“No,” Zachary repeats, louder.
We know we know you would like a cocktail and a cupcake yes yes that would be better.
Before Zachary can reply a bee nudges him over to a small table upon which now sits a frosted coupe glass filled with lemon-bright liquid and a small cupcake decorated with a much smaller bee.
Out of curiosity Zachary picks up the glass and takes a tiny sip, expecting it to tast
e like honey and it does but it also tastes familiarly of gin and lemon. A bee’s knees. Of course.
Zachary returns the glass to the table.
He sighs and walks farther into the house. Some of the bees follow him, muttering something about cake. Most of the furniture is honey-covered but some of it remains untouched. His bare feet sink into honey-drenched carpets as he walks.
Beyond the front hall there is a parlor and a study and a library.
On a table in the library there is a dollhouse. A different dollhouse than the Victorian structure Zachary currently occupies, a miniature building composed of tiny bricks and many windows. It looks like a school or maybe a library of the public sort. Zachary peers in one of the windows and there are no dolls and no furniture but there are pictures painted on the walls inside.
A pool of honey surrounds the building like a moat.
“Is this supposed to be the Starless Sea?” Zachary asks the bees.
That is the next story this one is ending now the key has come to lock it up and fold it and put it away to be read or told or to stay where it is tucked away we do not know what will happen after it ends but we are glad to have company we do not always have company for endings.
“I don’t understand.”
You are the key you have brought the end it is time to lock it up and say goodbye good night farewell we have been waiting for you a very long time Mister Rawlins we did not know you would be the key we cannot always see keys for what they are when we meet them sometimes they are surprises hello surprise.
Zachary continues walking through the house, into a formal dining room set for a nonexistent dinner party. There is a cake on the sideboard with a single slice missing though the cakeless void has been filled with beeswax.
He wanders through a butler’s pantry that leads to the kitchen. This is a space meant for living that is currently occupied only by bees and a solitary dead man.
At the back of the house is a sunroom, its sprawling windows clouded with honey. Here he finds a single doll. A girl doll, painted and porcelain. Cracked but not broken. She sits in a chair, her legs not quite bent properly, staring out a window as though she is waiting for someone to arrive, someone sneaking in through the back garden.
There is a book in her hand. Zachary takes it from her but it is not a real book. It is a piece of wood made to resemble a book. It cannot open.
Zachary looks out the honey-covered window. He wipes it as clear as he can with the palm of his hand and looks out over the garden, over the city and the paper sea. So many stories within the story and here he is at the end of them all.
“This story can’t end yet,” Zachary says to the bees.
Why Mister Rawlins why not it is time for the end now the story is over the key is here it is time.
“Fate still owes me a dance.”
An indiscernible buzzing follows the statement before it settles into words.
Oh oh oh hrmmm we do not know why she did that we do not always understand her ways would you like to speak with her Mister Rawlins sir we can build you a place to speak to the story sculptor a place in the story where you can talk to her and she can talk to you we cannot talk to her ourselves because she is not dead right now but we can build a place for talking or dancing we are good at building places for the story there is not a lot of time left it won’t last very long but we could do that if you would like would you like that?
“Yes, I would like that, please,” Zachary says. He continues to stare out the window at the world as he waits, with an unfinished idea of a book in his hands.
The bees begin to build the story of a space within this space. A new room inside the dollhouse.
They hum as they work.
excerpt from the Secret Diary of Katrina Hawkins
I remembered where I’d heard of the Owl King before.
I don’t know why it took me so long.