The Bee Maker

by Mobi Warren

  “Great,” Melissa had retorted, “he probably smells like a goat.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  GOAT BOY

  Dia, Crete; Sixth Century BCE

  Amethea, with the help of the slave Dika, cleansed her mother’s body with olive oil before wrapping it in a garment of clean white wool. She combed her mother’s hair and tied the copper curls with an embroidered violet band. It had been her mother’s favorite ornament, a gift earned when she ran the famed Heraea footrace at age sixteen. Dika swept the house and Amethea hung a funerary wreath braided from wild celery leaves on the wall.

  The two women stood at the foot of the deathbed. Dika intoned a lament while Amethea played her aulos, a double flute with reeds for mouthpieces. Amethea, tall and lean, with her own unruly mass of red curls, did her best to maintain composure for the sake of her nine-year-old brother Hippasus. He huddled, his bad foot curled beneath the stool he sat on. His right leg ended in a stump that resembled a hoof more than a human foot and two odd bumps protruded from his head like the stunted horns of a goat. He buried his tear-stained face in the smooth fur of their fawn-colored hound Dove who stood close to him on long, thin legs.

  Dove’s ears pricked and she whined in a low voice to announce the arrival of the siblings’ uncle Karpos. A broad shouldered man with jutting jaw and dark beard brusquely entered the room. His embroidered tunic was gathered loosely at the waist with a gold belt. With a hand gesture that signaled impatience, he cut off Dika’s chanting and motioned to her husband Kimon, standing in the doorway behind him, to carry the body to a cart outside. When Karpos noticed Hippasus in the corner, he grunted, “Out!”

  The boy, with a sudden look of fright in his pale blue eyes, grabbed the cane tucked beneath the stool and planted it on the earthen floor. He placed his other hand on Dove’s firm haunches as he stood and shuffled from the room. Dove accompanied him, the curl of her tail tucked between her legs.

  Karpos roared, “Hide yourself, bastard, and for your own safety, do not follow us to the pyre!”

  Amethea winced but held her tongue. Her uncle had never accepted her brother. While her mother lay dying, he had even cruelly suggested that Hippasus, “an abomination to the gods,” was the cause of fever that had killed dozens of Dia villagers in recent weeks.

  After the cremation, Amethea would climb the hill behind their cottage to find Hippasus and do her best to comfort him. She knew she would find him at the ruined shrine the two of them had discovered the previous year, hidden among crumbling boulders and thorn bushes. But for now, she lifted her aulos and played as she followed her mother’s body down the rocky path to the waiting pyre. She was numb with grief.

  Her uncle’s eyebrows shot up when he realized she was not playing a proper dirge but a dance tune. He scowled and though Amethea felt his disapproval as sharply as if he had struck her, she continued to play her mother’s favorite song. It was a graceful tune pierced now with Amethea’s sorrow. She played until her mother’s body was laid on the pyre and then stood silently as bright tongues of fire consumed it. The air filled with the acrid, oily stench of burning flesh despite the perfumed oils and armfuls of herbs they had tossed over the body. Amethea held her shawl over her nose and fought an urge to gag. In life, her mother had always smelled of roses, of honey and almonds.

  Dika moaned and keened. As a slave, it was her duty to publicly mourn, but Amethea knew that the slave’s grief was genuine. Her mother had treated Dika more like a sister than a slave and to Amethea, Dika was like a dependable, affectionate aunt.

  Few others had gathered to pay their respects, but Amethea noticed that her good friend Kleis was there with her mother. They nodded at Amethea, their eyes brimming with sympathy, and Kleis’ mother placed an armful of white roses by the pyre. Nearby, another funeral was taking place. Amethea glanced over at the family preparing to light a pyre on which the lifeless body of a young boy was laid. The boy’s father, the local tanner, jerked his head up and shot Amethea a dark glance. It was not just her uncle, she knew. Other villagers blamed her brother for the fever.

  It would be better for everyone, she realized, the sooner she and Hippasus left the small island of Dia for the main island of Crete and joined her uncle’s household in the wealthy, bustling city of Larisa. The siblings’ simple, rustic life on Dia was coming to an end. Dika and Kimon had fulfilled their fifteen years of servitude and were now free to go out on their own. Kimon would tend the flock of goats her mother had gifted him and the enterprising Dika was already hawking sesame seeds in the public market. Amethea knew life in Larisa would be a far cry from life on Dia and she dreaded it. In Larisa, Karpos lived in a lavish home with painted walls and mosaic floors, not at all like her mother’s cottage adorned only with herbs and roses.

  Amethea did not want to leave the sea-scented cliffs of Dia where she had been free to run and Hippasus had, until recently, been mostly ignored save for occasional taunts from other boys who shouted “Goat Boy!” when they saw him. The fever had changed that, though, and now villagers cast hard stares or muttered curses under their breath when they mentioned the goat-footed boy. It was no longer safe for Hippasus to remain on Dia. Unable to explain the deadly fever; villagers blamed Hippasus because he was different, deformed.

  It was her uncle’s legal obligation to assume guardianship of his sister’s children, but the relief Amethea felt when Karpos arrived from Larisa, quickly dissipated. It was clear Karpos was repulsed by his crippled nephew, but he would have to take him in, wouldn’t he?

  Hours later, Amethea poured a flask of wine over her mother’s ashes to cool them then watched as Kimon swept the ashes along with shards of bone into a clay urn. They lowered the urn into a hole in the earth and buried it. Though her mother was born to a high-ranking family, there was no marble stele to mark her grave, only a rudely painted wooden plaque. Amethea knew that her uncle blamed his sister for whatever misfortune befell her. He had never forgiven her for refusing to expose Hippasus, the goat boy, at birth. But Hippasus was not a satyr’s son, no matter what Karpos and others claimed. Hadn’t the honeybees, messengers of Artemis, appeared at his birth to welcome him?

  Amethea climbed a narrow, familiar path, and made her way by starlight to the shrine where Hippasus lay next to Dove, the dog’s body curved protectively about him. The shrine was tucked among jagged cliffs and concealed from easy view by an overgrown tangle of windblown acanthus bushes. Little remained of the original structure save for a sunken marble floor flanked by a pair of half-toppled columns and a rough-hewn cube of rose marble that must have once served as an altar.

  Amethea and Hippasus kept the shrine a secret. They liked having a meeting place where no one else could find them. They decided the ruin was very ancient, built by a long forgotten people, especially after Hippasus lifted a loose stone in the marble floor one day and found buried there a votive figure of tarnished gold. It was unlike any object they had ever seen, a bee-headed woman with a cinched waist and billowing skirts. They cleaned and polished her, named her Bee Goddess, and gathered wildflowers to place on the marble cube. A colony of wild honeybees lived in a tree snag next to the shrine. Often, bees paused at the altar stone, leaving behind gold flecks of pollen, as if they, too, intended to make offerings.

  Beneath a starry sky, sitting on the cracked marble floor, Amethea held Hippasus in her arms and let him weep before she lifted her aulos and played to lighten her own grief. Hippasus was just a small, innocent boy, she thought, a boy who would never have survived infancy if her uncle and her father had had their way.

  After a while, Hippasus’ sobs quieted, and he looked up into his sister’s face. “Tell me a story, Amethea, like mother used to.”

  Their mother had been a gifted storyteller who entertained her children with tales of heroes and gods. Amethea thought for a moment.

  “Will Atalanta do?” she asked Hippasus.

  He clapped his hands. “Oh,
yes, Amethea! I like that one. It makes me think of you.”

  Amethea laughed softly. “Well, I don’t think my legs could ever be as swift as Atalanta’s. But let me begin. Atalanta was raised by a great she-bear.”

  “Why didn’t her own mother raise her?” interrupted Hippasus.

  Amethea hesitated. Odd, but her brother had never asked that question. She then realized that their mother left out part of the story when she told it to Hippasus. Left it out for a reason.

  “Didn’t she have a human mother?” pressed Hippasus.

  “Yes, but her father, King Iasus, desired a son, so when Atalanta was born, he was so angry he ordered her abandoned on a mountaintop.”

  “Did her mother protest?” Hippasus looked down at his foot and rubbed a hand lightly over the bumps on his head. His gestures made Amethea uneasy.

  “It is a father’s right to decide if a newborn lives or dies.” Had Hippasus guessed the truth of his own story, wondered Amethea?

  Before he could ask another question, Amethea placed her hand gently on his chest. “No more interruptions.”

  Hippasus nodded. “Tell me about her race with Hippomenes!”

  Amethea smiled. That was her favorite part of the story, too. “Very well! After several adventures, Atalanta was reunited with her father and like all fathers, he expected her to marry, but Atalanta had no desire to be ruled by a husband. She finally agreed to marry only if a suitor could beat her in a race. If he failed, he must suffer death.”

  Hippasus’ eyes grew round. “That was ruthless, don’t you think, Amethea?”

  “Yes, I suppose,” answered Amethea, “but Atalanta was used to a free, unhampered life in the wild and wanted to discourage suitors. I don’t think she expected so many young men to try and fail. In any case, many men lost their lives trying to win her hand. Then one day, the able Hippomenes travelled through her father’s kingdom and caught a glimpse of Atalanta sprinting through the woods. His heart leapt. He had never seen a young woman so full of life. He resolved, like so many before him, to try for her hand by challenging her to a race. He knew very well that Atalanta was rumored to be the swiftest runner in all of Greece and she would be hard, if not impossible, to beat.”

  Amethea paused for a moment and pulled Hippasus closer to her. She thought about Atalanta’s vitality and how Hippomenes had admired it even more than her beauty or her father’s wealth. He had been a different kind of suitor, one who loved Atalanta for who she truly was. There are not many men like that, Amethea thought. Certainly not my uncle. Or my father.

  “So what did Hippomenes do?” Hippasus squirmed against Amethea, anxious to hear the rest of the story.

  Amethea gave a quick smile. She knew her brother knew the story as well as she did, but he always enjoyed a story as if hearing it for the first time.

  “If he couldn’t win by the power in his own legs,” she continued, “he decided to win through cunning. He went to the temple of Aphrodite and beseeched her help. Moved by his ardor for Atalanta, the goddess gave him three golden apples that sparkled like little suns. She instructed him to toss them in front of Atalanta during the race to bewitch her. Hippomenes did as the goddess bade him. First one, then a second, he tossed the apples. Dazzled by their brightness, Atalanta couldn’t resist chasing after them. Even so, twice she bounded back to the racetrack and overtook Hippomenes. In despair, he threw the third and last apple so far afield that by the time Atalanta fetched it and sprinted back to the race, he managed to beat her by a foot length.”

  Amethea’s own legs tensed as she told this part of the story, feeling in her own body Atalanta’s supreme effort.

  “Was Atalanta upset?” asked Hippasus.

  “No, I don’t think so. By that time, Atalanta was tired of sending young men to their doom. And whether it was Aphrodite’s spell or her own heart, Atalanta found Hippomenes a worthy mate. He had no desire to make her settle down and suffer the dull existence of a wife. He promised her they would live a free, untamed life hunting wild boar and sailing the wine dark sea in search of adventure. And so they married.”

  Amethea lifted her face to the starry sky. Like Atalanta before she met Hippomenes, Amethea was not keen on getting married. Sometimes she daydreamed about meeting a suitor like Hippomenes, someone who would admire and support her love of running, but she knew how unlikely, even impossible, that was.

  “Did Atalanta still run after that?” piped Hippasus.

  “Oh, I am sure she did. For the sheer pleasure of it.”

  Hippasus snuggled against her. “When I watch you run, Amethea, I can feel your joy. I run by watching you.”

  Amethea looked down at her crippled brother and felt a stab of pity. He would never know the joy of running in his own limbs.

  “I run for the two of us, Hippasus. I carry you in my heart when I run.”

  “Thank you, Amethea.”

  She knew that Hippasus did not realize that her running days were rapidly coming to an end. She had been free to run on winding goat paths and high meadows in Dia, but at Karpos’ estate on the big island, she would be expected to spend most of the day spinning and weaving with his wife and daughters, isolated in the women’s quarters. That was the lot of women. The same boundaries would soon define and cramp her own life. Atalanta had raced to preserve a life of freedom. If only she could do the same! She lifted her flutes and poured her longing into her music.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A STATUE

  Yolo County, California

  Melissa and her father were almost home with their precious cargo of stolen bees.

  “Why is Texas the only place you can do your work?” Melissa switched gears and huffed to get up the last steep hill. Her shortness of breath did not conceal her unhappiness over the move.

  Her father stopped at the crest of the hill. “Melissa, we’ve already been over this. I know you don’t want to leave your school and the cross country team, but—“

  “It’s not just that,” she interrupted. “What about Noi?”

  Dr. Bùi got off his bike to check on the bees and then straddled it again. “Look, I know you won’t be able to hop on the solar rail to San Francisco whenever you feel like it,” he admitted, “and I’ll miss that, too.”

  Not as much as I will, Melissa thought glumly. Her father had no idea how important her visits with her grandmother had become since her mother left for Crete. There were things she could talk about with Noi that were impossible to talk about with her father. Three years earlier, her parents’ divorce hadn’t come as a complete surprise—after all, they had always seemed more wed to their research projects than to each other. But her mother changing custodian arrangements six months earlier had been a shock. Being able to confide in Noi had helped a little. But now Melissa and her father were moving nearly two thousand miles away. It felt way too soon to have to go through another big change.

  The Milky Way draped across the dark sky like a shawl of white wool. Melissa leaned over her handlebars and buried her face in Hermes’ soft fur.

  “My work is in Texas now,” her father said. “A team of honeybee experts has gathered at Benefit College and I need to be there. It may be the last shot we have at saving them.”

  What could Melissa say to that unless she wanted to sound like she didn’t care about the honeybees? And she did. She knew her father’s work was important. But why when she finally started to feel halfway comfortable at school, did they have to move? She’d earned a place on the cross-country team and those kids were mostly positive and supportive. Of course, things weren’t perfect. She didn’t have any close friends, not really. Her blank-out seizures made other kids find her weird. She knew they called her ‘statue girl’ behind her back. But at least everyone knew about her condition. The thought of having to face a whole new group of kids and teachers was scary.

  “I know, Ba. Bees, bees, bees.” She
turned from him and leaned over her handlebars to speed down the last hill.

  “Wait, Honeybee,”

  “Ba, not that name.”

  She zoomed downhill, leaving her father behind, and turned a corner onto their street. After she put her bike up, she showered beneath a rainwater bag and put on an old race shirt for a nightgown. She walked barefoot to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water when her holographic wristband chirped. She waved a finger over the screen and a small, three-dimensional image of her mother appeared.

  “Mom?!”

  Claire Berry’s freckled face looked up at her, smiling. Her unruly, red hair, so unlike Melissa’s straight, blunt cut, was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore a silver running shoe on a chain around her neck. Melissa lifted a hand to touch the identical charm around her own neck, a gift from her mother after the first race they ran together.

  “Melissa! I made the most amazing find today!”

  Melissa rolled her eyes. It was typical of her mother to dispense with anything like a hello-how-are-you when she was excited about some project.

  “That’s nice,” she responded in a monotone, and then added, “So did Ba.”

  “Ba found something?” Her mother looked momentarily puzzled.

  “A hive of bees.”

  “By the goddess, that’s great! I know he’s been searching for survivors.”

  Her mother’s image flickered in and out of sight and Melissa could barely make out the next disjointed phrases, interrupted by static.

  “…beneath a shrine…a bronze figurine…”

  “Mom, the signal’s breaking up. I can’t hear you. You found a statue?”

  The connection went dead but a few seconds later there was a flash and a holographic image lifted from the screen and hovered in the air. The 3-D image, eight inches tall, was of a small bronze figurine, a young woman holding a palm frond aloft in one hand. She wore a short tunic and her right shoulder and breast were bared. Melissa guessed she represented an ancient Greek athlete. The palm leaf would have been an emblem of victory. She suddenly understood the excitement in her mother’s voice. Her mother’s field of expertise was the Ancient Mediterranean with a special interest in women athletes. Melissa thought back to a conversation she’d had with her mother before Claire Berry had departed for Dia, a tiny island off the coast of Crete.