yelp,
she turned and sprinted to her bedroom. After scanning every corner and finding
it safe, she slammed the door and locked it tight, unable to hold back the
panicked sobs as she slid to the worn carpet.
∞∞∞
The night passed in a
state of half-sleep. Ava couldn’t tell when or if the buzzing ended. The sound
had etched a track in her memory that played on repeat, so that she couldn’t
truly rest. She’d kept the lights on but still startled fully awake every time
she thought she saw a shadow zip across the ceiling. And now she stood by the
bedroom door, shaking and praying and hoping that it was all a nightmare.
Sweat glued her wrinkled
jeans to her legs as she opened the door and took a tentative step forward. Her
gaze went straight to the window. A littering of black lined the sill and floor.
She breathed out and took
another step. Nothing moved.
She shuffled across the
expanse of carpet until she stood over the open grave of bee carcasses. Too
gentle-looking to be wasps. Too small to be bumble bees. Of course they had to
be honey bees.
A twinge of guilt set her
forefinger to throbbing again. If she were braver, she could have released them
all last night. Out where they belonged. Far away from her.
But she wasn’t brave,
especially not when it came to bees.
Bzz.
She shrieked
and scrambled backward, falling on her backside and scooting several inches.
The sound paused and then
started again, and she realized it was her phone vibrating in the purse she had
dropped by the couch last night.
Just my phone
, she reassured herself.
Just
my phone.
She stood on shaky legs
and fished the device out of her purse. “Hello?” Her voice came out no louder
than a throaty whisper.
“Ava?”
“Mom.” Ava slumped onto a
cushy chair, keeping a wary eye on the black specks a few feet away.
“Is everything all right?
You never called back last night.”
“I—”
“I mean, I hoped you were
doing something fun for your birthday. Were you?”
Her foot shook as she
tried to think how to answer that question. “It was pretty typical, until later
in the day…”
“Oh?” The word rose in
tone as her mom held it out. “Did you go out with some friends?” She sounded so
hopeful that Ava cringed.
Now that Ava was 26 years
old, her mom shouldn’t be quite so worried about her only daughter’s social
life.
“No, nothing like that.”
She swallowed, hating how loud the action sounded in the hollow house. “It’s
just…” How much should she say? The phone grew hot next to her ear.
“Hello? Are you still
there?”
“Yeah. I just had a bug
pr—”
“Oh!” The word came fast,
breaking up Ava’s explanation. “I’m sorry, but Veronica’s at the door. We’re
going to a book signing at the library, and we still have to grab dinner.”
Ava heard the faint click
of a door being unlocked and her mom’s exuberant greeting of her long-time
friend. Then, “I still want to hear about your birthday. Can I call you later?”
“Sure.”
A pause. “You got my
card, right?”
“Yep.” Complete with a
gift card to the garden store. But as much as Ava loved flowers, she didn’t
think she’d be planting any anytime soon. Not if it might bring more bees.
“Thanks. The card’s very pretty. And I appreciate the gift.”
“Good.” One word, but her
mom’s smile sounded clearly through it. “Talk later!”
“Okay. Bye.”
Ava cradled the warm
phone in her hand, staring at the screen until it blackened and she was faced
with her own frightened reflection. With a start, she dropped the device to her
lap and lifted her gaze to the battlefield.
Standing on unsteady
legs, she headed to the laundry room in the back of the house and wheeled out
the vacuum. With a whir of air and a greedy gulp, the vacuum swallowed up the
bees.
Without a moment of
waste, she unclipped the storage container, released the bees into a plastic
bag, and took the bag outside to the large trash can. Her eyes brimmed with
tears as she settled the lid over the remnants of her nightmare. She wasn’t
sure which emotion brought about the reaction: shame, sorrow, or the fear that
this wasn’t the end.
∞∞∞
The bees returned as most
trials do—one by one, one right after the other. And it was perhaps worse that
way, for Ava never knew when she would awake to a bee crawling on the window or
return home to one resting on the ceiling. The sight of its fuzzy narrow body,
like an arrow pointing straight for her mind, never failed to send her heart
into crazy spins.
But she learned to live
with the endless torture, as she had learned to live with the boy in her
third-grade class who had found great pleasure in stealing her books and
holding them for ransom. And the homesickness that haunted her at boarding
school throughout her preteen and early teen years. And the loneliness that
still hadn’t abated despite her fulfilling work.
She had always found it
grimly fascinating how people could adapt to anything when it became an
unavoidable part of their reality. And these bees…they had chosen her, left
behind some sort of trail for their friends to follow.
She had taken to swatting
them, unable to function until she knew one wasn’t hovering over her head.
Despite taking out the danger, though, she couldn’t find peace. Not when more
bees would come.
After disposing of the
latest unwanted guest on a particularly sunny spring day, she packed up her
laptop, grabbed her purse, and ran to the car. She might not have much money to
spare, but today was a coffee day if ever there were one. Designer coffee—the
kind that would soothe her with sugary comfort and a sense of belonging with
other artist types that frequented coffee shops.
Ava didn’t turn on the
radio or push in a CD as she made the twenty-minute drive into the heart of
town. She kept the windows rolled up tight and allowed a few tears to escape.
Several deadlines approached in rapid succession, and her progress the past
week had been too minimal. Each night seemed to offer less sleep. What would
she do if she couldn’t complete her clients’ projects?
She eventually pulled
into the parking lot of Coffee by Angels, the local café owned by the Angel
family. Cars filled most of the spaces, reminding Ava that it was a weekday
afternoon, and thus the place would be loud and busy. The mental image of a
swarming hive came to mind, but she shook her head and swung her laptop case
and purse over her shoulder.
Once inside, she stood
frozen, momentarily paralyzed by the activity. Couples flirting. Writers
typing. Friends chatting. Employees mopping and fixing drinks and calling
names.
Taking a deep breath, Ava
zeroed in on an empty table for two at the far end of the shop. Her head ached
with the weight of her sleepless nights and the nagging feeling that everyone
else in this building—and the whole world, really—knew how to get things done
and have fun while they were at it. With one another. She slid onto the
cushioned chair with a sigh and stared for a while at the empty seat across
from her.
Standing up once again,
she put her laptop bag on the extra chair and set up the computer on her side
of the table, plugging it into the wall and turning it on. While she waited for
it to bring up her home page, she grabbed her purse and wove through the crossed
legs and backpacks lining the narrow path to the counter.
“I’ll have a large dark
chocolate mochaccino,” she told the lady at the register.
“Name?”
“Ava.” An annoying
buzzing sound entered her ears, and she automatically raised a hand in defense.
She whipped her head from left to right, but no bees appeared to be nearby.
With a start, she met the
confused gaze of the barista. “Are you all right?” the woman asked, her hand
hovering over the cash register.
“Yeah,” Ava breathed,
even as a voice in her mind taunted,
Far from it.
“How much was that
again?”
The barista shot off a
number, and Ava pulled a few bills out of her wallet. After she got her
receipt, she once again shuffled through the maze of tables, chairs, and
thirsty people and plopped into her own seat.
I’m all right.
Coffee’s coming. And I’m not stuck at home alone with the bees.
She
reassured herself with positive thoughts as she typed in her password and
pulled up the most urgent project. Words were cut and lines reshaped as the
seconds ticked on—one by one, one right after the other.
And while she worked, she
studiously avoided glancing up at the unoccupied chair.