Return to the Garden

Jocasta Drinkwater kneels in the garden, a composition of poise and serenity, listening for the sound that will usher in the success she craves and deserves. Close to the white house, she bends forward in the flowerbed. In one gloved hand, she wields a soiled trowel. With the other, she fishes in her ample, apron pocket, and fine-tunes the receiver connected to the listening device. The static clamour of silence reports resolutely to the ear-piece, discreetly secreted beneath her floppy, wide-brimmed sun hat. Destiny tugs at a loose lock of faded, yellowing hair, which blows into her eyes as she leans in to wrap her fingers around the base of an errant weed. Her inflamed, puffy fingers briefly probe deeper, disturbing the unfed soil. She shifts her bodyweight from knee to knee in turn, to ease the muscle fatigue kneading at her back and thigh muscles. Well, what was a few hours discomfort compared to the tortures of a missed opportunity to finish it. If the day went as planned, this would be her last patch of weeds for a while, maybe forever.

            Pure hatred fuels her days, inflames her broken nights with tortuous visions, glowering like a lantern down the long and narrow path she had committed to, way back when she had first bullied her younger sister. Daddy’s favourite little pet, cosseted, pampered, spoiled. Everything that was wrong with her life was because of the fragrant, and much favoured Blossom. Simple. Often pushed to the limits of his patience by Jocasta’s petulant spite, her father would lash out angrily, careless of where the belt buckle lacerated skin. Her fingers habitually traced the faded welt on her upper lip, as she brooded on the bruising recollections of her childhood. This only strengthened her resolve to be avenged, to restore the balance of power. After Blossom left home for university, Jocasta nursed her father through his last days, and under her tender administrations he never survived his 50th birthday. As her father gasped for air, she watched him from the shadows of his sick room. The notion occurred to her then that she could be whoever she wanted, take whatever she desired. The rot set in. When she closed the sick room door on the way out, Jocasta has already crossed the threshold.

*

Later that evening, sharp, angled rain pierces the murky, concrete-grey sky. The spawn, stretched out in a long gelatinous string speckled with black dots, is borne along on the chilling squall. When the tree comes into sight, the spawn is disgorged, and splatters against the weather-ravaged trunk of the naked horse-chestnut. There it clings; irregular, green-flecked filaments of energy pulsing through the capillaries, clearly visible underneath its translucent outer membrane.  Its mind reaches out, and probes the immediate area around the trunk. A gathered host close by emits a sluggish, low drone.

Inside a hollowed recess of the trunk, the bee hive lies dormant. A collective shudder disturbs the torpid slumber of the bees. The ripple of thrashing bodies, murmurs and pitiful whimpering rises and falls through the enclosed wax chambers.  The Queen bee’s eyelids flutter rapidly, as if she were being driven through a terrible nightmare to the verge of wakefulness. After a brief struggle against the unsettling sensation of malevolence, her instinct to survive pulls her back, and her heart slows once more, quieting the trembling in her limbs. It was too soon to rouse, the hive’s chance of survival depended on her to guide them.

The bees are of little interest to the mind, and it pushes eagerly beyond the tree, across the manicured lawns, straight through the walls of the white house, drawn to the potent energy emitting from the woman. Even as it revels in the burgeoning power throbbing through its flesh, the change begins. Thick secretions ooze from bulbous glands, forming a murky crust on its surface. It knows the name Bufo, and Bufo knows how to wait and grow. Ponderously, Bufo picks its way down the rutted trunk, lured to the black, fecund mound spilling out of the encased composter, a few feet away from the base of the tree.   It would make a suitable lair concealed from prying eyes, to bide his time, grow stronger. Burrowing deep, deeper into the decomposing waste, the ground here is warm and moist.