---

Old People’s Folly (Part 2 of 2)

By Nora Schinnerl

(…Continued from Part 1)

Kite was still curled into a bundle of blankets in front of the stove when Setti woke. The old woman sniffed, torn between surprise and annoyance. She’d have figured him for a quitter, sneaking out before dawn to escape the work. That’s what she’d have done when she was his age. Not like Setti was in any shape to chase after him. But he’d stayed and now she was stuck with him, just like she was stuck with her ghost. There was a thought to cheer her up in the morning.

“Ey, boy.”

The bundle of blankets stirred, then Kite woke with a start. The bruise on his face looked worse in the harsh morning light, his cheek all swollen and purple. From the way he winced, it wasn’t the only one either. Setti dropped a bowl of oats on the table for him.

“About time you start working for your food.”

She didn’t stick around to see if he would eat and instead snagged the ghost disk on her way out the door. The last thing she needed was the boy messing around with it. Her knee twinged in protest, objecting to yesterday’s treatment just like it did every day. Setti didn’t have the luxury to heed her body’s constant objections.

It barely took five minutes before Kite emerged as well, still mute as a butterfly. Setti put the axe into his hand and pointed him at the pear tree, then shuffled off to plant some beans. To her surprise it didn’t take long for the tell-tale sound of the axe to start up. Maybe the boy would actually manage to strip the tree of its gnarled branches before he winged it. Maybe he was more than a pretty voice. Setti shook her head. Shouldn’t get too optimistic. Maybe the ghost had made her go soft with her ideals and her talk of change.

With a grunt Setti settled onto the ground next to her vegetable bed. She’d tried a thousand different ways of planting seeds while bending down and none of them had worked with a bad knee. Sitting in the dirt wasn’t pretty, but it did the trick and if she had it her way there wouldn’t be anyone around to see.

The sound of chopping stopped after a suspiciously short amount of time.

“Ms. Setti?” There was a strange look on Kite’s face, excitement warring with confusion. His voice was still quiet, almost inaudible, as if he were ashamed to admit its existence.

“What? Broke something already?” The reply came out harsher than Setti had intended. She didn’t like it when people caught her helpless and there wasn’t much that screamed helplessness as loudly as crawling on the ground like a beetle on its back. Kite hunched his shoulders, but his expression didn’t waver. He must have a shitty family if this kind of answer was business as usual for him.

“There are bees.” Setti rolled her eyes, but of course the boy wasn’t finished. “Up in one of the trees. A whole bunch of them.”

With an unhappy grunt Setti groped for her cane. Bad weather for swarming bees, too cold, too windy, though obviously that fact hadn’t gotten around to her swarm. The old woman grabbed the handle of her cane and miserably botched her first two attempts at getting up. The pain in her knee brought tears to her eyes. At least Kite had the good grace to look away and pretend not to notice. Not like the miller’s son, who offered Setti his arm every time she went down to the village as if it were a courtesy to rub into her face how frail she was.

The swarm of bees clung to one of the lower branches of the walnut tree, still a good three metres above the ground. Setti watched the insects buzz and crawl over each other in their need to stick as close to their queen as possible. That’s what she got for allowing them to swarm. She’d left the extra queen in two of the hives so they would split up, with the old queen moving out in spring and half the swarm following, trying to find a new home. Setti had lost some hives over the winter and it was a neat way of replenishing them. More hives couldn’t hurt. Setti sniffed. Figuratively speaking it couldn’t hurt. Could hurt plenty, falling off the ladder.

Kite trudged after the old woman like a silent ghost, quite the opposite of the real ghost hiding somewhere in her disk. They dragged her ladder under the tree and Kite went to fetch the new hive box while Setti scowled at her cane and finally swallowed her pride.

“You afraid of heights?” she asked when the boy returned. Kite shook his head. She’d figured that already, with him constantly perching on the edge of the cliffs.

“You afraid of bees?” He hesitated for a second, then shook his head again. At least he’d stopped to think before answering, Setti had to give him that. “Think you can manage to catch the swarm?”

Kite tilted his face up to study the buzzing mass of wings and stingers, his eyes more curious than concerned, as if for all his worry he simply lacked the capacity for fear. He shrugged. “What do you want me to do?”

“Cut off the branch, carry it down the ladder. I’ll put it in the box.”

Another shrug. “Okay.”

Despite being taller than her, Kite almost vanished under the hat and veil Setti put on his head. Some people just had a knack for vanishing. She watched him climb the ladder carefully, not quite frightened but showing plenty of respect for her bees and clutching the saw in his gloved hands like a weapon. A couple of bees took off when Kite started sawing, startled by the sudden vibration. It wasn’t a heavy branch, a mere two finger’s breadth. Easy work if you had two legs to keep balance. Kite almost dropped the whole branch with its sudden weight as he cut through, clusters of bees raining to the ground and taking up an angry buzz. Setti glowered at nobody in particular. Would hardly do to shout at the kid precariously perched on the ladder, but she was somewhat protective of her swarm and she didn’t want to scrape bees off the grass for the rest of the morning. Against her expectations the boy held on, clutched the branch in both hands as the saw tumbled from his grip and clouds of bees took to the air. Setti fancied she could see the white in Kite’s frightened eyes, like a cornered deer.

Slowly, step by step, the boy climbed down the ladder and handed Setti the branch with trembling fingers. Setti took it without hesitation, even with her hands bare. Swarming bees were at their most docile, no brood to defend, no food stocks to fight for. It didn’t mean they wouldn’t sting if provoked, but Setti had been stung plenty in her life. A little more pain wouldn’t make any difference. She whacked the branch against the box, dropping most of the bees inside. The rest crawled around in confusion, trying to return to their queen. Setti gently brushed a few bees from the rim and closed the hive.

“All right, boy. Time to give them some space.”

---

“Here.” Setti pressed a jar of honey into Kite’s hands. He’d earned it, and Setti wasn’t good at thanking people. Lack of practice. She dug a bee stinger out of her hands rather than trying to think of something better to say. She’d have to wash properly to get the smell of dead bee off her before checking on the new hive again—it made the rest of them aggressive. If the boy had been stung as well, he kept remarkably quiet about it.

“Thank you for letting me stay the night,” he mumbled at last, his hands fidgeting with the jar. He kept his gaze fixed to the ground, but Setti could still spot the resignation in his eyes. Nowhere else to go now but home.

“The bees like you,” Setti said. She was as bad at giving compliments as she was at thanking people. Not much use in trying at all. “Must be your singing voice.”

At the mention of his singing Kite’s cheeks turned a bright crimson, but at least it had the intended effect of sending him on his way with nothing more than a stammered goodbye. Setti watched him scramble down the hill toward the village, strangely content. Not that he’d done much with the pear tree, but she figured catching the swarm was worth more to her anyway.

When she turned around Jasmin’s translucent body was floating at her side. “Not bad for a start.” The ghost smirked, flickered and vanished before Setti could come up with a snide remark.

---

Didn’t take long for the boy to return. Nor for the ghost.

“What the hell is this?” Jasmin asked over Setti’s shoulder.

“Beans,” the old woman said. The earth was still damp after a day of incessant drizzling. The cold seeped into Setti’s skirt and crawled up her bones, making her knee ache even more than usual. Cold had a way of ruining Setti’s temper. Then again, so did a lot of things.

The ghost hopped up and down like an excited child. “No, I mean…” She pointed.

“Dirt,” Setti cut her off.

“But what’s with all the colorful bits?”

Setti pushed a bean seed from her hand into the dark soil brimming with red and blue and yellow particles. It wasn’t bad soil either, as good as you’d get on the cliffs.

“That’s what dirt looks like.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Jasmin protested. “I know what…” Suddenly the ghost’s animated face turned all horrified. “Is this plastic? Shit. Micro-plastic? We really did fuck up the world.” She plonked down right in the middle of the vegetable bed and hugged her insubstantial knees. Drama queen. Setti rolled her eyes and kept on planting beans.

“Shitty battery,” the ghost mumbled, her petulant tone causing Setti to glance over. The ghost’s body had started flickering erratically, on and off in the middle of Setti’s bean patch. The old woman wondered why she’d bothered putting the disk into the sun that morning.

“Hey, here’s the boy again.” The ghost jumped to her feet, still flickering.

Even from a distance and without seeing his face, Setti could tell Kite was crying. He ran straight for his place at the cliffs, body bowed as if against a storm. Setti buried her last seed and fumbled for her cane. She could at least pretend to give the boy some privacy.

---

Kite’s parents weren’t about to do the same. The yelling started even before Setti had made it to the kitchen. She couldn’t make out any words, not that she had to. The cadence was clear enough.

“What the hell?” Jasmin materialized in the middle of the room. Her flickering had grown worse, distorting not only her body but also her voice, which made her sound more like a ghost than ever before. “Do something.”

Setti grimaced and hobbled for her chair. “And what exactly? Frighten them with a pink-haired ghost?” Her fingers groped for a bowl of potatoes and a knife, more out of a need for distraction than any desire for preparing food.

“I’d make them piss their pants if my battery wasn’t at point one percent.” The ghost sniffed, then vanished for a whole second as if trying to prove her point. “Fucking battery.”

Setti scoffed into her potatoes and remained seated. “Then what do you want me to do? Limp over and smack them with my cane until they stop yelling? Not worth the pain. I have no claim on that boy.”

Frustration flickered over Jasmin’s body, plain even through the distortion. “Really? You’re gonna do nothing? What if he jumps off the cliff?”

Setti started peeling her potatoes. She felt more like stabbing them. “Nah. Would have done so already if he had the guts.” Quiet boy like Kite, he wouldn’t jump in front of his parents. Too much of a mess. Too loud a statement.

“But…”

A muffled thud cut them both short. Setti glanced up and found Kite sprawled in the mud, no question about how he’d ended up there with his father stooping over him. She twisted her mouth in disgust and pretended not to watch the man drag his son away. The ghost had no such qualms. She stared out the window until the family vanished out of sight, then wheeled around, hands clenched into fists.

“And you’re just sitting here, doing fucking nothing? Nothing at all?”

Even through the flickering, Setti could spot the ghost’s eyes burning with contempt. The old woman pursed her lips. She’d had about enough of accusations. Girl from another time, thinking she knew so much better. Maybe in her world you could have changed things with protesting loud enough and setting things on fire. Maybe in her world you didn’t have to eat food that poisoned you, didn’t have to do what somebody else thought was best. But this was Setti’s world. In Setti’s world, parents who clothed and fed you would always have the last say about your life. In Setti’s world, there was nobody around to help you out of the goodness of their heart. In Setti’s world, people fell off apple trees for no reason at all and got crippled for life because they landed unlucky.

“World is what it is.” Setti drew her lips back in a bitter snarl. “Nothing you can do. No use fighting it.” You could easily hate it, though. Setti had plenty of experience in hating the world.

The ghost came so close to Setti’s face the old woman imagined she would have tasted her breath, if she’d had any. Jasmin’s eyes were a pale grey and must have been almost translucent even when she’d still been alive. “Yes, the world is shit,” the ghost said. Anger bled through her voice despite the erratic up and down in volume. “The world has always been shit. Mine, yours—there’s always been shittiness, everywhere we go. And you know why? Because nobody bothers to do a thing about it. If everybody would change just a tiny little bit, the world would be fine. But instead, we moan and we complain and we do nothing. And so nothing will ever change!”

A bitter laugh escaped Setti’s lips. “Pretty little lies you tell yourself.” She shifted her aching knee, feeling the urge to punch it for giving her trouble but knowing from experience how much that would hurt. She wondered how many futile attempts it took for someone to realize struggle wasn’t worth the pain. How many it had taken her. “Maybe I should run down to the village for a spell, set a couple of buildings on fire. Worked so well for you, I should give it a try because you must have made the world a much better place. Look how great it turned out.”

Jasmin flinched as if the old woman had slapped her. Her eyes practically filled with tears, full of guilt and betrayal. As if whatever she’d done wasn’t hundreds of years in the past. As if anyone would still care. The distortion in the ghost’s body grew worse by the second. Convenient, wouldn’t it be, to flicker out of existence right before answering? Setti was almost surprised when instead Jasmin set her jaw as if against a blow.

“There were people inside,” the ghost muttered through clenched teeth. “Inside the Court of Justice. It was a weekend, and late. I didn’t know. Four people. Only two made it out.”

Carefully, Setti placed her peeled potato back into the bowl. The ghost refused to meet her eyes and instead stared out the window, where Kite and his parents had long since vanished.

Jasmin turned around, hugging herself like a stubborn child. “I made a mistake, okay? I paid for it a thousand fucking times. But you know what? At least I didn’t sit around on my butt pretending it didn’t matter what I did anyway. At least I tried!”

And the ghost threw a last burning glare at Setti before she flickered out.

---

Setti poked the polished disk with her finger. She’d put it in the sun two hours ago, and still, Jasmin hadn’t deigned to show her face. Setti should’ve known not even ghosts could stand her company for long. The old woman hobbled inside to fetch her shawl and when she emerged the ghost was suddenly there, floating right in the middle of her yard.

“Where are you going?” Jasmin’s voice was full of mistrust, still scrambled like an off-tune guitar.

Setti sniffed and drew the shawl tight around her shoulders. “Going to check on the boy.”

Jasmin narrowed her eyes, face full of suspicion. Something in her expression made Setti think she’d been crying, ghost tears that left her thick black mascara untouched. She was even more insubstantial than usual, like a candle about to burn down.

“What made you change your mind?” she asked.

Setti shrugged. “Still got a pear tree that needs cutting down.”

An annoyingly smug smile appeared on the ghost’s face, barely marred by the twitching. Setti groped for something bitter and seething to add, but nothing came to mind until she gave up and showed her irritation by walking right through Jasmin’s insubstantial body. The sensation was a lot less otherworldly than she had expected, didn’t feel like anything at all, not even a cold shiver down her spine. Nothing but air.

“Hey, old lady!” the ghost hollered after her. Setti rolled her eyes, but stopped reluctantly and turned around. Jasmin seemed more amused than angry, hands on her hips, but the next moment her demeanour shifted into something fierce and final.

“Please do me a favour. If the battery gives out, smash the fucking handheld to pieces. I’m done being imprisoned.”

Setti grimaced, an unexpected feeling of regret sneaking up on her, but she still nodded. “Course I will. But try to at least stick around until I return. I need someone to blame if I walk down to the village for nothing.”

---

Setti banged her cane against the door, scowling. She hated coming down to the village, the loose pebbles on the path twisting her steps, the pitying glances and hushed voices of the village folk, like she was a curious animal, exotic and out of place. Kite’s father wrenched the door open. He was a tall man, at least a head taller than Setti, broad-shouldered and staring down at her in confusion.

“Need some help?”

Setti glared at him. Did it look like she needed help when she could still bash against his door with her cane? “I need my apprentice,” she demanded, not too friendly. Her knee hurt.

The man’s eyes narrowed in suspicion and he shook his head. “No apprentice here.”

“Sure there is. That one.” Setti pointed her cane at Kite, who’d tiptoed into the room behind his father. His left cheek wasn’t the only spot growing bruises any more. “Bit the worse for wear, but I take what I can get.”

The father’s face warped from slight suspicion into open hostility in the blink of an eye, and he wasn’t the only one.

“What do you think you’re playing at, Setti?” Kite’s mother appeared right on her son’s heels, all haughty stares and proud tilt of the chin. Setti had known her when they were both younger, thirty-odd years ago, and even as a youngster that woman had had an attitude problem. Setti glared right back. She had more experience with it.

“Our boy is none of your business,” the husband growled. Most people took him for a calm, almost stoic person, at least until the first time they watched him lose his temper. He took a step toward Setti, relying on his sheer bulk for intimidation and then stopped in confusion when the old woman didn’t back off. Setti sniffed. Not much threat in violence when taking a step backward too fast hurt her worse than a punch to the face. What was he going to do, anyway? Hit her? That would score them points with the neighbors, hitting the village cripple.

“Ask him, then.” Setti shrugged into the tall man’s face. Or chest, more like. She didn’t think the boy would be of any help. Had an expression like he wasn’t even home, not hopeful, not afraid, like he’d just left his bruised face behind and nobody had noticed yet. But the boy surprised her again. Not the best thing in an apprentice, to constantly surprise you. Kite gave an almost imperceptible shrug.

“She’s telling the truth,” he said, calm as anything. “I already helped with the bees. I got stung.” And he tugged at his pants to show them the stings. Setti’s eyebrows rose and a small complacent smile threatened to tug at her lips.

Instead of acknowledging Kite’s words, though, his father’s eyes narrowed to slits, bouncing back and forth between the old woman and his son with menace. “He stays with us. Get out or I throw you out,” he said, moving even closer until she imagined she could smell the anger on his skin. So much for points with the neighbors. “I don’t know why you suddenly feel like meddling, but you have no say about my boy. He’s going to marry next year and it’s none of your business.”

Setti sniffed down her nose at him. “Plenty of time for marrying after an apprenticeship.”

Temper flared in the man’s eyes, and for a second, Setti thought he really would push her into the dirt. There was a way to ruin her afternoon, walking back to her house with a broken leg.

“Careful where you’re stepping,” she hissed at him. Setti never had known when to back off, and by now, she was probably too old to learn. She nodded at her cane. “Not too steady, these legs. I might stumble and break my neck. Think your neighbors will be happy with that? No more honey for your bread. No more willow bark tea if you hurt your back.” Had its uses, to have a village cripple in town, someone who was in pain so constantly she’d learned all about herbal remedies and painkilling teas. “No more feverfew if your headache returns. No more valerian tea if the nightmares get too bad.” All the little hurts that they thought nobody knew about until they started bartering for Setti’s herbs.

Kite’s father went pale, maybe fear, maybe anger, who could tell? The way she remembered, his back made him scream with pain every harvest season.

“What do you even want?” Kite’s mother glared at Setti as if glaring was all it took to make her leave. She was the one with the bad headaches.

“My apprentice,” Setti repeated.

Irritation hung in the air like syrup, thick and heavy, but neither of the boy’s parents dared to shut the door in her face. A lopsided smile snuck onto Setti’s face. She’d never tried to blackmail the villagers before and it was somewhat satisfying to know that it worked. It wasn’t so much the threat of keeping her medicine to herself, she assumed, but the fact that she knew all their flaws. Nobody wanted to end up in the bad books of somebody who knew their flaws. The old woman raised her eyebrow at Kite and for a moment he seemed about to vanish into the depths of the house to gather his things, then thought better of it. Setti didn’t take her eyes off his parents until the door was solidly closed between them and their son.

Kite looked almost stunned at his escape, a sleepwalker awoken in an unfamiliar place. Lost and confused. The ghost would love this.

“Thank you,” Kite mumbled.

Setti rolled her eyes. “Wait until you have to walk up the cliffs with me. You don’t know how slow a cripple can walk, and you’re going to stay right beside me.”

A shy smile twitched across the boy’s lips. At least he had some sense of humor.

Setti sighed. This wouldn’t be the last she heard of Kite’s parents. She started hobbling back in the direction of her house and the boy fell into step beside her. Foolish idea, to take him in. What had come over her? She knew it wouldn’t take long to regret her decision. Maybe it was the ghost’s nagging, or maybe she’d gotten used to having somebody to complain to. She glanced at the boy out of the corner of her eye as they walked, watched the idea of something akin to freedom slowly dawning on his face. She shook her head.

Ideals. Old people’s folly.

---

Host Commentary

By Tina Connolly

And we’re back! Again, that was the 2nd and final part of Old People’s Folly, by Nora Schinnerl, narrated by Tatiana Grey.

Last week I told you some of Nora’s thoughts on the story, so this week I’ll bring you mine.

Nora said that part of Setti’s grumpiness came out of her being sick while writing the story, and I loved Setti’s grumpiness. I was reminded recently of a piece of writing advice I picked up somewhere (and forgive me, I don’t remember where, but please let me know if you do!) But basically it asked the question: “Can the protagonist change enough in time to reach a happy ending?” And I thought about that in relation to this story. Because Setti’s grumpiness and set-in-her-ways ness is understandable. And we can all see the happy ending that this story could reach, if Setti is able to change in time. And that happy ending is definitely worked for, and earned. 

I also liked that we have the catalyst of the pink-haired ghost, Jasmin, the activist out of time, who is unsparing with her thoughts about the situation. Setti needs her, and the story needs her, because Setti would never have changed on her own, just watching the boy from a distance. She actively needs the ghost to prod her along. And, then Nora leaves the door open at the end of the story, so to speak–we get to decide for ourselves part of what happens next–but I definitely believe that Jasmin chooses to stick around awhile longer, and they all become part of one unique, but wonderful, found family.

Escape Pod is part of the Escape Artists Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and this episode is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. Don’t change it. Don’t sell it. Please, go forth and share it.

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And our closing quotation this week is from JR Dawson in The First Bright Thing, who says “Family finds us, even if we’re born in different places to different homes”

Thanks for listening! And have fun.