by Mobi Warren
“The race!” The scientist looked like he’d suddenly remembered something. “I meant to tell her about the race, but I never did. How did she—”
“We saw a flyer at the library.”
Melissa’s father shook his head. “I see. I’m afraid I fit the description of an absent-minded professor.”
“You’re caught up in your work for the bees,” Beau replied. “She loves to run, you know.”
The scientist nodded. “That’s something she and her mother always shared.” He looked off to the side, silent for a moment, then turned back to Beau.
“Would you mind letting Melissa know I’m going to be pulling an all-nighter at the lab? I made a rather startling discovery this afternoon.”
“Oh?”
“Against all odds, a few dozen of the missing Yolo bees have returned to the hive. But they’re different; there’s been a change.”
Beau sensed a mounting excitement in Dr. Bùi’s voice. “How do you mean?”
“Well, they’re a bit larger, more robust. I’d swear even their faces seem happier, though I know that must sound ridiculous.”
“Not at all. Melissa’s been really worried about those bees. I think it’s pretty cool how you and she rescued them.”
Paul Bùi looked surprised, then grinned. “She told you about our bee heist?”
Beau grinned back. “Yeah, it was a big deal for her, you letting her help.”
“Huh.” The scientist adjusted his glasses and ran a hand through his hair.
“So, do you know where the bees went in the first place?”
Dr. Bùi rubbed his fingers through his hair and shook his head. “Not a clue. I’m examining some of the pollen they brought back to figure out where they’ve been, but the weird thing is, so far the pollen comes from plants that don’t grow around here. I’m going to run some DNA tests on both bees and pollen.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out, sir.” To Beau’s dismay, Hermes started to whine in the background, but Melissa’s father didn’t seem to notice.
“Thanks, Beau.”
Beau turned off the holo-screen and whistled. How lucky was that? He had the entire night to get Melissa back even though he knew there was nothing he could actually do except wait and hope she materialized before morning. If she didn’t, well, he’d have to deal with the consequences of his lying as well as losing her. First things first. He decided to take Hermes back to Melissa’s house, knowing the feisty lab-terrier must be famished, but Hermes’ legs seemed to have grown roots that planted him to the ground. He would not budge.
Beau slumped down beside him. “You’re a loyal one. I doubt Amaltheia would hang around this long if I vanished.” He rubbed the dog behind the ears. Suddenly, Hermes pricked his ears upright and began to howl again.
“What is it, boy? What is it?”
The dog uprooted his legs and dashed around the tree several times, his short blunt tail straight out behind him. The air started to shimmer, followed by a golden glow, and then pop! there sat Melissa in the exact same spot she had been before she vanished. She looked dazed; her hair was mussed and her clothes crumpled as if she’d slept on the ground. Her right hand was curled in a soft fist. When she opened it, several honeybees flew out and made a beeline in the direction of the lavender field.
“Mel!” Beau shouted. “Where were you? I was worried sick. Are you okay?”
Melissa warily stretched her arms and legs as if testing whether or not they were really there.
“I was there and not there,” she said in a low voice.
“What do you mean?”
“You know how Bella said quarks and gluons make things cohere so they seem solid?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I stopped cohering.”
Melissa squeezed Beau’s hands as if to convince herself she was back in the solid world. She tapped her feet on the ground and shook her head. “I didn’t know if I was ever going to get back.”
“Were you in Dia?”
“Oh, Beau, I saw Karpos attack Amethea but I couldn’t do anything. I was there and not there at the same time. And then later when she was sleeping, I melted into this light—I don’t know how to explain it—and suddenly the light was a swarm of honeybees dancing around Amethea. I was dancing in the bodies of bees, Beau. Dissolved into dancing bees.”
Beau looked at her in wonder. “I want to hear everything. But first, are you sure you’re okay?”
“I think so. Nothing hurts. I feel like me.”
“Good, because while you were out, I became the biggest liar in the county.”
Hermes squirmed his way onto Melissa’s lap and began covering her face in dog kisses.
“I’m glad to see you, too, Hermes!”
“Hermes wouldn’t leave this spot. He was determined to wait for you.”
Melissa kissed the top of the dog’s head. “Amethea has a faithful dog, too. And Beau, Pythagoras was there.”
“Pythagoras?!”
“He was fiddling with a piece of origami paper, trying to fold it into a bee! That was the last thing I saw before poof! I was back here.”
They rode their bikes back to Melissa’s house, and Beau insisted Melissa relax on the porch swing while he pulled potato salad from the fridge, made some peanut butter sandwiches, and brewed a pot of lemongrass tea. While they ate, he plied her with questions about her adventure.
“Pythagoras convinced the Dia Council to let Amethea run a race. She’ll be able to do it now that her ankle is healed. It’s the only chance Hippasus has.”
“If she’s anything like you, she’ll win,” Beau said.
“I’m sure she’s way faster than I am, but she has to race the fastest boy on the island.”
Beau took out his ball of modeling clay and mock tossed it. “Too bad she doesn’t have a few golden apples.”
“Maybe she has something better. The bees.”
“Mel, I don’t want you to ever disappear again.”
Melissa placed her tea mug down. “It’s funny, Beau. I’ve never felt so scared or so calm all at the same time. Somehow, it felt completely normal to dissolve into light, to turn into a swarm of bees. But another part of me didn’t know if I’d ever get back home. If I’d ever see you or Ba or Noi again.”
She reached for Beau’s hand. That was the best feeling in the world right now, her solid hand resting solidly in his. Then she stood up and walked to the edge of the porch to look up at the night sky. She found the constellation Regulus and pointed out the bright blue star of the lion’s heart to Beau.
“Amethea has the heart of a lion,” she said.
“Or maybe a honeybee,” said Beau. “By the way, your father said to tell you he’d be at the lab all night.”
“That’s nothing new.”
“He said a few of the bees came back, Mel.”
“They did?!”
“He’s trying to figure out where they went in the first place.”
“Good luck with that,” said Melissa in a drowsy voice.
Before an exhausted Melissa crawled into bed, she hovered a finger over her holo-band and brought up the image of Amethea’s statue. “Run swiftly, my sister,” she whispered. She wondered who had made the statue and whether it had been made to commemorate Amethea’s race with Eucles. If so, did the palm frond mean Amethea had won her race and Hippasus was safe?
All night as he kept vigil by the injured Amethea, Pythagoras had chanted healing invocations, but by flickering lamplight he had also examined the square of origami paper from the unfolded bee he had taken from the shrine. He was fascinated by it. Over and over he examined the fold lines and the angles and polygons they created. Carefully, he tried to fold the paper square back into a bee but was unable to figure out the sequence of folds.
It was a puzzle and a challenge, but some
thing deeper, too. He sensed that the folds mapped harmony and music no less than the lines between stars or the chords on a lyre’s strings. The lines on the paper held the secret language of honeybees. The origami bee was a Number spilled from the mouth of Apollo. Or perhaps from the mouth of Apollo’s sister Artemis. Pythagoras set himself to recreating that Number. It was a Number that might save the boy, he could see that. He was certain that if Hippasus lived, he would become his greatest student, one who would eventually surpass even Pythagoras in understanding.
And now as Hippasus was led into the waves, Pythagoras stood on shore and continued to work on the paper square. He sensed he was close to a solution. When the red ribbon dropped, Amethea and Eucles burst from the start line, one a sleek dolphin, the other a swift horse, but they were a blur at the corner of Pythagoras’ eyes as he worked his fingers on the paper. Close now, very close.
Hecataeus held his breath and gripped his right hand in a tight fist as he watched Amethea leap forward from the start line. Dika opened her hands wide and murmured a prayer to Pan. Kimon looked up and saw Amethea’s long hair, like flames, streaming behind her. The two youths were side by side for the length of the beach but as they turned to follow the rocky path that climbed to the island’s summit, everyone could see that Eucles had gained on Amethea by a stride length, and then by two, then three. They disappeared around a bend in the path. Dika moaned. Hecataeus gripped his other fist. Kimon continued to shape his clay.
Thinking the ringing was her alarm, Melissa rolled over in bed and grumbled, but when she looked at the clock it was only four a.m., two hours before she’d intended to get ready for the seven a.m. race. She realized her holo-band was vibrating so she grabbed it off her bedside table and tapped it. Noi’s face appeared.
“Noi?” she said groggily.
“I wasn’t sure what time you’d be off to your race, so I decided to call early.”
“It’s even earlier for you, isn’t it?”
“Yes, yes, but that makes no difference. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Is something the matter?”
Her grandmother pursed her lips. “I’ve been thinking about our last conversation. Are you still having seizures and hearing that flute?”
Though Melissa had spoken with her grandmother and told her about the 5K, she had avoided telling her anything about her travels to Dia. Perhaps because she was still half asleep, Melissa no longer felt a need to hide what was going on and she blurted, “They’re more than seizures, Noi. I’ve been in touch with a boy from long ago. I’ve been travelling back to Ancient Crete and the bees Ba and I rescued have travelled with me.”
Her grandmother did not look the least bit alarmed. There wasn’t a trace of doubt in her eyes, and it was that unusual fact that jerked Melissa fully awake. She sat straight up in bed.
“Wait! You believe me, Noi?”
“Yes, I do, and I had a feeling something like that was going on.”
“You did?!”
Her grandmother put her palms together as if to form a lotus bud. “Melissa, I’ve had experiences myself. Mechtild is more than a painting, you know.”
“You mean you’ve travelled to thirteenth-century Germany?!” Melissa stared, open-mouthed, at her grandmother’s dainty, heart-shaped face. Her grandmother stared back with black eyes quick and bright as a sparrow’s.
“That’s right, and I can tell you about it some other time, but right now I want to know about your travels.”
When Melissa finished telling her grandmother about Hippasus and Amethea and the Yolo bees, the quilt artist kept silent as if carefully considering all her granddaughter had shared. At last, she said, “Little bee, there was another Mechtild who lived in the same monastery as the Mechtild of my painting and she was both a poet and a beekeeper. In fact, I’ve been speaking with her…”
Melissa looked at her grandmother in wonder.
“There is a poem of hers I feel I must share with you. It may help you race in a way that will help your Dia friends and the bees you and your Ba rescued. I have a strong feeling your race is an essential part of it all. You must run today with all that you are.”
Melissa listened as Noi recited the short poem and then went over it with her line by line until she had it memorized:
A fish cannot drown in water,
A bird does not fall in air.
In the fire of creation,
God doesn’t vanish:
The fire brightens.
Each creature God made
must live in its own true nature;
How could I resist my nature,
That lives for oneness with God?
“Noi, I’ve always been afraid of my seizures.”
“I know. Afraid of blanking out forever, right?”
“Yes. Afraid of not finding my way back, like a bee whose brain is damaged.”
“And now?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Run with the poem.”
“I will, Noi.”
A grey light filtered into Melissa’s room by the time she said good-bye to her grandmother. The early morning sky was banked in dark clouds and the air was weighted and damp. It’s going to be like running in a sauna, thought Melissa, unless the clouds burst and then it will be like running in a cataract. Undiscouraged, she ate a bagel with peanut butter. Always peanut butter! Imagine a world with strawberry jam, she mused, then pushed the thought away. She brushed her teeth, put on a pair of blue running shorts and a purple sports bra, double tied the laces on her running shoes. She filled a water bottle.
Beau arrived a few minutes later with Amaltheia in tow. Melissa clipped a leash on Hermes, but before she could hand the leash to Beau, Hermes bounded down the porch steps to greet the blue-eyed goat, trailing his leash behind him. For one cheerful, confused moment, Beau, Hermes, and Amaltheia were a jumble of leash and legs.
“Thanks for bringing Hermes, Beau.”
“We’ll be at the finish line to cheer, bark, and maa. Did you manage to get any sleep?”
“Enough.”
“Good, because one of my mammoth lies was that you’re a monster who races better on no sleep.”
Melissa laughed. “I’m going to jog down to the river to pick up my race bib. See you later!” She waved and was off.
When Melissa reached the river, her skin prickled as she walked past the cypress tree where she had disappeared the day before. She was suddenly filled with doubt. What if Amethea needed her? Instinctively she reached for her pocket to pull out a piece of origami paper, but the pocket in her race shorts was empty. Why hadn’t she thought to bring any paper?
She turned to run back home when the librarian, sitting at a nearby table handing out race bibs, saw Melissa and called out, “The bibs are over here!” The woman, her silver hair pulled taut in a ponytail, was wearing a white t-shirt with the silkscreened image of a large tarantula. “Let’s see what you’ve got,” she said in her Texas drawl. “According to Beau, you’re a regular speed demon!”
As the librarian handed her the bib, Melissa stared at the number. She could hardly believe her eyes. Four hundred ninety-six. The third perfect number. She had a sudden feeling that she was not alone. Obviously there were other runners milling about, but she could sense some other presence, someone august and wise. If Pythagoras had strolled up at that very moment in a pair of race shorts, she would not have been surprised.
Okay, she told herself. I need to focus. Here. Now. This race. She went over the lines of Mechtild’s poem, her grandmother’s gift. I can use it as a running mantra, she realized, to keep my strides even. A fish cannot drown in water, a bird does not fall in air… She took her place near the front of the runners.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
STRAWBERRIES
Amethea leapt over stones and roots, running hard but always a few strides behind Eucles. His pace
was so smooth it was like he was swimming. After the first stade, she felt a pain in her ankle, the one she had injured, a throbbing that increased with each footfall but she did her best to ignore it. Red ribbons dangled from bushes to mark the trail and every few stades an individual stood who had been instructed by the Council to make sure neither runner cheated by taking a shortcut. By the tenth stade, Amethea’s thighs burned and the pain in her ankle was like a twisting knife. But she didn’t break stride.
Eucles reached the highest point of the island first, well ahead of her. He quickly glanced over his shoulder to see how far behind she was, then sped down the path on the other side. At the island’s crest, Amethea had a wide view of the crystal blue sea, the sea that was swallowing her brother. Her breaths came in rapid, painful bursts. This part of the trail, remote from village dwellings and shops, was seldom used and was, in fact, not far from the Bee Goddess’ shrine. That fact heartened Amethea, and as she pressed on a line of honeybees appeared from the direction of the shrine and flew overhead. One bee strayed from the rest and darted towards Amethea’s throbbing ankle. It stung her. The brief shock of pain from the sting cascaded into a warm flow that removed the greater knife-like pain Amethea had been feeling. The bee venom served as medicine.
“Sacred Bee, I accept your gift. Let me now run as quick as a celestial steed!” She leaned forward to lengthen her stride. She narrowed Eucles’ lead by a stride, then two, but she could not gain further on him as the trail plunged back towards shore.
Pythagoras was smiling. He had it figured out now and neatly made the first folds in the sequence he felt sure would re-create the bee. At that same moment, several thousand bees left the hollow tree by the shrine and crossed over Amethea, giving her courage. One bee gave its life. The bees sped over the island towards the sea, and passed over the heads of the crowd gathered to watch Hippasus drown. Dika looked up and saw them. She nudged Kimon but could not pull his attention away from the clay he molded. A young girl was taking shape in his skillful hands, a girl in the passionate act of running.
Hecataeus saw a sudden gold shimmer of light surround Hippasus and then watched it lift and dissolve into the clear blue sky. The water had risen from Hippasus’ waist to his chest. Hecataeus could see the boy’s mouth was moving as if he were singing. On the wind he could barely make out the boy’s words:
