by Mobi Warren
“I’m more into Phidias than Pythagoras.”
Melissa took another sip of iced tea and leaned back and looked up at the porch eaves where a pair of paper wasps was busy building a nest. The paper cells of their silvery-grey nest were hexagons. Another insect engineer.
“So what did Pythagoras do with perfect numbers, anyway?” asked Beau.
“I don’t know, but Ba said that Pythagoras practically worshipped numbers.” It occurred to Melissa that maybe Numbers were Pythagoras’ version of Noi’s web or Mechtild’s God.
“Well, if I had lived in Ancient Greece, I would have been a sculptor like Phidias, not a mathematician.”
Melissa shoved Beau’s arm again. “Math is cool, Mr. Valenzuela.”
“And so is origami, Ms. Bùi.”
Melissa frowned.
“So, what’s up?” Beau asked.
“What do you mean?” Melissa turned away from Beau’s gaze.
“Why don’t you want to fold any more bees?”
Melissa shrugged. “I’m just tired of folding the same thing over and over.”
“But I thought you wanted to surprise your father. I thought it was about hope. You don’t strike me as a quitter.”
“Folding a bunch of bees isn’t going to bring any of them back. Ba wouldn’t care, anyway. It was all a stupid idea.”
“I’d be pretty impressed if someone folded me a thousand bees.”
“He cares about real bees, Beau. Paper ones are useless.”
“I’d almost say you were scared of something.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Melissa jumped up from the porch swing.
“I’m pretty good at reading people, Mel.” He placed a hand on her arm but she shook it off and walked to the other end of the porch.
She turned and looked at him. “Drop it, okay?”
Just then they heard the sound of bicycle wheels over gravel and looked up to see Melissa’s father coast into the backyard. He stepped off his bike and turned towards the teens, his expression grave.
“Bad news. The only bees left in the Yolo hive are the queen and maybe a hundred worker bees. They won’t live much longer without the rest of the colony.”
“Where’d all the other bees go?” asked Beau.
“That’s just it,” he responded. “Our team and a host of student volunteers have scoured nearby fields, woods, even the riverbank, and we haven’t found one Yolo bee. It’s as if they dissolved in thin air.” He ran his fingers through his black hair and adjusted his glasses.
Beau squashed the ball of clay in his hands. “That’s bad.”
Melissa sat stunned. An image of the bees she had seen during her last seizure flashed across her mind. Hippasus’ words came back to her. Bees from your realm, Goddess. Come to visit their kin. Was that where the Yolo bees had gone? Was that even possible?
CHAPTER TWELVE
QUANTUM ORIGAMI
She was flying over a turquoise sea tracing wide, graceful circles like a golden brown vulture. Below, dolphins leapt in arcs over white-tipped waves. She was not alone. The goat boy, arms spread and legs stretched behind him, was flying beside her. His stunted horns gleamed in the sunshine. The air was speckled with gold flecks that made a whirring sound. Melissa scooped a handful and blew on them. The flecks became bees, each with a unique face that she recognized. They flew together, Melissa, the goat boy, and the bees, and then dove back down to earth towards the little shrine.
The bees perched on the cube of rose-colored marble and she and the boy began to count them. But as they counted, the bees began to cry. Some fell onto their sides, curled up, and died. Alarmed, Melissa reached into her pocket and pulled out a pack of origami paper. Her fingers moved with impossible speed as she folded bee after bee. She had to replace the ones dying. She was running out of time. She couldn’t fold them fast enough.
With a start, Melissa woke. Her room was dark; the sun had not yet risen. She crept from her bed to the closet and pulled aside the quilt that covered the basket of bees. For a long time she sat on the floor cradling it. The Yolo bees needed her, but what must she do?
She felt an urge to run as if she could outrun her sadness and confusion. In the velvet darkness a mockingbird sang as she hurriedly pulled on a sports bra and a pair of shorts. She slipped on a pair of running shoes and whispered, “Come on, boy,” to Hermes. He jumped up and wagged his short, blunt tail and gave a quick, excited bark.
“Shh, Hermes, you’ll wake Ba.” Melissa slipped quietly out of the house, unlatched the gate, and started to jog alongside the road with Hermes beside her. The half moon was a soft milky white and a few white-tailed deer were beginning to stir. Running in Texas humidity, heavy as a wool blanket, had taken some getting used to on her morning runs.
Her street, Horsemint Lane, led past Beau’s place and continued on to the college campus, a mile away. She followed that route now. Girl and dog slipped into an effortless rhythm. Melissa’s strides were long and even and Hermes kept pace with her, though he stopped every so often to sniff a clump of weeds or a stone, his way of gathering the neighborhood news. The air held the mossy smell of the nearby river as well as a lingering fragrance of skunk, bitter and sharp. A few bats, wrapping up a night of insect gorging, darted overhead.
When she reached campus, Melissa turned around and ran back past her own house as light slowly seeped into the sky. Horsemint Lane in this direction led to the town’s public library, a solid two-story building built of Hill Country granite. A few of the original hand-blown glass windows were still intact. Solar panels lined the roof.
At the library, Melissa paused to let Hermes sniff the bike rack and uttered a quick scold when he lifted a leg to leave his scent. One of the library’s original panes framed a blurry reflection of the setting moon. To the east, the sky turned silver and pink at its edges. Bats swooped overhead, returning to bat houses beneath the library’s eaves.
As Melissa jogged back home, she was filled with a sense of warm kinship. Kinship with moon and deer. With bats and even acrid smelling skunk. It was like Noi’s web. Then as she reached her own house, she noticed a light briefly flicker from a window over at Beau’s. Beau. He had sensed she was scared about something. She felt a sudden urge to tell him everything, but he would think she was crazy. He’d never understand.
Her father was still asleep when Melissa and Hermes slipped back into the house. Clutching a pack of origami paper, Melissa lifted Hermes into her bike basket and hopped on. The lavender field was pulling her like a magnet. The rising sun spread pink fingers across the sky as she pedaled past Beau’s house. He startled her by pulling up beside her on his own bike as if he’d been waiting for her.
In answer to her surprised look, he said, “I was up early to milk the goats and saw you and—”
“Don’t you have to get ready for school?” she said.
“Not this early. Don’t you want me to come with you?”
“You don’t even know where I’m going.”
“I don’t care.”
“I have to do this by myself.”
“Are we friends or not?”
“Yes, but—”
“If we’re friends, you should tell me what’s going on.”
“If you really want to know, Beau, I’m losing my mind.”
“What?!” Beau pointed at the packet of origami paper in Melissa’s bike basket and said, “I thought you didn’t want to fold any more.”
Melissa groaned. “Geez, Beau, are you some kind of detective?”
“Mel, I just want to help.”
Melissa gave an exasperated sigh. “Alright, come along if you want. Just don’t ask even one question.”
They pedaled silently side by side and quickly reached the college campus. They parked their bikes at a rack and Beau followed as Melissa walked past a stone clock tower and sleepy reside
nce halls to the west side of campus. There she led him on a rocky, root-studded path through a tangle of small trees. Wild grapevines and ball moss clung to branches; lichens formed lacy crusts on others. The path led to the lavender field where their eyes met a sea of purple in the early morning light. Native wildflowers grew alongside the lavender bushes. Horsemint, verbena, and basket flower were in bloom, though many appeared thirsty. Here and there, flower heads drooped; leaf tips looked as if they’d been singed. Nonetheless, it was easy to see that the field was a honeybee paradise. Already awake, industrious bees zigzagged the field and nuzzled flowers for nectar. The air pulsed with their buzzing.
Melissa knew exactly where to find the Yolo County hive at one end of the field, for she had been with her father when he placed it there. She led Beau to it now. No bees were flying in and out of the Yolo hive. Melissa thought of the lonely queen within and felt a sudden stab of sorrow.
She and Beau sat down on a large flat rock located a few yards from the hive. It was sprinkled with black lichen as if someone had stood over it with a pepper grinder. Hermes lay down between them, his ears pricked and nose wriggling.
“Beau,” Melissa said, “I’m going to fold origami bees. I might have a seizure.”
Beau’s eyes questioned hers but he nodded. “I’ll be right here, Mel.”
She took a deep breath and began to fold, doing her best to tamp down the fear that rose in her chest. After several minutes, a completed bee sat on her palm. Nothing happened. She picked up another square of paper. Beau worked a ball of clay, glancing up now and again. Melissa shifted her awareness to the bees in the field and let her fingers fold on their own. She knew these folds by heart, knew them as well as she knew the eight whorls on her own fingertips. She watched a bee’s black and amber striped body wiggle in and out of a blossom. Early sunlight flashed on its narrow, quivering wings. She folded a third bee, then a fourth and a fifth. Her hearing sharpened and she felt her own pulse match the throbbing rhythm of nearby bees. A deep, swaying calm enfolded her as she started to fold a sixth bee. To her half-closed eyes, the field became a pattern of vivid colors that looked like broken glass in a kaleidoscope. Was that how bees saw the world?
Then, as if from a great distance, the sad strains of Amethea’s aulos called to her. Her muscles tensed, but she willed her body to give in. Beau looked up to see Melissa staring blankly ahead.
“Mel?”
She didn’t respond. Beau looked at her for a long moment and then began to mold her features in his ball of clay.
Melissa felt a floating, unsettling sensation that sent tingles down her arms followed by a tightening in her chest and a quickening of her pulse. Panic engulfed her and she felt on the verge of fainting. But then she saw, emerging from a veil of mists, the boy approaching from the other end of the field. He used a walking stick and was accompanied by a slender, blond hound. Rings of honeybees flew about him making him look like a small Saturn. As if from a great distance, Melissa heard Hermes bark, but she could no longer see him or Beau.
When the boy stood only a few feet away, she saw that his free hand was cupped around something as if to protect it. When he was close enough for her to see what he held, he opened his hand to reveal an origami bee. He looked up at her, his pale eyes holding admiration and awe. She stretched out her hand to touch the bee and the bee began to quiver. It flew up and hovered in the air between them. The honeybees that orbited the goat-footed boy stretched into a long, undulating line and followed the origami bee as it circled the Yolo hive. Then, a few dozen at a time, bees broke away from the circle and flew into the hive. The boy emptied a pouch of pebbles on the ground and began to arrange them in patterns. The blond hound lay down next to the rock and for an instant, Melissa thought she could see a quivering image of Hermes. Were the dogs exchanging a greeting?
Hippasus sat down beside her on the rock and, like before, a channel opened between them. He mentioned his sister again, telling Melissa how she loved to run.
“Mel, look! Can you hear me? Do you see what I’m seeing?!” An excited Beau leapt to his feet and watched in amazement as a long line of honeybees emerged from thin air and entered the Yolo hive.
Melissa did not respond. Beau sat back down and tried to model Melissa in his ball of clay but put it aside as more and more lines of bees materialized. Hermes laid his head in Melissa’s lap and whined softly.
“You see the bees, too, don’t you, Hermes?” Beau said, then added, “Don’t worry, boy, she’ll be back.”
An hour passed before the long lines of Yolo bees flew back out of the Yolo hive. To Beau they seemed to disappear in mid-air as they flew up, popping out of sight the same way they had popped into it. Like quarks, popping in and out of existence.
But Melissa saw them gather again in circles around Hippasus as she listened to the boy’s thoughts. I do not know what place this is, Bee Maker, but the bees tell me they are sick and afraid here. I will take them back to your shrine on the cliff. There they will find healing in your sacred place. He stood up and turned to leave.
Wait! Melissa directed her thoughts to the boy. I am not a goddess. We need our honeybees here. But the line of communication between her and the boy snapped. Please don’t take them her thoughts begged as the limping boy, his slender hound, and the bees were sucked back into the void from which they had emerged. Melissa sat staring at the air where the boy had stood. Gradually she grew aware of a gentle pressure on her shoulder and looked up to see Beau.
“Mel, you’re back! You won’t believe this, but while you were out, a whole flock of bees materialized out of thin air. They flew into the Yolo hive and were dancing up a storm in there. Then they flew out and pfft! they vanished.”
Melissa placed a fingertip on the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath to dispel the wooziness she felt. “I don’t think a swarm of bees is referred to as a flock.”
“That’s the goat farmer in me talking. Mel, are you okay? You were out a really long time.”
Melissa took another deep breath. She couldn’t keep these experiences to herself anymore. She needed to tell someone, someone she trusted. In a hesitant voice, she said, “The boy, he came to me this time. The Yolo bees are with him.”
“What boy, Mel?” Beau looked confused.
“I see things, Beau. A different world.”
“Maybe you should start from the beginning.”
By the time Melissa had finished describing the first time she heard the flute in the almond orchard to the arrival of Hippasus and the Yolo bees, the sun was high in the sky.
Beau whistled. “And you said you weren’t a mystic.”
“I’m not, Beau. I’m scared. In fact, I hate this! I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“But can you help get the Yolo bees back?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I was folding bees to save them, not send them away!”
“But they came back just now.”
“And left again. They must hate our world, Beau. It’s poison for them.”
They walked silently back through the thicket, across campus, and to their bikes. Melissa lifted Hermes into his basket and turned to Beau.
“Will you get in trouble for skipping school today?”
“Nah, today was Field Day followed by an ice cream making party. I delivered the goat milk for it yesterday.”
“Oh, Beau, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Being with you today is way more exciting. But what about you? Won’t your father wonder where you’ve been?”
“Are you kidding? He won’t even notice I was gone. He leaves for work super early. We’re lucky he didn’t come out to the meadow while we were there.”
“But, Mel, you have to tell him about all this.”
Melissa straddled her bike. “No way! He’ll think I’m nuts.”
Beau shook his head. “I
stand as witness if you want to tell him and Bella. I saw the bees, Melissa, I saw them.”
Melissa shook her head. “Nobody will believe us.”
Beau hopped on his bike. “With his hoof and knobs on his head, your boy sounds a bit like Pan. And the way you describe the flutes and their garments, it definitely sounds like Ancient Greece.”
“I know. Wait! ” Melissa leaned over and grabbed Beau by the shoulders, nearly falling off her bike. He steadied her as she blurted, “The boy’s sister must be Amethea! He said his sister liked to run. He’s Amethea’s brother, Beau!”
“Ame who?”
“The girl who plays the flute is the girl my mother found!” Melissa hurriedly tapped her holo-band and showed Beau the bronze figurine.
“Holy Zeus, Mel. You’re travelling back in time to where your Mom’s dig is at?”
“This is too crazy. I’m scared, Beau.”
Beau was silent for a moment, then quietly said, “Maybe an epileptic brain is more sensitive, more open to seeing other dimensions. Maybe you’re like a honeybee, Mel.”
“What, you think honeybees are epileptics? I hate being epileptic, Beau.”
“So what makes you think the boy’s sister is Amethea?”
“Hippasus told me that she loves to run. The night I first heard the flute was the same night my Mom sent me her image. It feels like there must be some kind of connection.”
“Could your Mom help with all this? Sounds like she’s somehow part of it.”
Melissa shook her head. “I can’t tell her, Beau, she’ll just think I’m making things up to get her to come home. Or that I’ve flipped out completely.”
Beau reached over and gently squeezed her shoulder. “I don’t think you’re crazy.”
Melissa blinked back tears. “Let’s just go home,” she said.
They hadn’t pedaled far when they saw Amaltheia trotting towards them, looking supremely pleased . “Great, she’s broken through another lock,” said Beau.
Before Melissa could stop him, Hermes leapt from his basket and ran to cover the goat’s face with kisses. He refused to be put back in his basket and so Amaltheia and Hermes trotted alongside the bikes. Back on Melissa’s porch, Beau pressed her again. “You’re sure you don’t want to talk to your Dad or Bella?”
