The Bee King by Mathilda Zeller

Author:Mathilda Zeller [Mathilda Zeller]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B0BY5GM5MP
Publisher: Ampersand Books
Published: 2023-05-15T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter thirteen

Blackberries

It wasn’t until their fingers were purple with blackberry juice that Max was called away for a telephone call and Alice finally had a moment alone with Sarah.

“Where’s Ina?”

“Well hello to you too, dear sister! How’s that for a how-de-do? Yes, I’ve been fine, thank you for asking.” Sarah popped a blackberry into her mouth and pouted.

“Fred said she’d gone back to Oxenbee, back to Papa. Papa will kill her over the money we stole.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “He absolutely will not. Like you said, it was ours.”

“He doesn’t think that.”

“He doesn’t think at all anymore.” Sarah dropped three more blackberries into the handkerchief where she was collecting them and shouldered past Alice towards the house.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Sarah grinned, her teeth purpled and mottled with blackberry juice, “that you don’t have to worry about Papa anymore.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alice repeated, her voice rising.

“You’ve taken care of so much for us,” Sarah said, squishing a blackberry between her fingers. “Ina is fine. Papa can’t hurt anyone.”

“Did you—” Alice couldn’t bring herself to ask such a stupid question. Of course Sarah wouldn’t have, couldn’t have killed Papa. She was being cryptic and strange just to get a rise out of her, that was all.

“Ask me no questions; I’ll tell you no lies,” Sarah said with a giggle.

This conversation was going nowhere. Sarah was in a teasing mood. She couldn’t be forced to be direct when she got like this.

“We have to leave. We have to get out of here, get to Ina, get away.” She said it quietly, even though there was no one with them on the massive expanse of lawn.

Sarah laughed. “But we just got here. And your engagement party is tomorrow night.”

“My what?” It was the first time Alice had heard of this, and it shouldn’t have bothered her in light of having witnessed a murder, but it did.

“Your engagement party, silly! Surely you haven’t forgotten? Max says it’s all you’ve been talking about for days. I never thought of you as a fancy lady, but Max says you’ve been putting it together like an old pro. The staff are very impressed with you.”

Alice realized her mouth was hanging open and she snapped it shut. She took a deep breath. “Max is a liar. This is the first I’ve heard of any engagement party.”

Sarah frowned. “Why would he lie about a thing like that?”

“I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. There’s something wrong going on here. In the woods, there’s a cave—”

“We’re not supposed to go into the woods.”

“But I did. The moon bees have a queen, and she’s a monster.” The word monster felt wrong, even as she said it. The Bee Queen was bigger than that word. Goddess, maybe? Immortal?

“Good thing you don’t have to be a beekeeper then!” Sarah laughed, a little too heartily. “Max says you’ve been sleepwalking since you’ve gotten here. Perhaps you’ve been dreaming, too?”

Alice lifted her sleeve to reveal her bandaged arm. She pulled back the dressing to reveal a long, deep cut.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.