Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a bee flying along the road and this bee that was flying along the road met a nicens little girl named Rowan.
Rowan was missing, or so her mother told her, “Shh. Hide, and pretend you’re gone.” She looked at her daughter through a beekeeper’s mask.
She was Rowan. The bee flew over the island where Sister Beech lived: she sold honey.
O, I am come to the low country
Och on, och on, och rie!
Without a penny in my purse
To buy a meal for me
She sang that song. That was her song.
Over at the boarding-house, where it was the 1970’s, an earlier version of Rowan’s mother played on the piano the sailor's hornpipe and danced. In the nude she danced:
I saw a maid milk a bull, fie, man, fie
I saw a maid milk a bull, who's the fool now
I saw a maid milk a bull, at every pull a bucket full
Thou hast well drunken, man, who's the fool now.
She looked a little like Brit Ekland, except for her ass, which looked kind of like a body double.
Sister Summersdale said:
-- O, Edward Malus will apologize.
Sister Honey said:
-- O, if not, the bees will come and sting out his eyes.--
Sting out his eyes,
Apologize,
Apologize,
Sting out his eyes.
We’ll put a hive over his head
And even a bear costume
Won’t protect his eyes,
Edward Malus raged against the women of the island. “You are bloody bitches!” he yelled, “Sure as you were written by Neil LaBute!”
The flames raged higher about him, as they consumed the wicker man. “And killing me won’t bring back your fecking honey!”
The ash falling from the sky was like snow. Edward watched the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the firelight. The flakes fell general all over the island. They were falling on every part of the maypole, on the beeless hills, softly falling on the bicycle he had punched that one lady to steal. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where he had thought Rowan lay buried. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the crackle of his body burning and the wicker man faintly falling, as his ash fell upon all the living and he was dead.
