Bee Candy

by Shullamuth Ballinger, Michelle Monroe (Photographer)

Mothers are supposed to protect their children; children are supposed to live forever, and when you suspect that your sister committed the most unthinkable act, the police are supposed to bring her to justice. But when the autopsy declares natural causes, no one wants to accuse a grieving mother just because a couple of facts don’t add up. How do you live with the suspicion? How do you live with the guilt? Thirty-eight year old Celia, teacher and mean street escapee, manages by drowning herself in isolating routine. Each week she tends neglected graves at a local cemetery. While performing this ritual, Celia is caught by a sudden winter storm. She’s not the only one. Trish, a pregnant woman fleeing her own fears, lost and laboring, stumbles into Celia. As the two women struggle through the wind and cold, the ghost of Celia’s niece—who has spent her restless death painting Trish’s toenails and ignoring the bees trying to guide her soul to the Otherworld—materializes in the swirling snow. Fred, the cemetery’s sexton, scatters the ghost’s image before either woman is sure it was there, but that catalyst moment of recognition transforms them. Trish gives birth but struggles to be a mother; the ghost plays tricks both dangerous and fun, and Fred tempts Celia to swim in newer, sweeter pools. Can Celia really float on friendship and desire, or will they just become new currents in the undertow of old grief and unanswered questions, dragging her down?

345 pages, Paperback

Published January 16, 2018

About the author

Raised all over the Denver area, Shullamuth spent most of her early life in Denver's Globeville neighborhood. A high school teacher by day and writer by night, weekend, and summer, Shullamuth also attends a ridiculous amount of live music and tries to hike once a week.