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The girl with bees in her hair

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came in an envelope with no

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return address. She

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was small, wore a wrinkled

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dress of figured cotton, full

0:10

from neck to ankles, with

0:12

a button of bone at the throat, a

0:15

collar of torn lace. She

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was standing before a monumental house.

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On the scale you see

0:23

in certain English films earns

0:25

curved drives, stone lions, and

0:27

an entrance far too vast for any

0:30

home. She

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was not of that place, for

0:34

she had a foreign look and

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tangled black hair, and

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an icon, heavy and

0:41

strange dangling from an oversized chain

0:43

around her neck that

0:45

looked as if some tall adult had

0:47

taken it from his, and

0:49

hung it there as a charm to keep her

0:52

safe from a world of infinite harm that

0:54

soon would take him far from

0:56

her, and leave

0:58

her standing as she stood

1:00

now, barefoot, gazing

1:03

without expression into distance

1:06

away from the grandeur of

1:08

that house, its gravel

1:10

walks and sculpted gardens. She

1:14

carried a basket full of flames,

1:17

but whether fire or flowers with crimson

1:19

petals shading toward a central gold

1:22

was hard to say, though

1:24

certainly it burned,

1:28

and the light within it had nowhere else

1:30

to go and so, fed on itself, intensified

1:34

its red and burning glow,

1:36

the only color in

1:38

the scene. The

1:41

rest was done in grays, light and

1:43

shadow, as they played along her

1:45

dress across her face and

1:47

through her midnight hair, lively

1:50

with bees. At

1:53

first they seemed just errant

1:55

bits of shade until the humming grew

1:57

too loud to be denied as the

1:59

bees flew in and out, as

2:02

if choreographed in a country dance between

2:04

the fields of sun and the black

2:07

tangle of her hair. Without

2:11

warning, a window on one of

2:13

the upper floors flew open. Wind

2:15

had caught the casement a silken length

2:17

of curtain filled like a billowing sail.

2:21

The bees began to stream

2:23

out from her hair straight

2:26

to the single opening in the

2:28

high facade. Inside,

2:30

a moment later,

2:33

the sound of screams. The

2:37

girl, who had through all of

2:39

this seemed unconcerned and blank,

2:42

all at once looked up. She

2:45

shook her head, her mane of hair freed

2:47

of its burden of bees, and

2:49

walked away out of

2:52

the picture frame, far beyond the

2:54

confines of the envelope that brought

2:56

her image here. Here

2:59

where the days grow longer now, the

3:02

air begins to warm, dread

3:05

grows to fear among us,

3:08

and the bees swarm.