Only one was still alive: it was discovered in her nasal cavity, its long, black legs curled in upon itself. When the tweezers gripped the spherical abdomen it struggled feebly against the pressure, the red hourglass on its underside like the relic of a life suddenly stopped.
And in the harsh light of the autopsy room, the eyes of the black widow gleamed like small, dark stars.
This is a honeycomb world. History is its gravity.
In the far north of Maine, figures move along a road, silhouetted against the early-morning sun. Behind them are a bulldozer and a cherry picker and two small trucks, the little convoy making its way along a county road toward the sound of lapping water. There is laughter and swearing in the air, and plumes of cigarette smoke rising to join with the morning fog. There is room for these men and women in the bed of the truck but they choose instead to walk, enjoying the feel of the ground beneath their feet, the clean air in their lungs, the camaraderie of those who will soon perform hard physical labor together but are grateful for the sun that will shine gently upon them, the breeze that will cool them in their work, and the friendship of those who walk by their side.
There are two groups of workers here. The first are line clearers, jointly employed by the Maine Public Service Company and the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company to cut back the trees and brush alongside the road. This is work that should have been completed in the autumn when the ground was dry and clear, not at the end of April, when frozen, compacted snow still lay on the high ground and the first buds had already begun to sprout from the branches. But the line clearers have long since ceased to wonder at the ways of their employers and are content simply that there is no rain falling upon them as they traipse along the blacktop.
The second group consists of workmen employed by one Jean Beaulieu to clear vegetation from the banks of St. Froid Lake in preparation for the construction of a house. It is simply coincidence that both groups have taken to the same stretch of road on this bright morning, but they mingle as they go, exchanging comments about the weather and lighting one another's cigarettes.
Just outside the little town of Eagle Lake, the workers turn west onto Red River Road, the Fish River flowing at their left, the red brick edifice of the Eagle Lake Water and Sewage District building to their right. A small wire fence ends where the river joins St. Froid Lake, and houses begin to appear along the bank. Through the branches of the trees, the glittering surface of the water can be glimpsed.
Soon the noise of their passing is joined by another sound. On the ground above them, shapes appear from wooden kennels: gray animals with thick fur and keen, intelligent eyes. They are wolf hybrids, each chained to an iron ring outside its kennel, and they bark and howl as the men and women walk below them, their chains jangling as they strain to reach the intruders. The breeding of such hybrids is relatively common in this part of the state, a regional peculiarity surprising to strangers. Some of the workers stop and watch, one or two taunting the beasts from the safety of the road, but the wiser ones move on. They know that it is better to let these animals be.
The work commences, accompanied by a chorus of engines and shouts, of picks and shovels breaking the ground, of chain saws tearing at branches and tree trunks; and the smells of diesel fumes and sweat and fresh earth mingle in the air. The sounds drown out the rhythms of the natural world: the wood frogs clearing their throats, the calls of hermit thrushes and winter wrens, the crying of a single loon out on the water.
The day grows short, the sun moving west across the lake. On Jean Beaulieu's land a man removes his yellow hard hat, wipes his brow on his sleeve, and lights a cigarette before making his way back to the bulldozer. He climbs into the cab and slowly starts to reverse, the harsh buzz of the engine adding its guttural notes to the sounds of men and nature. The howling from above begins again, and he shakes his head wearily at the man in the cherry picker nearby.
This ground has lain undisturbed for many years. The grass is wild and long, and the bushes cling tenaciously to the hard earth. There is no reason for the man in the cab to doubt that the bank upon which he stands is solid, until an alien clamor intrudes on the rustling of the evergreens and the sawing of the clearers. The bulldozer makes a high, growling din, like an animal in panic, as huge quantities of earth shift. The howling of the hybrids increases in intensity, some turning in circles or wrenching again at their chains as they register the new sounds.
The roots of a white spruce are exposed as a section of the riverbank collapses, and the tree topples slowly into the water, sending ripples across the still surface of the lake. Beside it, the bulldozer seems to hang suspended for a moment, one track still clinging to the ground, the other hanging over empty space, before it tumbles sideways, its operator leaping to safety, falling away from the vehicle as it turns and lands with a loud splash in the shallows. Men drop their tools and start running. They scramble to the new verge, where brown water has already rushed in to exploit the sudden expansion of the banks. Their colleague raises himself, shivering and soaked, from the lake, then grins embarrassedly and raises a hand to let them know that he is okay. The men crowd the bank, looking at the stranded bulldozer. One or two cheer desultorily. To their left, another huge slab of earth crumbles and falls into the water, but they hardly notice, their efforts are so focused on helping their comrade out of the cold water.
But the man in the cherry picker is not looking at the bulldozer, or at the arms reaching out to pull the drenched figure from the water. He stands unmoving, the chain saw in his hands, and looks down on the newly exposed bank. His name is Lyall Dobbs. He has a wife and two children and, at this moment, he desperately wishes that he were with them. He desperately wishes he were anywhere but staring down at the banks of St. Froid, at the darkened bones revealed among the tree roots and broken earth, and the small skull slowly disappearing beneath the cold waters of the lake.
“Billy?” he shouts.
Billy Laughton, the foreman of the clearing crew, turns away from the crowd of men by the shore, shaking his head and swearing softly.
“Yeah?”
There is no further word for a moment. Lyall Dobbs's throat is suddenly too dry to produce sound. He swallows, then resumes.
“Billy, we got a cemetery around here?”
Laughton's brow furrows. From his pocket he takes a folded map and examines it briefly. He shakes his head at the other man.
“No,” he replies simply.
Dobbs looks at him, and his face is pale.
“Well, we do now.”
This is a honeycomb world.
You must be careful where you step.
And you must be ready for what you might find.
1
IT WAS SPRING, and color had returned to the world.
The distant mountains were transforming, the gray trees now cloaking themselves in new life, their leaves a faded echo of fall's riot. The scarlets of the red maples were dominant, but they were being joined now by the greenish yellow leaves of the red oaks; the silver of the bigtooth aspens; and the greens of the quaking aspens, the birches, and the beeches. Poplars and willows, elms and hazelnuts were all bursting into full bloom, and the woods were ringing with the noise of returning birds.