Auction #32: The Bees Spring To Life

“Let’s see how you look,” he says, pulls up a chair in the doorway so she can’t run out.

The mother had beautiful things, and the racks behind the governess sag with the silk and satin dresses the mother wore only once and couldn’t throw away. One is the dark blue of the night sky sewn with silver, one is the bright gold of the sun, one shines like a diamond.

When she shakes her head he says, “Come on, you took the boots she gave you. She’s not coming back for these. Let’s pick something nice.”

She feels as if his hands were on her, but he sits in his chair while she pulls the blue dress from the hangar, slides it over her naked bones. She trembles so much that he has to pull up the zipper himself.

He turns her to face the mirror.

“That’s better,” he says, moves the chair aside, closes them in.

---

After the children are asleep, the governess goes to her room and sees the dress of gold laid out on her bed, unzipped and waiting for her. The lining is embroidered with bees (from the mother’s name–the dress was made for her).

She looks out the window as if she could signal someone, but it’s night out, and the window might as well be painted over black.

She puts on the dress and goes to his room.

“Very good,” he says, and she feels like her mouth has been stuffed with cotton and no light will ever reach her.

When he zips the dress closed, she can feel the bees spring to life inside the dress, a thousand tiny stings.

---

A gilded cage is still a thorny prison, and meat is meat.

Cris Fisher

Interfictions Auction 15 – Necklace Based On “A Dirge For Prester John”

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The Lapis Tree by Cris Fisher, Queen of the Cat People

Lapis hearts, moonstone drops, quartz, glass, pearls, & sterling. Click the image for a hi-res version.

Based on “A Dirge For Prester John” by Catherynne M. Valente

“I took him to the river which churns agate against marble and showed him the thing we had made: a sapling, whose stem was of silver, whose leaves curled deep and blue, lapis dark as eyes, veined in quartz flaws. Tiny fruits of white opal hung glittering from its slender branches, and the moon washed it in christening light. This is hell, he quavered, as I stroked the jeweled tree. It seemed to shrink from him in shame. I touched his face, his unyielding neck; I wrenched his head towards me, and he stared into the eyes that blink from my breasts, the cobalt leaves peeking around my ribs like the heads of curious peacocks. At the ends of the earth is paradise; look around you, the earth is nowhere to be seen, I had whispered, and I do not need pearls.”

Ms. Valente never fails to include literal treasures in her work- luscious gems and precious metals- and has inspired me to make so many pieces of jewelry based on her stories. This passage reminds me of the alchemical aspect of love, transforming base people into precious creatures, which is the very nature of the human soul. But some get hung up on perceived costs and don’t realize it is given freely.

I’m also a sucker for lapis.

Cris Fisher