“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

When I create sculptures out of wool, I usually let the wool inspire me. Creatures take shape out of wool roving as I poke and prod the cloud of fibers with a felting needle. The craft of needle-felting uses a barbed needle (like a bee’s barbed stinger) to enmesh loose wool fibers together into a structure. The more you stab, the tighter the fibers become, the more solid the creature.

This creature had a different genesis: the story “To Set Before the King,” by Genevieve Valentine. I read Valentine’s piece as a reflection on stepmothers; in it, a pivotal time in an au pair’s life is interwoven with a fairy tale about good maids and evil stepmothers, and a cook/butcher’s reflection on her/his work to turn a carcass into food. The language is spare and beautiful, the tale as bright and sharp as a thin needle, and then as moist and smooth as breathing. Reading it, I was especially struck by Valentine’s image of a golden dress, embroidered inside with bees: “When he zips the dress closed she can feel the bees spring to life inside the dress, a thousand tiny stings.”

In the sculpture inspired by this story, I’ve taken the bee image and merged it with the butcher’s thread of the short story. A bee stands with wings folded, one arm reaching behind her back to clasp a meat cleaver. When I turn her around, I chuckle at the irony of a bee with a cleaver, rather than a stinging point.

Lisa Bergin