Malevolent (The Puzzle Box Series Book 1) (3 page)

I took my meds, then napped until late afternoon. I had weird dreams about guys with claws, and broken glass sparkling on the ground.

When I woke up, the sun had broken through the fog, and had painted a golden square on the wall opposite my bed. I lay and looked at it for a while. My body seemed to sink into the mattress, with no strength to roll over. The morning's excitement had exhausted me--chilling myself in the orchard to see the bees and Mal, then Mal and Robert duking it out. I couldn't handle even that much excitement.

Maybe I'm going to die.

The thought passed through my brain like a ghost. My stomach clenched. Death--it gets everyone eventually. But I was only eighteen, for crying out loud! I wanted to go to college and get my agriculture degree. Heck, I wanted to visit Rome and Alaska and Australia. I couldn't do any of that if I kicked the bucket.

But I couldn't get well. The knowledge sat on me like a big fat cat I couldn't dislodge. After months of meds and bed rest and doctors, I was sicker than ever. They'd started me on the inhaler a few weeks ago because my lungs had deteriorated.

Like I'm slowly dying.

God, I cried silently, am I?

I grabbed my Bible from my nightstand and flipped it open. Naturally it fell open to Psalms, since that's right in the book's center. One of King David's rants leaped out at me.

What, what would have become of me had I not believed that I would see the Lord's goodness in the land of the living!

It was like a shot of adrenaline to my heart. I wasn't going to die--I would get well! There was God's private message to me, right there. I had to hold on and not give up.

There were all kinds of stories about people with terminal cancer, who fought it and lived for years. And this wasn't even cancer--just a fungal infection. I could beat it if I kept fighting.

Even with fresh hope, it was a while before I summoned the strength to get up and use the bathroom. My body was heavy and tired, but I was sick of sleeping. Maybe I'd get on my computer and--Wait a minute. I halted beside my dresser. A strange wooden box sat there with a note on top of it.

I picked up both and climbed back in bed. The note was Robert's annoyingly perfect handwriting.

"Sorry you're asleep, babe. Here's a present to keep you busy. It's a puzzle box. If you can open it, there's a surprise inside. Love, Robert."

He had come in my room while I'd been asleep?

It's amazing how quickly rage cuts through self-pity. I forgot I was dying, forgot my verse, forgot everything but how much I hated Robert. I found the strength to throw the puzzle box at the wall. Then I crumpled the note and threw it, too.

He'd come in my room, probably leered at my sleeping body, then wrote that note. The box probably housed that ring he'd been talking about lately. It made my vision turn red around the edges.

What a stupid way to give me an engagement ring, and only stupid Robert would think of something so stupid. I punched my pillow, and began mentally drafting my Dear John letter.

Dear Robert, Today I realized I just don't feel that way about you...

I fumed for a long time, and the sunbeam on my wall slanted longer and more orange. Finally boredom set in. There's only so long a girl can stew on a topic before she does something about it.

I'd have to break up with him now. Things had gone far enough, and no way was I going to keep enabling Robert for the rest of his stupid life. It'd have to be a spectacular breakup, too.

If I opened that puzzle box, I could throw it and its contents at Robert's head. Maybe hide a video camera, then post the results on the Internet. Comedy gold.

I retrieved the box from the floor and examined it. It was about the size of a shoe box, made of polished wood with inlaid silver scrollwork. It smelled clean, like pine or cedar.

There were no buttons, but some interesting seams ran across it. I pushed, pulled and shook it, to no avail. Then I tried twisting the top. Part of it rotated ninety degrees. The box became an L shape.

It exposed a new pattern in the scrollwork, and the corner of a piece of paper. It looked as if it had once been attached to the L part, but had slipped inside the box's workings. I picked at it with my fingernails, but I couldn't reach it. I even opened my knife and tried to ease the paper out with the blade, but it was stuck tight.

It was probably another note from Robert, anyway. I growled and set the box down.

But the idea that I couldn't reach the paper was an itch in my mind, like a scab I was trying not to pick.

I was fooling with the box when Dad knocked on my open door.

I smiled up at him. "Come in."

He sat on the edge of my bed and smoothed back my hair. "How do you feel?"

"Same old."

My dad is tall and thin, and strong as a backhoe. He'd been growing a funny Amish beard along his jawline.

I touched it. "Next you'll be giving up zippers and electricity."

He smiled. "Your mother's trying to take me off white sugar, but that's as far as it goes. Tell me about this fight Robert was in."

"Oh, one of the new beekeepers attacked him. Smashed his car's side window."

"Any idea why?"

"He claimed they were brothers."

"Hmm." Dad rubbed his beard. "Did Robert contradict it?"

"No, he just took off."

Dad sat with his head bowed for a minute. Then he met my eyes. "I spoke to Malachi Seren. He confirmed that Robert is his brother. Malachi also an ex-convict."

Malevolent.

"What, did he murder somebody?"

"He didn't say. But he assured me that he'll be on his best behavior from now on. I want you to stay away from him, all right?"

"Okay, Dad." Those Freddy Krueger gloves flashed through my memory. "I feel too crummy to go out, anyway."

I showed Dad the puzzle box, and we griped about Robert for a few minutes. He advised me to cut it off now, or sooner, if possible. Then Dad left, and I stared out the window.

Mal was an ex-con. Now he raised bees and looked like a vampire. I mused on our meeting, and his fight with Robert. I'm always analyzing the feeling people give me--they say you can trust your intuition about first impressions. Robert had always exasperated me at some level. Something about him felt fake.

But Mal had felt ... honest. Lonely. Hidden. If he was dangerous, he had buried it.

Yet Mal was the one who had gone to prison, and who had attacked Robert. It didn't make sense.

As the light was fading, I found the next trigger for the puzzle box. A panel pushed in and slid up, freeing the slip of paper. It was old and yellowed, with a dab of brown glue on the back.

Written in flowing script was the message, "Property of Malachi Seren. If found, please return to the following address," with an address in Pennsylvania.

Wait. Robert had given me Mal's puzzle box? So it must not have an engagement ring inside. Probably money, or papers, or whatever people stashed inside puzzle boxes.

I read the paper over and over, and tried to reason things out. Mal was dangerous. Stay away. But Robert must have stolen this and given it to me, for whatever reason. If they were brothers, was this something they'd had as kids? Or had Robert stolen it today?

I ran a finger along a wavy silver line. Mal would probably want this back. But how could I explain how I had it? What if he thought I'd stolen it?

Girl found murdered in orchard by ex-convict.

I shivered, and envisioned those clawed gloves flashing at my face. That'd save me the trouble of breaking up with Robert, all right.

I slipped the puzzle box under my bed. It was getting dark, and I wasn't leaving the house tonight. Maybe tomorrow I'd give it to Dad to return to Mal. Easy solution.

But what if he went after Dad instead?

After my ill-timed confrontation with my brother, I took a walk around Blossom Ranch.

It was a mixed farm, with acres of almond trees in rows, blueberries like orderly shrubbery, a strawberry field under black plastic, and other crops that had not yet emerged from winter stasis. Many corners had been planted in wild flowers, now only bright green leaves quivering with rabbits.

While difficult for a smaller, mixed farm to survive financially, its existence supported the continued life of native pollinators, such as butterflies and moths. My bees would thrive here.

As I walked back to converse with my bees, a pain shot through my insides. I fell to my hands and knees, and clutched my chest, expecting a bullet wound, but there was nothing. A heart attack?

No. Death had touched my soul.

Blackness swirled into my mind--thoughts of death, anguish and grief. And hot, blind hatred. So much hatred. The tide caught me unprepared, and I struggled to regain my mental balance. I thought I had conquered this years ago--why was it happening now?

The realization struck me like a club to the skull. An enemy had touched the puzzle box.

Rage flooded me, complementing the hate. I leaped to my feet and ran like a bolt of lightning across three fields and the almond orchards.

The beehives awaited me like a small city of uniform white buildings, and my own stood among them, decorated with gaudy colors. Among them was my concealed trunk.

The lid was closed, but as I bent over it, Robert's stench struck me in the face. I opened it, but I already knew what I would find.

The puzzle box was gone.

I fought the urge to roar aloud. I would cut pieces off him until he told me where it was. And what if he opened it?

The hate soured into fear. For a second my limbs actually shook. I leaned on the trunk and tried to steady myself. The watery sunlight went bright and hot, and burned the back of my neck.

My bees sang around me. "Mal, what is it? What's wrong?"

I sat beside Queen Elizabeth's hive and leaned my forehead against the wood. "Robert has taken the box. I fear he may open it."

Or destroy it. Revenge for my attack on him earlier. More and more, I regretted revealing myself in such an aggressive way.

I explained this to the bees, who hummed their sympathy.

Queen Mary's hive said, "We sensed his presence, but we could not attack him. The cold hinders us."

"Yes," sang the other hives. "We will do what we can to help, Mal. Even if all we do is watch."

Their kindness comforted me, easing the tension inside. "Thank you, my friends. Tomorrow may be warmer, and if so, I shall need your help locating the puzzle box."

"The box, the box," they whispered.

I opened the trunk again, and produced a jar of sticky honeycomb. I pulled out a comb and chewed it, savoring the sweetness of the honey mingled with the pungent taste of the wax. Slowly the blackness inside me lightened. The rage faded. Once more I was human, not a being of every negative emotion. I spoke to God as I calmed, asking for His direction.

Robert could not destroy my box. Everything about it repulsed his kind, and many other magical creatures besides. He would have to hide it somewhere, or pass it to an untainted human. I could sense its location most clearly at midnight, when the entire bulk of the Earth lay between me and the sun. I would wait and seek it then.

I had rented a small motor home for the California trip. It was parked outside the orchards on a small access road. I opened its door and climbed inside.

The interior of a motor home smells unique, and I've never been able to decide why. The upholstery? The plastic furnishings? A faint smell of septic tank? Old cigarettes?

Either way, it was shelter. I lay on the foam mattress and attempted to sleep. But my kind does not sleep easily, especially in the darkness. The honey I had eaten swirled its healing power into my bloodstream, keeping my sluggish heart pumping.

Someday my heart would stop and I would become a true monster. That was when I intended to open the puzzle box. But I was not ready to die yet. My mission was not complete. My bees must not fall into the hands of strangers.

My bees! My one love and greatest sorrow. Colony collapse disorder had claimed half my hives the previous year. Careful as I had been, I lost them, the bees singing reassuring songs until the end. "All is well, Mal, all is well." I believed them until one day their voices fell silent.

Scientifically, a colony collapses when a queen stops laying eggs, or a worker bee becomes fertile. But the pheromones assure the bees that everything is fine. They never know their own colony is in danger.

But what causes it? And how to stop it? That is the question apiarists ponder across the world.

My theories were darker than pesticides or genetically modified crops. Dark beings wielding dark magic, and the bees, servants of light, were the proverbial canaries in the coal mines--their deaths indicating an unseen danger.

But if God saw fit to remove me from this world through death, my bees would die as well. As far as I knew, they were humanity's last hope against the coming evil.

I rose and exited the camper. The stars informed me it was nearing midnight. I gazed at their living eyes, and my spirit thrilled. Thence came the magic, a blessing from God himself, rained down in a ceaseless shower. I closed my eyes and imagined I felt it on my skin--a faint tingle, like mist.

As I stood there in the starlight, the puzzle box called to me. I set out at a brisk walk to find it.