This is a short story I submitted to the NYC Midnight Short Story Competition in 2023. Entitled “A troubled beekeeper,” it is inspired by the competition prompt which is to have a ghost story with a vestibule school and a beekeeper.
Far from the bustle of any large city was a small town that thrived only off the industry of tree felling of a vast and ancient forest. Devoted to this was a vestibule school annexed to the edge of the town. Feeding the industry indispensable to the town’s growth, the school was dedicated to mysterious studies of the forest ostensibly in the name of teaching the art of tree felling. As such, the otherwise inconsequential small town was host to a grand and old building housing the school. Set in brick, its stonework was weathered with age and ivy crawled up its walls – lush and green in summer and bony and dead in winter. Adding to this grandeur were the polished wood panels lining the large halls of the school. Punctuated by large arched windows, the well-lit halls nevertheless guarded the mysteries of the school. Bizarrely, it thus drew a wealthy student body with distinguished faculty.
Equally mysterious was the man who could often be heard wandering the halls of the school. He was far from resembling the refined society that composed the school. Rather, as a blind and alcoholic beekeeper, Jack as he was known, would stumble around the school muttering to himself and smelling strongly of alcohol. Through the echoes in the large halls, his arrival was always marked by the tapping of his cane. Equally preceding him was his difficult personality which made the students who eagerly avoided him wonder why he was a part of that grand institution. Inevitably, his tapping or odour would give way to his unsteady steps and shaky grip on a flask of whiskey. Jack’s novelty and inexplicable presence at the school could nevertheless be explained by his keen senses which, though dulled by his frequent drunken stupors, were heightened by his lack of sight. Keen to him were the senses of smell and touch which aided his work with the bees. He could hear the almost imperceptible buzz of their wings as well as feel their flight as they displaced the air around them.
Jack would find himself the unlikely protagonist of a series of events which were equally unlikely. A fire had broken out in the main building of the school, damaging its grand façade as well as snatching the lives of so many of the school’s dwellers. Despite in ruins and grief, the school soldiered on with its mysterious purpose. Jack then seemed to look more suited to the school’s decrepit avatar as the ruins of a once grand building, rundown and abandoned in some parts. Perhaps it wasn’t unexpected then that strange events began to occur. Apart from the ghostly apparitions which had always been rumoured to roam the school’s halls, a new apparition of an old man in a beekeeper’s suit was sighted. Some even began to recognise the apparitions as forms of their peers who had been victims of the fire.
It was odd that the headmaster should act on the sighting of these apparitions but he nevertheless summoned Jack before him one night. Jack, although only a beekeeper, was a long-time resident at the school and knew much beyond what he could sense.
“Jack, forgive me for calling you at this hour. You are known for your keen perception of the environment and I want to enlist that quality in the search for a solution to the irksome apparitions which reportedly haunt us.”
Jack, unaccustomed to being drawn from his comfortable lodgings at such an hour, while shakily reaching for his flask, replied sourly, “Of course, sir.”
Jack, an efficient man if nothing else, traversed the school’s dark and silent halls that very night. To any who would listen, his cane could be heard tapping here and there, slowly sweeping the school. Journeying then for the first time into the deepest parts of the ruined buildings, Jack felt a vibration seize his cane as it met the floor. Now dragging his cane along the floor, he moved it around so that he could track the vibration with its ever-growing urgency. Jack’s perception was fortuitous for another in his place would have been as visually blind to the perils in the ruins of the school. Jack, however, knew immediately when the floor disappeared a few steps ahead of him. Getting onto his knees, he placed his cane beside him, his flask safely tucked between the layers of clothes fastened around his wiry frame, and brought his ear to the floor. The vibration had intensified into one that he knew well – a hive of bees. Having reared those golden creatures all his life, Jack knew immediately that the bees were distressed. He also became aware of a sick burning stench far more nauseating than the smell of the building’s charred remains.
Emboldened by the distress he sensed, Jack began to climb down into the gaping darkness below. The darkness which enveloped him would have spooked any other person but Jack felt that the air was alive. As he went lower and lower, Jack heard a previously imperceptible hum which punctuated the vibrating buzz of the bees’ wings. It was unmistakeably that of a person. Going lower, the coolness of the night was replaced by the damp coolness of a world long covered. Strangely, a wind emanated from below. In it were mixed emotions, voices, and screams. Unnerved, Jack clambered back to the surface before shuffling quickly back to his rooms. If he was being watched, it would have been noticed that his calm albeit intoxicated demeanour was replaced by a haunted sobriety. In fact, the next day, his shuffling and stumbling that would usually be accompanied by unintelligible mutterings appeared to those surrounding him much slower and quiet. His head seemed bowed in sadness.
Resolving to not yet return to the gaping hole of uncertainty, Jack instead found comfort in rest, locking himself in his room and even taking fewer swigs of his whiskey. It was either the sobriety or his disconcertion which gave way to vivid hallucinations in his sleep. For the first time since losing his sight as a child, Jack could see light. Rather than a bright white light that would console him, the light was a flickering orange one emanating from a chasm of darkness. With this sight, his keen perception was numbed while the darkness prevented him from discovering what gave off this light. What emerged from it was however the same voice which had been cloaked in the wind near the hive he had discovered. It moaned in unintelligible words as if voicing discontent or worse, anger. Even when awake and returned to the comfortable darkness of his lack of sight, he couldn’t shake the gnawing feeling that the voice was speaking to him, taunting him, and urging him to give up the search.
Knowing that solitude wanderings in the ruins of the building would yield little, Jack spent long nights in the library, poring with the assistance of the librarian, over old records and documents to find clues as to whom the undead voice belonged to and how it was related to the creatures to which he was most enamoured – bees. Only when discovering the record of the mysterious death of another old beekeeper before him, Jack returned to the chasm with a greater burden of sadness upon his chest. There was nothing to do but to sit before that hive amongst the charred remains of the school, listening to the buzz of its bees and the whispers of the menacing voice in the wind. In solitude, the hallucinations crept into his conscious state so that Jack was trapped in a nightmare from which he could not wake.
“I admire your fortitude beekeeper,” said the voice with words now easily discernible in the howling wind.
“Why do you taunt this school with your fearful presence?” asked Jack now unafraid when sensing the candour and slight amusement with which the voice spoke.
“Taunt, haunt, whatever it is I do is because my peace was disturbed.”
“You were the beekeeper before me? You died without explanation and your body went missing before you could be laid to rest.”
“Murdered and body stolen. That would be the truth yes. Yet, I did find rest with my bees. Knowing my pain, they cloaked my body eventually making my bones their hive.”
As he finished hearing this, Jack felt the wind settle down, the buzzing stop, and the night settle in deathly silence. Despite this, he felt as if some presence stood behind him. Turning, he realised that even if something stood watching him, he had no way of knowing. Not only was he deprived of sight but feeling too. Jack stood still and silent, his heart beating ever faster as he contemplated his next step. Despite the ghost’s calm words, Jack felt that the ensuing silence was a threat. And, with the encroaching silence, he lost all sense of direction so that any move could spell disaster. But, knowing that he had no choice but to move, Jack took a step forward, away from the menacing presence behind him. Immediately, he fell forward, his head hitting a stray stone below so that he was rendered unconscious.
It was after an indeterminate amount of time that Jack awoke. He was again aware that the environment was emptied of all sounds or feelings which could guide him. Instead, he felt he was still with his captor.
“I do not take pleasure in this,” said the expressionless voice.
“Yet you persist with your torment,” replied Jack dryly.
“Ask yourself, what is it that I have done to torment anyone? Have I harmed you? Have I harmed any person in this wretched place? No. The living sense fear because they know that the corporeal and incorporeal are not meant to exist in the same world. When I was murdered, this was averted as my soul came to rest with the creatures I tended in life. The fire so cruelly started not only took the lives of countless innocents but damaged the home which my bees had made to cloak me. I now rise again to console them.”
Understanding his pain, Jack asked, his voice thick with emotion, “What is it you want then?”
“Peace.”
“None threaten your peace.”
“Yet, my peace, and the lives of those burned in the fire, are all threatened by he who killed me, he who began the blaze, and he who still remains at the helm of this school.”
“The headmaster? But why?”
“None other. And why, I do not know. This school, if that is what we should call it, is home to a lot that is not right. That is why it must be closed.”
“That is what you want then?”
“Without a doubt. This is not the end. This school will continue to exert its indomitable shadow across this place. I was destroyed because I fought for the forest. This school threatens that with its unnatural objects. You will meet a similar end. Why do you think the headmaster sent you? To die.”
Jack could feel the ghost’s pain and knew what would bring it solace. “Will truth not mend all?”
“Tell me, will truth bring back the lost lives? Will it remove the harm to nature and my bees? Will it stop this school’s unnatural project?”
“I don’t know. I do know that if you can trust that I respect the natural order like you then you can trust that people will continue to live who keep whatever malevolent object is at play here at bay.”
Words were not enough but Jack knew that their bond with the bees was. The bees knew his heart and he knew theirs. The ghost also knew the bees and they knew him. In that strange bond flowed the truth that Jack would keep his word. Just then, Jack felt the malevolence in the spirit dissipate. With that, he felt peace settle. And even as he knew he stood amidst the ruins of a grand building that somehow hid an evil purpose, Jack knew when his hand loosened its comfortable grip on his flask so that it clattered to the ground, that peace had covered his soul too. After that day, Jack returned to tending the bees, characteristically shuffling about with his cane and flask though never bringing it to his lips. And when he too departed life his spirit lingered in the school, walking through the halls, a ghostly figure with a flask of whiskey in hand. But he was not feared, he was loved for in their hearts, all who were touched by his spirit knew that he was there to guard them.
Ultimately, the story did not advance to the second round and was critiqued for “telling rather than showing,” with some unresolved plots, not enough care in dealing with a character with a disability, and too little catharsis at the end. These are worthwhile pieces of feedback which I hope to take on board in future writings.
Still, it received the following positive feedback…
The vivid descriptions of the school and of Jack’s extrasensory perception of the world around him were well executed. The final conversation between Jack and the ghostly beekeeper was beautifully rendered; the dialogue being wistful without being too flowery. The story has a strong voice that helps set the tone and create the right atmosphere for the spooky tale to unfold. The stakes feel high for Jack, which adds tension to the plot. Jack is developed enough to understand his character motivations and actions. The writer maintained a consistent tone throughout the story. There was also some nice prose in this story, the writer has a good foundation to build upon.
NYC Midnight Judges
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