short story: Are You Still Hurting? (5/7)

5

The singer can no longer cleanse herself in the metallic water with the silhouettes of these strangers on the other side.

She tore the curtain out the way, marching to the clothes she abandoned on the floor. She donned the clothes without a care for what the strangers see and kicked the rickety door open.

Down the hallway the musician rushed. When she collided with her aunt she nearly screamed.

"The bathroom!"

"What is it, sweetheart!"

"Children and a guy in the bathroom! They won't leave to let me shower. Where's Mina?"

Her uncle appeared behind the corner of the hall laughing, along with one of Mina’s relatives.

"They don't speak English. They probably didn't understand you."

"Well, can someone tell them to get out so I can shower?"

Her aunt, uncle and Mina’s relative looked to one another and nodded. They took the singer's arm and led her into a dining room.

A wasp at the center of the table lay on its back, struggling to move. Before the musician could point it out her uncle cleared his throat.

"We've all decided it's time to have a talk with you."

The singer's green eyes glared at this man. But he was not alone, for her aunt and Mina’s relative sat down to do the same.

"This is another example of the kind of thing you do..." her aunt spoke.

"What?"

"The children in the bathroom. They didn't do anything wrong and yet--"

"Wait. Wait!" The musician cut the air with her hands. "All I'm asking for is for privacy."

"Let us finish, dear."

"I didn't do anything wrong."

"See what she does?" the uncle spoke to Emma's relative. "She drama-mongers."

"What?" she demanded.

"I think you're overreacting," the aunt spoke.

"There's metallic water in the bathroom. The door doesn't lock. I didn't complain. All I'm asking is for those kids and that guy to leave the bathroom while I fuckin' shower!"

"Maybe you should take your medicine," the aunt soothed.

"Wait. I'm not overreacting. This makes no sense."

"Would you like to talk to your brother about it? He's the one who told us you'd be coming here."

How would her brother Sid have known she would be at Mina’s summer house. How and when had he gotten here?

"Sid is here? Where is he?"

The brother and sister had their differences but the musician refused to believe that Sid would have suggested such an intervention. Usually he was tacit and left his sister alone, saying nothing of what he thought. She simply did not believe her aunt and uncle.

She searched the house in every room and corner and found only more of Mina’s family and her own.

 One of her aunts was smoking and as they made small talk about her brother the musician kept shaking her head, eyes watering at the sound of buzzing.

"Do you hear that?"

Her aunt shook her head in the negative. But she did not ask what it was her niece heard.

The musician followed the noise and found herself with ear pressed to the wall, listening for a hive of bees. The wallpaper was thin and could peel with ease to reveal a nest. But she left it be and continued to seek out her brother.