Thaddeus. Something is wrong with me

Something is wrong with me.

The Girl Who Smells of Honey and Smoke
I will help you and the town.

FEBRUARY GOES HOME. FEBRUARY waited in the woods before heading home to the girl who smelled of honey and smoke. He opened the door and handed her a sculpture of an owl with a cracked skull. He bought it cheap from a depressed sculptor. The girl who smelled of honey and smoke cried and hugged February. She whispered in his ear that Thaddeus Lowe now believes in spring and that given time it will infect the entire town.
Maybe we can live in peace, she said.
It was a solution to the war against him. February had suffered through their fake smiling faces, water-trough attacks, sticks thrown at the sky, prayers and War Hymns. He had seen them covered with moss and endless layers of gray. He had seen them saddened with over nine hundred days of February, and he had been blamed for it.
Very well, then, said February. And he sat down in a wooden rocking chair and folded his hands on his lap.
I love you, said the girl who smelled of honey and smoke. And I love you, said February, feeling a little sad.

Note Written by February
There is a house builder and his wife. Name the house builder February and refer to the wife as the girl who smells of honey and smoke.

After Thaddeus called off all wars against February, the town’s sadness reached a new depth. Two members of the War Effort flung themselves from the blacksmith’s ship. Another cut his wrists open in the middle of the street, and dead vines poured from his body, grew through the street and covered a cottage. Shopkeepers wept through the night. The beekeepers had their bees sting their necks in order to stop their crying. Snow mixed with ice and a sheet of lightning fell from the sky. And Thaddeus Lowe could be seen walking through town wearing nothing but cutoff burlap pants, commenting to his neighbors about the beautiful weather.
Remember to trim those hedges, he yelled to a shopkeeper who was sitting on a pile of dirty snow, his knees pulled up to his face as he rocked back and forth.
The underground children came up occasionally to watch the town fall apart. They thought of rebelling against Thaddeus on account of his madness. They held meetings and argued into the late night. They discussed the War Plan given to them by a girl who smelled of honey and smoke, seeing now the consequences of proceeding without the support of the War Effort and townsfolk. Their confusion swept through the underground tunnels.

Thaddeus dreamed and ignored everyone in town telling him that February was still occurring. Squares of parchment tied with blue ribbon had been placed throughout his home. Each one had a different style of writing, each from a different person from town or the War Effort. They said things like how February had been the cause of his wife’s death, his daughter’s and Caldor Clemens’s. They pleaded with Thaddeus to remember the days of flight, and one parchment had strands of balloon fabric sewn to the fibers. Thaddeus didn’t touch any of these. It was Bianca who began sneaking into the home each evening, placing the squares of parchment around the house as her father drove a tractor through the imaginary fields. When he ignored them, she began unfolding the parchments and placing them in the bathtub, on his bed, sticking them inside cabinet doors with candle wax. Thaddeus started to read them and nailed them to the walls of his home until they covered each room. He studied what they said and thought that he should go back to the home of February in the woods and the girl who smells of honey and smoke and ask more questions.

The girl who smelled of honey and smoke wanted to be with a man who had the following characteristics: (1) Gets his hair cut. (2) Has a respectable income. (3) Wears nice clothes that fit him. (4) Acts like a man. (5) Looks healthy. When she looked at February sitting on the floor, occasionally writing something, she saw none of this. His hair hadn’t been cut in over six months. It was a mess of brown waves and curls, a dingy mat growing down the back of his neck that embarrassed her when she brought him around her friends. His job at a local store, where he had been working for over two years without a decent raise, was going nowhere. He didn’t own a vehicle like other men, because he couldn’t afford one. Instead he rode his bike to work each day and didn’t object when the girl who smelled of honey and smoke’s parents offered to buy them a vehicle. He couldn’t afford an apartment, so he lived in his parents’ basement, where the girl who smelled of honey and smoke lived also and was now planning an escape each day she woke to the sound of someone’s piss spraying the toilet water above her head. His wardrobe consisted of underwear his mother had bought him over six years ago when he first went away to college, a half dozen faded T-shirts and three pairs of jeans that were Christmas gifts from the past three years. When February would spend hours writing a story he wouldn’t discuss because it had gotten away from him months before, the girl who smelled of honey and smoke told him that other men do things like take their girlfriends out, buy them flowers and candy, surprise them with picnics. A man, she said, doesn’t hide some make-believe story that he can’t even finish. And lastly, when she looked at February in the shower, or when he was dressing, she wondered if he was dying. His skin was pale, his arms and leg bones lacked the muscular frame that she believed was sexy. He was six foot two and weighed 155 pounds. Except for the two-mile bike ride to work, he decided against an exercise routine. Occasionally she’d see him in the bedroom, struggling on a third push-up, and she’d notice the uncombed block of hair, the tubelike body trembling, the dirty clothes piled up, the bicycle leaning against the drywall, and it reminded her of what she didn’t have, the possibilities waiting outside those dark walls.

FEBRUARY HELD A BEARD TRIMMER. He reread the list of characteristics the girl who smelled of honey and smoke sought in a man until the anger turned to sadness. He stretched his arms out in front of him. He inspected their thinness. He ran his hands through his hair, the thickest part at the back near his neck, a puffy mess that now embarrassed even himself. Then, flipping the plastic switch, that row of rusty little teeth sawing back and forth, February raised it to the front of his head and in one long stroke began shaving off his hair.
When the townsfolk looked up, they believed that it was snowing but as the locks of hair fell down upon their shoulders, lashing them across their cheeks, curling around their ankles and holding them to the streets, sticking to their lips and suffocating their breath, they realized that it was another attack by February.
Look, said Thaddeus to himself. Some summer vines are falling from the clouds. How unusual.
It’s February, said a war member.
Thaddeus, please, it’s February from above causing this. Can’t you see that.
I’m going off to see February at the edge of town again, said Thaddeus.
Thaddeus, it’s a trick. February doesn’t live at the edge of town. Look up!
Thaddeus was off.

Thaddeus walked back through the woods and to the home of February and the girl who smelled of honey and smoke. When he opened the door, he saw a man in a rocking chair cutting his hair with a pair of large sewing shears. The girl who smelled of honey and smoke was sitting on the floor writing on parchment paper, which she folded into tiny squares and bound with blue ribbon.
The man, thought Thaddeus, was February. He wore faded brown pants and a dark blue sweater with holes at the elbows. He cut his hair in odd angles and took a few snips from the chin of his beard.
Thaddeus closed the door.
February dropped the sewing shears. The girl pushed the parchment papers under a bearskin rug. They glanced at each other and looked back at Thaddeus, who was still standing in the doorway.
Well, come in, said February. Don’t let the cold air in.
Thaddeus was puzzled. His ankles, beneath his socks, were sticky with sweat.
The girl who smelled of honey and smoke approached Thaddeus and placed her arms around his shoulders. I’m glad you’re back, she said. Come in and sit on the floor with me.
February stayed in his rocking chair. He folded his hands in his lap and rocked back and forth. He looks scared, thought Thaddeus.
I thought you were dead, said Thaddeus, looking at February.
February shook his head no.
I’m not dead, he said. As a matter of fact, I don’t know who or what I am anymore. Everyone in town is terrified of me. They blame me for an endless season where all it does is snow and the skies are gray and everyone is filled with endless sadness. They blame me for the end of flight. Did you know that I had visions that you were coming to cut my throat, Thaddeus. Just awful. I had to sleep in an empty cottage at the edge of another town. The weather was warm.
Thaddeus didn’t know of any other town within walking distance.
February continued. I ran away from the possibility of you killing me to another town that appeared to be abandoned. The weather was warm, the homes newly built, but there were holes in the ground that appeared to go to the center of the earth. It looked like tunnels underground, and inside them were lamps strung like holiday lights.
The girl who smelled of honey and smoke got up to make tea. Thaddeus said yes, that he would drink tea only if the bottom of the cup were stuffed with mint leaves.
I don’t understand, said Thaddeus to February.
Neither do we, said the girl who smelled of honey and smoke.
The two holes in the sky, February said, they hold the answer. We believe in a Creator. We believe that the Creator is up inside those two holes in the sky. We believe that the cause of this endless sad season is directly connected to the Creator.
Thaddeus took the teacup from the girl who smelled of honey and smoke. But you’re February, he said. You’re the cause of it.
I’m not February, February said. You and everyone else including the Creator call me February. I don’t even know my name. I’m a builder of houses, I know that. I built this house by myself. I should be called House Builder. Most of the homes in your town, I built with my bare hands. That is, before I was driven away. I hate February.
But you kidnapped the children and buried them, said Thaddeus.
I wouldn’t do that, said House Builder, kind of laughing.
The girl who smelled of honey and smoke sat so close to Thaddeus on the floor that their knees were touching.
He loves children, she said. He wouldn’t do that.
February the Creator kidnapped the children, said House Builder. February the Creator is responsible for this endless season of sadness.
But you, said Thaddeus, looking at the girl who smelled of honey and smoke. You poisoned me. You made me see spring. When my daughter was taken from her bed, it smelled of honey and smoke and the window was open.
Like I can control what I do and how you are affected. I believe I was only doing it for the safety of my husband. Someone told me to do it, and I did it. I, too, have been mislabeled as a girl who smells of honey and smoke. I’m a Housewife. And as for the smell of the room, Housewife whispered, February is a cruel being, capable of such tricks.
So it is still February, said Thaddeus. All this time February is still occurring.
I’m afraid so, she said.
None of this makes sense, thought Thaddeus.
We feel the same way, said House Builder.
How did you hear that.
You said it out loud, said House Builder. The girl who smelled of honey and smoke nodded.
There was a war planned by underground children, said Thaddeus. It’s against February. Or is it against you. I shouldn’t have called it off. Should I have called it off. I need to get back to town. And Thaddeus headed to the door.
Please, said House Builder. I know you won’t understand this, because I believe it’s impossible to understand, but I’m not the cause of the town’s troubles. I’ve been pushed to the edge of town. Look back to the two holes in the sky. That’s where the problem is. Or the problem is willpower and what you think you can control. I, for example, got labeled February and my wife here as a girl who smells of honey and smoke. Such nonsense. How awful.
When Thaddeus opened the door, it was snowing again and the trees were coated in ice. He ran back to the town as fast as he could, tripping and falling several times. He screamed in torment, his face pressed into the hard snow.

The girl who smelled of honey and smoke woke up before February each morning. She’d crawl out of bed and walk through the darkness of the unfinished home and sit down at a wooden desk where she’d click on a small green lamp. She would read through the stacks of papers, the fragmented paragraphs, the half sentences and abandoned dialogue, and finish these lost riddles to her liking. A long time ago, she showed Bianca the sun. Yesterday she told Thaddeus to walk back to the house of a man wrongly accused of being February to ask more questions. She supplied the blacksmiths with the tools to build a ship. One by one she revived the children buried underground after February kidnapped them, and she was the one who dropped the scraps of parchment from the sky that Thaddeus and the War Effort collected. The girl who smelled of honey and smoke told the children nursery rhymes and supplied them with lanterns as her hands carved out the maze of tunnels. There, there, she said, hushing them to sleep under thick winter blankets, their bodies huddled against a curve in the tunnel. And deep inside their dreams, she fed them the images of a final War Plan against February. There, there, she whispered, tucking the squares of parchment under their pillowed heads.

Thaddeus called a meeting with the War Effort.

I apologize to everyone, he said. The past weeks I believed it was spring when in fact the attacks from February have never been worse. I believe we should go on a full-scale attack against February. He doesn’t live at the edge of town. That is House Builder and his wife, who is a worker of spells and who tricked me to protect her husband. What I do know is that the real February is the Creator who lives in the two holes in the sky. We should have known this. We will immediately construct a fleet of balloons and ascend into the air.
There were about thirty people in Thaddeus’s home, and they immediately began to object. A few people shouted that flight is impossible. The Professor quieted them and spoke.
But we already have a plan under way, he said, and handed Thaddeus the bundle of parchments gathered from the homes and shops left by the underground children.
Fine, go ahead with it, he said. But I’m going in the opposite direction. I need to get into the holes in the sky.
Should someone go with you, asked a war member.
No, said Thaddeus. The children’s War Plan is a plan that will work, but I can’t leave without seeing what’s in the sky. I will attempt to fly tomorrow by myself. Everyone else can begin the children’s War Plan.

That night everyone ate dinner together at the inn. They had steamed carrots, apple-glazed pork and boiled potatoes. They ate all the food in the town. They told stories of how New Town would be warmer. They drank and dreamed of blooming fields. A calendar was created, void of the season of February, and at the end of the night they brought it out and everyone cheered.
They talked over the War Plan one last time and went to bed early. People questioned Thaddeus on how he was going to fly when flight was impossible. Thaddeus shrugged his shoulders, said he didn’t care, that he just had to try.
I miss you both, said Thaddeus that night into his pillow.
He thought about the man and the woman at the edge of town. His head was spinning.
I love you both, he said into the pillow.
And then he fell asleep.

FEBRUARY WOKE ONE MORNING AT THE same time that the girl who smelled of honey and smoke was getting up from the bed. He decided to follow her. He crawled on his hands and knees across the floor and looked into the next room where the desk was. The girl who smelled of honey and smoke was sitting there writing something. She was folding sheets of paper and tying them with blue ribbon and reaching her arm through a hole in the floor. February stood up and walked to the desk. The girl heard him. She turned around.
Go ahead, he said, you can write whatever you want, he said. I don’t care anymore.
I will, she said. You took away a man’s wife and daughter for no reason. You’re cruel. I’m going to show them happiness, she said, wondering if he knew about the underground children, the notes she had given them.
I’m sorry, said February. I’m sorry for everything.
February turned and walked back to the bedroom. Just before he entered, a sharp pain ran from the bottom of his foot to his hip. He fell back on the ground and twisted his foot up near his chest. He saw three dead bees crushed into his heel.
Later that same day the girl who smelled of honey and smoke sat at the desk and lit fires in the town. She had Bianca start at one house and work in a descending circle, burning it all down. She then collected the papers in a stack, tied it with ribbon, and placed it in a box she titled Light Box.

Bianca began at the edge of town and worked in a descending circle, dipping and tilting her lantern into piles of brush that the War Effort had placed the day before the death of Caldor Clemens. On a parchment it looked like this:


The last home she set fire to before escaping down one of the tunnels was her own. When she ran inside, her chest hurt from breathing so hard and her blue dress was covered with ash. She looked out the window and saw the plains burning and the blacksmith ship sailing away in the distance. She walked around the house, lighting the walls with a growing flame as the children and townsfolk yelled beneath her.

Come on, Bianca, they said. Come now before you burn to death. Their fists pounded the soles of her feet.
She slid a floorboard to the side and saw all their dirty little faces underneath.
In you go now, said one of the smallest children from deep below.
As she climbed down she thought she heard her father scream her name.

Six Reports from the Priests
1. We can see Bianca in the distance.
2. She runs from brush pile to brush pile dipping her lantern and sparking flames that are spreading throughout the town.
3. She’s wearing a blue dress and yellow socks, and drawings of kites on her hands and arms glow in the light of the fire. She is a streak of color with long black hair.
4. There are seven of us here in the woods. We have no place to go without the direction of our Creator and with the fire reaching the first line of birch trees. We fear for our lives.
5. The snow turns to pools of water around our toes. There’s a loud creaking sound that echoes through the woods.
6. The last thing we see is the blacksmith ship moving through the town. It divides shops in two. Splinters of flaming wood spin through the air.

The Girl Who Smelled of Honey and Smoke
I write in huge letters
FLIGHT RETURNED

TO TOWN and fold it into a little square and go back to bed with February.
When I wake in the middle of the night, I have an idea. I make a drawing of a New Town on parchment, and that, too, I fold into a little square.
In the morning I take the folded squares and place them under the pillow of Thaddeus Lowe. Thaddeus repeats out loud the sentence FLIGHT RETURNED TO TOWN and smiles.

Thaddeus wore the light box on his head when he ascended in the balloon toward the holes in the sky. Beneath him the town was flames and dark smoke. It filled the sky around him. From a great distance, where the rest of the town was climbing up from the tunnels and into their new homes, they could see the balloon glowing with each pulse of flame and a box of light flickering in the darkness.
What’s going to happen to him, said one of the children.
Maybe he’s going to die, said another, throwing a large burlap sack of clothing onto the ground.
He’s not going to die, said another child. He’s going to be with the Creator.
Bianca was in her new home. She watched out the window the old town in the distance burn to the ground. She saw the balloon light and disappear, and she played the ancient game of Prediction. She saw a box of light sitting on the shoulders of her shouting father. The kites on her hands and arms burned. She wanted to throw the kites out from her fingers and into the sky and tie them to the balloon and pull her father back to earth. She saw the balloon ascend to the two holes in the sky. She saw the balloon stop.

The top of the balloon was stuck. Thaddeus climbed out of the basket and up the side of the balloon. He had draped thick ropes there for this purpose. When he came to the edge of the hole in the sky, he pulled himself up and kicked against the balloon. He crawled on his stomach until he was completely inside a large room that looked just like House Builder’s home. It was dark except for a small lamp that sat on a desk. The room smelled like honey and smoke, and Thaddeus walked around a little before hearing footsteps and hiding behind the furniture. It was the girl who smelled of honey and smoke. She carried a steaming cup. She sat down at the desk and began to write. All around the desk were little squares of paper tied with blue ribbon.
Hello, whispered Thaddeus, peeking over a piece of furniture.
The girl who smelled of honey and smoke didn’t hear him.
It’s me, he whispered a little louder.
The girl who smelled of honey and smoke turned around.
You, she said. Go away. What are you doing here. I’m trying to save you from February.
I know what’s going on, said Thaddeus. I know that February lives here and he is a mean man who named House Builder and his wife February and the girl who smelled of honey and smoke.
She looked at him. He’s not a mean man, she said. He’s just confused. He didn’t know what to do with your town. But I’m helping now. It’s over. February has given up. I’m giving you a New Town and a new life. You really should go.
How big is our town, Thaddeus asked, looking back through the hole in the floor, the sky of the town.
I have no idea, said the girl who smelled of honey and smoke. I mean it when I say you should go back. Everything is going to be fine now.
Is February here.
Yes, but he’s sleeping.
Thaddeus said, I want to see February.
No, you can’t. There’s no point in it.
I want to see February, said Thaddeus.
Fine, said the girl. But very quickly.
The girl who smelled of honey and smoke led Thaddeus into a cold bedroom. A man was sleeping under the sheets. His hair was brown and curly. He looked sad.
That’s him. That’s February.
Yes, said the girl. Are you happy now.
I hate him, said Thaddeus. I hate him for what he did.
Thaddeus stood. His chest rose and fell. He felt the sharp tip of the knife in his pocket.

The Girl Who Smells of Honey and Smoke Creates New Town
After the smoke cleared from the skies, the sun came out big and glorious and the leaves on the trees looked like they were on fire. Crop fields and flower beds bloomed. Some of the children went blind from staring in disbelief at the sun. They had to walk around with cloth tied around their eyes. Bianca told everyone that the sun possessed this power, but even she stared at it and now saw black spots in the corners of the new sky.

Scraps of Parchment Written by the Girl Who Smells of Honey and Smoke
Everyone smiled in New Town.
No one mentioned the old town ever again.
The season of February existed only in the old town.
Caldor Clemens unhanged himself from deep in the woods and came to New Town. He walked into a shop and asked, Did I miss anything, and everyone laughed.
Selah, frozen in the river, was seen one morning crawling from the muddy shore. She remembered nothing.
February at the edge of town and his wife came to New Town and explained how his name was House Builder and not February. He told the story of February the Creator and his war with not only the town but with a girl who smelled of honey and smoke.
Only Thaddeus Lowe was missing.