The Bee Charmer

Prologue Legends and artifacts tell us that there is a race of people that have walked among us since the beginning of time virtually unknown to the general population and often themselves. They are born with certain gifts and capabilities that are unique amongst humans and are inherited along their genetic lineage. In the apocalyptic period of Christ’s time, when magic was powerful and inspiring, many became great magicians or seers. During the Great Inquisition they were sought out, tortured and imprisoned or killed as heretics and devil worshipers and driven into hiding. Even at the Salem witch trials one person was imprisoned for many years because she was accused of consorting with the devil. At the lowest, most mundane level they can handle bees without being harmed. But when these Bee Charmers, as some prefer, work with their bees, the bees swarm around them and land on them in great numbers, which is a horrific sight for the uninitiated. Further, just like the genetic linkage between blonde hair and blue eyes, so too these people may inherit other gifts of great mental, physical, and extrasensory powers. One may simply be a great genius without knowledge of their more basic Bee Charming abilities or the possibility that they have supernatural powers. Most Bee Charmers live out their lives without ever knowing that they have these special talents because these powers and gifts have to be discovered and developed. Few people ever have the opportunity or inclination to handle bees so they never get the chance to know that they have this most rudimentary capability that identifies a Bee Charmer. Even then, without some general knowledge that Bee Charmers even exist, their development may go no further. Many of the few that do know either foreswear its practice or do so in great secrecy because of the potentially severe consequences of being found out. Knowing, practicing Bee Charmers are quite rare made more so by the apparent fact that they are all women. Consider great women in history, particularly those of great mental or physical power, and you may be looking at a Bee Charmer. I am Mark Matthews. I am seventeen years old and I am a junior at Drury High School in North Adams. I live in a village called Spring Lake, in the northwest corner of the Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts with Charles and Grace, my father and mother. We are just east of the hairpin turn on Route 2A. A few miles south you pass by a sign that says Spring Lake, Established 1783, Population 186. From there you can look out over the mountains and off to your right you can see the lake with our little village opening up before you. Today is a cool crisp sunny day and you can see all of the lake and town and surrounding hills from atop the knoll where our village marquee sits. We are nestled in the mountains at an altitude of about 1000 feet with hills all around that rise up another two hundred to three hundred feet beyond that. The water is crystal clear and reflects high floating puffs of white clouds. The lake measures nearly two miles long and a mile wide and forty feet at its deepest. Its waters come from an underground aquifer that is one hundred feet below the lake and are a constant sixty-four degrees when they reach the lake. Its not always this clear and pristine, every house in town has a wood burning furnace, to augment their regular heating system, and every house has a wood burning fireplace: the firewood is free from the local sawmill. When you combine all of the wood smoke with the warm air from the lake, we often have thermal inversions where a still night’s cold air holds the warmer air down at ground level; an effect that might remind you of a Scottish bog with the dense acrid smell of burning wood. On the east end of the lake near town, there is a dam and a water wheel; with a large pool of dangerous churning water below and a train trestle up above. Before electricity, the wheel provided the power to the saw mill via a system of belts and gears. Later, a generator was attached to the water wheel to replace the mechanical conveyance. Now the saw mill is directly plugged into the power grid for this area. The sawmill owners still maintain the wheel for its appearance and the town’s nostalgic character. The Spring River that flows from the lake is one of the most beautiful and fishable trout steams in the entire Eastern United States. Four miles down stream it empties into the larger Deerfield River, an equally great and beautiful trout stream. Until that point, Spring River never freezes in the winter and never gets as warm as seventy degrees in the summer, which is the highest temperature that trout can survive. It also makes a wonderful place to swim. Although a healthy person can stay in the water for over an hour without developing hypothermia, after about fifteen minutes you start to turn blue and all but the toughest people head for the shore. We do not have everything in Spring Lake and that might bother some people who don’t live here, just like having them might bother some people that do live here. We don’t have a hospital, a bank, a drug store, any clothing or department stores, a full-time police department or fire department. Nor do we have a fancy restaurant; take out food, a bar, or a package store. All of that is available within ten miles to North Adams or twenty miles to Pittsfield.