The Last Beekeeper by Rebecca L. Fearnley

Author:Rebecca L. Fearnley [Rebecca L. Fearnley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Hyena Press
Published: 2022-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Two

The light is failing by the time Solma heads home, eyelids drooping from exhaustion. When she’d shown him the nest, Maxen peered at the tiny, almost-hidden entrance to Blume’s burrow with a critical expression.

“This it?”

She nodded.

“You sure?”

Solma raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s where we put her down and she went underground and now there’s loads of other bees around. They gotta have come from her.”

Maxen stroked his chin. “Ok,” he said. “Good. Now we can protect it.” He glanced up at the sun. “We’re late for patrol …”

Patrol had been awful. Aldo, suffering from grass fever, was more squinty than usual, sniffling and sneezing to the point where Maxen sent him home to rest. Olive sulked the whole way round and, when they passed by the orchards and asked after Piotr, the Oritch workers told them his burned hand wouldn’t move properly. There’d been tension between them and the Fei since the meeting. Worse than that, more trees had died. Solma ordered them to dig the dead trees up and mark off the contaminated soil.

“It won’t contain itself,” she’d said as the workers grumbled. “We got to take charge of these things.”

She’d said it mechanically, the same way she’d always said it. But the sound of those words out in the air had suddenly felt hollow. Was that true anymore? Had it ever been true?

Solma watched the workers digging, her gut twisting inside her. When their patrol concluded at the edge of the planting fields, Maxen grabbed her hand and smiled at her. “Don’t worry,” he whispered before turning and heading back home. Solma felt the smile pulling at her mouth as she watched him go, but then she’d caught Olive’s eye, full of warning and … what else was that? Hurt? Well, how was it Solma’s fault if Maxen liked girls who were cheerful, occasionally? Olive wasn’t doing herself any favors.

They’d parted ways without a word.

But Solma can’t get Olive’s face out of her head. The hard set of her mouth, the crease in her brow, the glimmer of sadness in her eyes that Solma couldn’t read. Her stomach rolls until she feels sick and stops, leaning against the mud wall of a darkened house to get her breath back.

“I’ve been looking for you,” says a voice in the dark. Solma jumps, automatically aiming her rifle. Blaiz emerges from the gloom between two houses, hands held up in mock surrender. He’s smiling. It’s not a nice smile. Solma lowers her rifle, wondering why she feels so exposed.

“Steward,” she says. “I didn’t see you …”

“No,” says Blaiz, lowering his hands. His strange, unpleasant smile widens. “I didn’t want you to see me.”

Solma tells herself the chill in her gut is just from the night. The gooseflesh on her arms has nothing to do with Blaiz’s threatening words. Blaiz advances, never taking his eyes from hers.

“I’ve watched you all your life, Solma El Gatra,” he says, spitting out her name. Solma bristles, but Blaiz is still talking. “Look at you! So eager to fit in, aren’t you? But we both know you never have.

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