Green grass shot out in an almost-perfect circle around the tree and the lake. An oasis.
“A garden,” the dad said. “Now that the drought’s over, I want to plant a big garden, and we’ll all help keep it up.”
“Good luck getting Alta to pull weeds,” the girl said.
The dad laughed. “What else?”
She picked one of the white blossoms and tossed it down onto the water. “Beehives,” she said.
“Beehives?” the dad said.
“Yes, rows and rows of beehives. We can sell the honey.”
“So we’ll switch from being sheep farmers to being bee farmers,” the dad said.
“Exactly.”
She knew the dad didn’t believe, not really. He didn’t believe the bees brought back the rain, or that the seed grew the tree. He was still trying to make sense of it, pulling up weather reports to explain the flooding and obscure horticultural articles to explain the tree.
But the girl knew better. She didn’t think; she accepted. Things are only impossible if you stop to think about them.
A shiny red truck pulled into the driveway. The dad and the girl climbed down to meet a man in pristine leather cowboy boots.
“Mr. González,” the dad said, and shook his hand.
“Wow, you’ve really turned this place around,” Mr. González said. “I don’t blame you for wanting to keep it.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” the dad said. “It should stay in the family. Always. It’s our roots — where we came from.”
The girl walked around the tree trunk to find a stone for the top of Luis’s rock castle while the two men talked about zoning and measurements. There had been a few things from Grandma Rosa’s closet that were worth a lot of money, and the dad had sold them to build a new ranch house.
They kept the emu head, though.
The girl heard bees buzzing behind her, following her, just like they had followed her grandmother.
Bzzz, bzzz. Her new phone vibrated in her pocket.
One new message.
ALTA: You want to go to the mall with me and Mom tomorrow?
THE GIRL: Yes, please! :)
Her wooden bracelet slid up and down her wrist as she tapped her screen.
Bzzz, bzzz.
A bee, just one bee, flying near her ear. “Hola, Grandpa,” she whispered.
She ran to find her dad. He smiled when he saw her, the same smile she had. The smile her grandpa had given them.
Mr. González said, “Is this Carol or Alta?”
“Actually,” the girl said, “it’s not Carol. It’s Carolina.”
Caro-leeen-a.
“There is no ending,” I explain to Luis, “because stories never end. They just turn into new beginnings, forever and ever. Like the rings of a tree trunk.”
“Tree,” Luis says.
“Say árbol,” I say.
“Árbol,” he repeats, and claps his hands. I nod, a proud teacher. He’s learning Spanish, slowly, a word a day.
Measuring time with words.
Story time is Luis’s favorite part of the day, when I get home from school and grab an apple for us to share, and take him out into the backyard.
We’ll have a new beginning soon: next summer we’ll drive down to the ranch again, but this time, we’ll stay.
Luis wanders across the yard, determined to catch a bee that has landed on a petunia.
The girl climbed back in the tree and listened to the bees buzz in the flowers until the stars came out, and all she heard was the great loud silence of the open desert.
Once upon a time, there was a tree.
To my dear peach of an agent, Sarah Davies — your patience and wisdom deepen and strengthen my writing and my life. Thank you for all you do.
To my stellar editor, Kaylan Adair, who is everything a writer could want in an editor — you get me. You make me better. Thank you for making my debut experience a positive and beautiful thing. Here’s to many more inbox exchanges.
To everyone at Candlewick Press, for championing this book and working tirelessly to get it into people’s hands — thank you. I am honored to be part of the Candlewick bookshelf.
To coffee. Thank you.
To Clint Mansell, whose hauntingly gorgeous soundtrack to The Fountain was my soundtrack and sonic map while writing Hour of the Bees — thank you.
To everyone who read Hour of the Bees before it was book-shaped — thank you, for the brainstorming sessions, the gripes, the cheerleading, all of it.
To my family — my parents and siblings, for listening to all my stories, and to Kenneth and Finley, for making new ones with me. Thank you.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2016 by Lindsay Eagar
Cover illustration copyright © 2016 by Kristina Closs
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2016
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending
Candlewick Press
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Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
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