All the Bees in the Hollows

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Austėja

Senelè leads the prayer.

She leans forwards, kisses the soil. ‘Žemyna, goddess of the earth, thank you for all your gifts. Mother goddess, please accept our offerings and bless the grassland. Be it bountiful for the bees and bring us a good harvest.’

Motina and Danutè are next: their prayers whisper in the wind. I adjust my headscarf, tucking back wisps of hair.

When it’s my turn, I kneel beside the arrangement of rocks at the base of the trunk, tenderly stacked and circling the trunk like a stony boot. I shift my knees to avoid the knobby exposed roots, malformed toes on a giant’s foot. For such a sacred tree there’s been no attempt to keep the big toe within its rock-encased shoe.

I tilt forwards and kiss the earth. It’s faintly damp and the roots, intertwined with the topsoil, smell like deep woodland. I extract the hunk of rye from my pocket and inhale its sweet and sourness. I press it to my lips and then place it beside the other bread offerings.

‘Goddess Žemyna, please accept my offering and bless our grassland.’

For we need it. This year more than ever.

I want our sacred oak to speak to me. It remains soundless but for the gentle rustling of leaves. No sign of Žemyna.

From a kneeled position, my gaze travels upwards. The trunk is broader than any other I have come across in the forest. It would take eight men to circle it. It is positioned midway between the church and the bridge, in a clearing, as if the oak giant swung its sprawling limbs about to keep all other trees at bay. It soaks up the sunlight and basks in its gluttony.

I don’t know who or how this oak was selected as the sacred tree for our harvest blessings, but it’s been this way for as long as I remember. All the women are here and the girls too.

Later, the men will come by and throw the dregs of their mead around its feet, just for good measure.

There’s a knothole hollow halfway between the ground and the first limb and another two higher in the canopy. The lower one is likely home to dormice or some other small rodent, and then further up a blue tit pokes its head out as if to see what all the commotion is about. Its muted-yellow chest is visible from my vantage point and I spy a hint of its blue cape. I suppose another bird species or an owl lives upstairs. No bees, though. The oak may sense the need for it to remain impartial: a place for us to come without the family mark of a hollow.

What do you have to say, hmm? Do you talk to the oak across the bridge, the one that lost its hive? My oak? I imagine the knobby roots snaking deep into the earth, spreading out in search of its kin, likely born from its seed. Eager to hear the stories, the haunting tales they have endured.

‘Austėja.’

I jerk. It is Motina. ‘Time to go to church.’

I groan, pulling myself up to stand. Goodbye, dear oak. Bring us good fortune.

I join Motina and Danutè and follow the crowd led by Senelè. I don’t know how Motina copes. How does she find a way to live with the old ways and the new at the same time? I don’t know what way I sway. I do feel the pull of the old ways, as if it is written in my blood. As if the knowledge and memories of our past live within my veins, inactive until summoned.

So what happens if I become a full Christian and let go of the old ways altogether? Would all the beliefs and knowledge of my ancestors be erased? We would rely no longer on intuition but on one man. God?

I tuck my hand into my skirt and curl my fingers around Tévas’s knife. Even after discovering what he had planned for me, I want to have it close. Something precious to him, as I’d always believed I was.

Tévas was a devout Christian. It’s as if he distanced himself as far from his mother’s beliefs as possible. The truth is, I can see the appeal in it. The simplicity. Wishful thinking that God, our Lord, has a plan for us all.

Only, I don’t want to rely on the plans of someone else. Tévas wanted me to marry Stanislaw; Motina and Smilte want me to marry Tomas. But what do I want? The one thing, one person, I have ever wanted is out of my reach.

The breeze picks up and I shiver, pulling my shawl over my shoulders. It is unusually cool for a summer’s day. Or is it just me? I glance about but Motina and Danutè’s foreheads glisten with a sheen of sweat. The air sweeps my cheek, like a hand caressing my skin. A woman’s touch. I stop and feel my cheek. There’s no hand there.

I look back at the oak. All around it the forest is still, the air thick as it is on a heated day. But the sacred oak shudders. The canopy lifts and drops, sways and shakes, as if it’s having a sneezing fit while the others lean away.

What is happening here?

A pain in my head, between my brows. I press on it to relieve the pressure. As I close my eyes the image of Stanislaw returns. Why are you still here? I scream inwardly. I thought the manner of his death had been resolved, at least in theory. The Duke, or his men, were responsible. They had to be.

What do you want from me? To take on the Duke?

Well, forget it. I do not want to end up with a fate like yours.

Raven’s eyes blink back. A solitary tear trickles down his cheek. Does he have regrets about his past? He never fully recovered from losing his family.

Before he died he had no one. Nothing to lose. He only had his mead.

His face fades away into snow. Red-stained snow.

‘Austėja?’ It is Motina again. Her brows crumple inwards. ‘Are you coming?’

Stanislaw is gone, but the oak remains. Still, stagnant like its audience. As if it had never moved at all.

I shake my head. ‘Yes, I’m sorry. I thought I saw something.’

‘What is it?’

I should tell her. I want to tell her. But Motina will not believe it. She will dismiss it as she does anything Senelè says of the old ways. I can’t tell her the forest speaks to me and I see the image of a justice-seeking dead man. No. I can never share this with her.

‘It’s nothing; come on.’ I trudge past her, up the gradient to the church clearing.

⚜

Everyone attends church. Senelè heavily negotiated with the priest. He was adamant that our blessings were true sorcery, but Senelè convinced him they were merely a tradition to welcome a good harvest. She suggested he wouldn’t want to be responsible for a bad harvest, would he?

No. Well, the priest agreed upon the condition we all present for church, to pray to our Lord for a good harvest. Senelè grumbled but Motina was pleased to have as many positive thoughts as possible sent in the way of the bees.

Jonas sits near the back with his brothers. He catches my eye and his mouth twitches. I haven’t spoken to him since I spat at his brother and ran away from them. I hope Jonas knows that marrying Tomas is not what I want. I want him. But I don’t know how he feels about me and his duty, like mine, is to stay home and support his parents.

The Duke sits in the front pew along with his two men. I sigh. So they’ve returned, then. The priest takes a step aside, as if intimidated by the Duke. ‘Welcome to our first mass,’ he says. ‘I know I travel between different districts and we have faced some challenges in the months since we met, but I do want to welcome everyone here, officially. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, we priests have a duty to educate the settlers on our good Lord and to shift you all away from the ways of old. So I expect we will have a regular mass, every Sunday, from now on. When I am in Musteika, of course.’

Senelè, at this very moment, chokes on his words and erupts in a coughing fit. He attempts to speak again twice more but Senelè starts up again. The men up front shift further down the pew as if she has the plague.

‘Senelè, that’s enough,’ Motina says in a harsh whisper. We both know her cough is real, but the timing is rather deliberate.

The priest clears his throat and stares pointedly in our direction, before he continues. ‘I have a moral obligation to set my people on the right path. This is the future of Lithuania.’

Motina’s fingertips dance against each other, as if willing him to get to the point about the bees. He seems to sense our impatience and clears his throat again. Each time he does this it makes his words less believable. ‘Right, well, the end of summer is near and so too is our harvest. I know you are all eager to bring in a good harvest, to do your duties for the Duke and therefore our country. Please stand and repeat after me. Dear Lord, please bless our harvest.’

‘Dear Lord, please bless our harvest.’

‘May the forest be bountiful and the bees buzz with purpose and contentment.’

‘May the parishioners bring in a bountiful harvest to serve our Dear Lord and our country.’

‘Amen.’

I open my eyes and glance around.

Is that it?

It’s as if he has never before delivered a sermon, and most certainly knows very little about the bee harvest. Upon closer inspection, he seems far younger than I first realised. The way he tugs at his collar and pauses and clears his throat before he speaks. He is nervous. Inexperienced. He is in over his head.

Scared?

I would be if I were him, living on the land of the Duke. A Duke who delivers harsh punishments for betrayal. How will this priest walk the fine line of the Lord’s will and the will of the Duke?

Perhaps this is a question for us all.

⚜

In the clearing outside the church, our people gather. There is much talk about harvest. The air is still, the sky is clear, all pointing to happy bees and good timing for honey collection. It will begin soon. This time, Motina will not have Tévas by her side, but me.

Jonas bumps shoulders with his younger brother Petras in a playful way. Only a year younger than me, Petras seems like a little boy compared to Jonas. Tomas joins them and Jonas’s demeanour changes. So does Petras’s. Tomas folds his arms across his chest and speaks without any facial expressions, except for the narrowing of his eyes. Jonas kicks at the ground and turns away from his brothers. He looks up and catches my eye, just for a moment, and then his head dips and he slinks away.

He is disappointed, as am I, and that brings me relief. I was not imagining what we shared. Tomas looks at me too, and attempts a smile, but it is more of a leer. His gaze upon me makes the hair on the back of my neck prickle.

I join a conversation with Aldona and Motina. They’re discussing their crops.

Smilte approaches. ‘Austėja, dear. How are you?’

‘I am well, thank you. You?’

‘Oh, very good. Very good,’ she says, clasping my hands in hers. They are warm and clammy. Her scarf is damp around her face. ‘You are a dear girl. I told you we would take care of you, didn’t I?’ She winks and my thoughts drift back to the first time she said this, at my father’s wake. I felt vulnerable and alone and she was scheming a marriage. And even now, my family is vulnerable to the Duke’s demands, and she is pleased with her plans.

She leans in closer. ‘I know nothing has been made official yet, but Tomas will make you a fine husband.’

I look at the son she speaks of. He has joined his father. They stand side by side in stony silence. Their postures are mirrors but their faces are completely different. He is all Smilte. Jonas is more like his father in looks, but less like him in temperament. Far more appealing.

‘Are you certain of that, Smilte?’ The words tumble out and it catches both of us off guard.

She presses her lips together and then forces a smile. ‘It is God’s will. You are exactly what he needs, my dear.’ She pats my shoulder and shifts her body so I am excluded from the conversation she joins with Aldona and Motina.

I want to go home. Not to the cottage, but to the oak. To sit on my log chair. I know when I am wed, I will not be able to drift about the forest as I do now. I will have home duties and beekeeping tasks too. I will live in the same home, with my family, but life will be different.

Did Motina and Tévas like each other before they were wed? Their marriage was arranged, somewhat, but they seemed happy. Two different people who worked well together and respected each other. Will it be like that with Tomas? Will I grow to love him?

I steal one last look at Jonas. My feelings come naturally for him, but just as easily as they have come, I will need them to go away. He is not my fate. Motina is right, and so is Senelè. The priest is right too. We all have a duty to serve the Duke and the Duchy. I don’t want to think about what would happen if we didn’t. Jonas doesn’t look my way, but I am being watched. The Duke stands with some of the men, smiling and talking, but his gaze is on me. Neck hairs prickle, again.

How have so many things changed since winter? I do not know who to trust. The wind and the forest pull me in one direction; my family and parish pull me in another. What I do know is that my father deceived us. Senelè did too, not telling me about his arrangement with Stanislaw. I must forget about Jonas. I must forget about what the Duke did to Stanislaw. I must accept my fate. Next spring, when I wed, Motina will finally be able to relax. We will all be okay.

Perhaps, now I have discovered these innate abilities, I can use them to my advantage. The forest can protect me, help me protect myself. To wield some power in this unwanted marriage.