The Bees: A Novel

by Laline Paull

  “You must beg me!” he called to the flower as he spun loops in the air.

  “Oh, oh, sit with me and tell me your tales! Come here!” Excited by the bluebottle’s ravings, the Minerva clutched convulsively at the edge of her web.

  “We are as good as you!” he cried again, racing around Flora and chasing his own slipstream. “Though you despise us and call us Myriad—yet here we are, feeding at the same flowers!”

  “Bee, honeybee,” the Minerva called to Flora, “drive the little shit-feeder up to me. He can tell his tales here.”

  “Nectar!” screamed the bluebottle. “Only nectar now!”

  He landed on a dull fat leaf near the green flowers. With his feces-encrusted feet and the remnants of some gory meal dried to his face, he looked pitiful and poor beside it. Beneath his clutching feet, the plant began to tighten in its own skin, filling and pumping its sap higher. The musk became dizzying and Flora settled on a ledge.

  “You make honey so you think you’re better,” the fly said to Flora, climbing higher toward the green-and-red flower, which slowly turned its petals to meet him. “But flowers love us too, and I have sucked so well from one that I learned its true name, Euphorbia. Do you believe me? It is true, no matter what you think.”

  The fly’s craving for respect made Flora angry. She understood why the Sage despised her own kin—because the flora were ashamed of themselves.

  “Stop cringing,” she said. “If you are a fly, you are a fly! Some of my people love spurge too—and I am the lowest of my kind. I clean waste—”

  “Ha!” called the spider. “What do you expect, with your filthy foreign blood?”

  Flora fired her war gland at the spider. “I am Queenborn and hive hatched!”

  “Fool, I meant your father. One of those fierce black wanderers from the far south.” The spider opened her mouth and picked at her fangs. “I’ll warrant no one steals their honey!” Her little eyes grew soft. “Your blood will be perfectly spiced . . .”

  “Ignore her.” The fly waved to distract Flora. “She can only get you if you let her.” He looked admiringly at Flora. “Do your people really drink spurge, like ours?”

  “I know one.” Flora could not help smiling. “But my hive frowns on it.” She felt the intent gaze of the spider raking her wings, but she focused on the fly.

  “Thank you.” He bowed to her. Under their crust of filth, his legs were slim and well-turned and his thorax was iridescent blue-black and beautiful. “You are the first of your kind ever to speak to me.” He turned and walked up the stem to the green bloom.

  “Wait—” Flora cried out. “That plant—I do not know its name—”

  “Nor do I, but I am thirsty, and it wants me.”

  “Wait, boy!” A huge male bluebottle missing his wings ran along the window ledge. “I’ve told you—”

  “And every time, I live to drink again.” The young fly stepped onto the red inner skin of the flower and stood between the long white filaments. “Stop worrying—I dance between them, I tickle them—look! They love it!”

  He tapped one of the white strands, then his shiny back reflected red as he ran to drink the nectar at the petals’ join. He buzzed in pleasure at the taste, and stood up, his face sticky and wet.

  “Delicious. No danger, so long as you don’t touch two.”

  “Danger behind you!” the spider screeched. “Quickly!”

  The young bluebottle jumped back in alarm, knocking against another long white sword. The second touch triggered the trap. Flora just glimpsed his shocked face as the white-fringed petals bit together. He screamed and buzzed frantically, his hands clawing wildly through the gaps as the sound of fluid rose up inside the bloated bud.

  “Fooled him!” The spider shook with laughter, as the fly’s screams turned to gurgles, then silence. “Serves that greedy flower right too. It was really after you, but I will take that prize.” The spider held out her claws, checking their edges.

  Flora clung to the wall and forced herself to look away. The smell of the fly’s liquefying body seeped from the green flower’s swollen lips and filled the air. Unable to locate the open window by scent, Flora searched the great plane of shining glass for a visual clue. All she could see was the conservatory reflected back at her. High on the wall above, something black moved.

  Flora sprang from the wall into the air, buzzing and whirring her wings in panic. The spider crawled from her web and hung upside down from its thick elastic.

  “Treacherous little egg layer—challenging the Queen, if you please! But I suppose it must be time. . . . How old is she now? Three winters, four? I forget. But the fuss to change her—dear me!”

  “Holy Mother is immortal—no one changes her.” Flora’s voice was strained, and the spider tutted.

  “Calm, my dear—terror ruins the taste. I only mean to help, by saving you from more blood on your hands.” Very slowly, the spider began creeping down the wall, closer to Flora. “If you go home you will cause madness . . . and turn sister against sister . . .” Her voice crawled low and insidious. “You will bring disaster to your hive . . . with unimaginable horrors.”

  “You lie!” Before she knew it Flora was whirling in the narrow space of the conservatory, churning the terrible smell of the green flowers into the air. Unable to see or think, she crashed into the bright glass again and again. As she reeled dizzily in the air, the spider dropped heavily to the floor and ran about beneath her, waiting for her to fall.

  Flora caught hold of a nail sticking out of the wall and clung there.

  “Good!” the spider called. “Wait there! I come to take you to a cradle of silk.”

  “Shut up, you ugly sodden bag. You have no silk.” The huge wingless fly crawled along the window ledge and called across to Flora. “Bee! You spoke fairly to one of mine. Come to me now and I will show you the way out.”

  “How dare you? She is mine!” The huge spider ran about on the tiles in rage. Flora stared down, paralyzed.

  “Trust me,” the old bluebottle shouted at her, “if you would save yourself!”

  Flora tore her eyes away from the monster, then whirred her wings. Still stunned from all the collisions, she struggled to land on the windowsill near the fly. On the ground below, the spider searched for a place to start climbing toward them.

  “Here, you must go past me.” The fly steadied Flora and pushed her forward to a thin vertical strut of metal running up the glass. “Lick your feet before you climb,” he said, “or you will fall—”

  Flora could smell the cold air coming from a gap in the glass above, and the oily stench of the spider rising from below. Then two huge hairy black legs crept up over the white windowsill and clutched for a hold—then two more. The spider reared up behind them, hissing in excitement.

  Flora lashed her tongue across her dirty feet and scrambled up the slippery metal until she could claw herself onto the flat base of the tiny open window. The cold, free air stirred her wings and she looked down to thank the fly.

  Buzzing defiance, he stood his ground before the great black spider that towered above him.

  “Go!” he yelled.

  FLORA TUMBLED IN THE FREEZING COLD until her engine roared to life. The sky was almost dark as she hurled herself back across the gardens, searching for any familiar scent. She flew by instinct and the few remaining landmarks she could detect—the diesel trail of the road, the bitter tang of warehouse drains—and then to her joy and relief, she smelled the thin bright marker beacons. She hurled herself toward them, through the black tracery of the orchard branches, down to the dark, solid hive and the scents of her forager sisters.

  Flora touched down on the landing board and ran into her beloved home with her quarter crop of nectar, and her life, and her burden of secrets.

  Thirty-Two

  THE HIVE WAS UNNERVINGLY QUIET, AS IF FLORA WERE the last bee alive. The pain of her freezing flight home bit into her body. Her wings throbbed as they thawed and her brittle shell burned as it beg
an to soften. Flora’s gasp of pain echoed in the silent corridor. She could hear no other foragers, nor any motion through the hive. What if the spider’s words were true, and her very presence brought disaster to her home? The silence pressed against her brain.

  Then she felt it—the faintest vibration of wings, coming from the top story. The Cluster lived. And there—as Flora ran up the eerily still comb—there was a sweet filament of honey scent, carried on the warmth of her sisters’ bodies. They were all still alive! Desperate to press herself back into the embrace of her family, Flora burst into the Treasury.

  The sanitation workers had hardly moved. Intending to go straight to the Queen with her nectar, Flora climbed onto their trembling backs and found them all awake, and breathing in the scent of honey from the top.

  “It moves so slowly,” whispered Sir Linden from the darkness nearby. His smell was entwined with that of the workers, and he supported one on each side. “It will be days before we eat—if we can last.”

  Too cold to speak, Flora immediately gave the nearest worker a drop of the orange blossom nectar. Despite her ravenous hunger, the little bee took the smallest sip before passing the larger portion into her neighbor’s mouth. She too drank most modestly, then passed it on. To Flora’s surprise, Sir Linden did not lunge for the greatest share, nor even ask for any.

  Remembering the drones’ incapacity for the smallest acts of survival, Flora fed him a tiny shot as if he were a newly emerged sister in Arrivals. His antennae shuddered in relief. Then he pressed his body close against hers and whirred his wings to warm her. The little worker on Flora’s other side did the same, and then many others. She felt her body thaw and breathed the comforting scent of her own kin, mingled with the scent of Sir Linden.

  “The Queen,” Flora whispered, when she could speak. “I must find her.”

  THE CLUSTER WAS DENSE and slow to traverse. Bees yelped if Flora stepped on their sleeping antennae, some woke at the smell of the nectar she carried, and from the depths irritable foragers called out to know its provenance, for many others had also ventured out, but few returned, and those had found nothing. Without comb to efficiently transmit choreography, Flora tried to pass on the location of the cage of glass, but she dreaded their fate if they found it.

  Even in the Cluster the Sage priestesses were alert to all that went on. They sent an escort of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting to safeguard Flora’s progress with her precious nectar. She smelled the honey on their mouths and it reminded her of her days in the Nursery, when she was left the dregs and crumbs. Now that she bore nectar in time of hardship, all these beautiful, well-fed sisters from Fragaria, Broom, Foxglove spoke softly and prettily to her and made way to let her through to the warm, sweet enclosure of silken wings protecting Her Majesty.

  The Cluster closed around them and Flora felt the Queen’s body against hers. The divine fragrance was fainter in the cold, or because the Queen was half asleep. Flora triggered her crop so that the tiny, precious quantity of orange blossom nectar rose up in her mouth, and at that sweet, bright scent, the Queen stirred. Her fragrance pulsed stronger, warming and restoring Flora’s cold, exhausted body. Her Majesty dipped her long proboscis and drank deeply. Almost immediately Flora felt the energy surge glow from the Queen’s body, and then pulse out in a bright wave of the divine fragrance. It rippled through the Cluster and eight thousand dreaming bees murmured in relief.

  The Queen touched Flora’s antennae with her own.

  “Our child is cold. Our child suffers . . . we feel it.”

  A surge of anguish rose in Flora’s body at the memory of the spider’s words.

  “Hush . . .” The Queen held her. “Mother is here. Do you sicken?”

  Before Flora could answer, one of the police pushed into the winged enclosure.

  “Who sickens? I will take her—”

  “Holy Mother—” Flora dropped to her knees before the Queen, daring the officer to stop her. “You sent a message for me before but I did not receive it. But I am here now and I will do whatever you ask.”

  “Oh . . .” The Queen’s voice trembled. “We wished to recall a story . . . from our Library. The fifth one . . .”

  A Sage priestess pushed her way in.

  “No, Majesty, please!” She prostrated her antennae to the Queen. “Holy Mother, we must not speak of such things in the Cluster. If Your Majesty grew distressed in any way, your children would feel it—”

  “Our own child advises us?” The Queen turned her gaze on the priestess. “Our own daughter sends police, to regulate our conduct?” As the Queen’s scent began to change, the whole Cluster pulsed in stress. The priestess waved the officer away and bowed low, her antennae trembling.

  “Forgive me, Your Majesty. The Sage have only the common good in mind and will sometimes err for caution. But if Holy Mother grows excited she will tire, and the Cluster will suffer.”

  The Queen nodded. “Truly.” She folded her long shining antennae down her back and began to sink into a deep trance.

  The priestess signaled and the enclosure of shining wings parted to escort Flora out. Then the wings closed again to guard the Queen and keep her warm.

  “Take this to your kin and bid them be patient.” The priestess gave Flora a large drop of honey. “Next time you bring nectar for Her Majesty, we will deliver it. Nothing must disturb Holy Mother, even though she ask it.” The priestess scanned her. “You are distressed, yet you have just breathed the Queen’s Love.”

  “Fearful things on my forage. If I could dance them I would release them.”

  “And spread nightmare to every sister. You must bear your burden alone.”

  “Yes, Sister.” Flora returned to her own kind.

  THE NEXT DAY a thick coat of snow muffled the hive. The Cluster had moved across the Treasury ceiling and wall, leaving great patches of empty honey cells behind, and now at last it was the turn of the sanitation workers to feed. The Sage uncapped a different kind of honey for them, thinner and coarser. Ravenous, the floras did not complain. Masked with their scent, Sir Linden stayed hidden deep in their midst, and Flora shared her ration with him as they moved along the wall and back down toward their allotted level.

  Freezing winds tugged the hive so hard the bees feared it would tumble, and outside in the orchard, branches cracked and fell. The sky howled and there was no more foraging. Flora joined the small first-aid corps of bees who checked the Cluster for those whose hooks were slipping and helped secure them. The strong encouraged the weak and helped them, but as the daily casualties mounted, the Sage made the decision to break open emergency rations for those in dire need, then use vital energy to summon the Holy Chord and take the Hive Mind itself into trance.

  The bees stilled their bodies as if in death, and the faint molecules of the Queen’s Love still rising from the heart of the Cluster joined them together as one being. Freed from their bodies, each bee felt herself traveling the hive, exploring its vastness and its details both ancient and new, so that she loved its every cell and understood its whole construction, from the landing board to the Treasury walls they clung to.

  The Hive Mind traveled back to the entrancement of Holy Time, when every sister floated in knowledge and bliss, slowly accreting wisdom in the cells of her transforming body until it surged with the power of incarnation and she woke within her emergence chamber. Each bee dreamed herself in the Chapel of Wax, her hands stroking up soft, translucent discs from her abdomen, standing alongside sisters from the Time before Time, molding the very fabric of their home together.

  They dreamed their way through the bright physical delight of Construction, and each intricate, exquisite coded tile was a triumph of all they knew and loved, laid down in the lobby floors for all to share. The blissful aromas of Pollen and Patisserie drifted through their shared dream, and the whole Cluster murmured in delight as they saw the plenty on the tables. The touch of cold wings around them became the warm gossip of standing together molding sweets for the Queen and b
read for the sisters, and when the foragers’ trance grew vivid, the whole Cluster sighed in its sleep at the wonder of their knowledge.

  The Hive Mind lifted their dream up into the blue and blazing summer air, where the foragers swooped in daring and elegant flight. It took the bees down to the flowers in a kaleidoscope of beauty and wonder as if the foragers shared their skills, dreaming how to pack a pannier with rapid economy, how to tickle a flower to yield the sweetest nectar, and how to watch where the hoverflies gathered to tell that air was safe from the Myriad.

  The Thistle guards’ dreams unraveled the complex etiquette of the landing board and the minutiae of its many signals, and then, in the powerful anonymity of the Hive Mind, the bees all shared their fear and loyalty to the Holy Law. The long-repressed terror of the Visitation, and the warning smell of the smoke that preceded it, and their terror of the bright and sudden sky. The Cluster buzzed as it released its anxiety, and then every kin relaxed their minds and their knowledge poured out with joyful abandon, sharing detail after detail of their beloved communal life.

  The Hive Mind absorbed it all, and enlarged.

  FAR DOWN BELOW the Queen and the Sage, Flora dreamed as well—she could not help herself. She dreamed she cradled a warm golden egg in her arms, translucent and beautiful as a drop of honey. From its heart shimmered a tiny golden bee, flying closer and closer to her mind’s eye. The Holy Chord resonated from its fragrant body, and its tiny face came into focus, beautiful and fierce. Harder and harder it beat its wings, until the hum became a harsh scratching sound.

  All at once Flora was awake. The scratching was real and it came through the wood of the hive with a heavy alien vibration. Her cold limbs cramped in agony as she pulled herself free of Sir Linden.

  “Sisters, wake up!” She ran across the backs of the sleeping sisters, stamping out her alarm and firing her war glands to wake the whole Cluster.

  “Intruder! Intruder in the hive!”