by A. J. Betts
‘It’s a fluke,’ I heard Llewellyn say, her voice strained. As the elect of the garden, it was her job to vouch for everything that came out of it, including the bees, and me. ‘It’s not Hayley’s fault. Just a weird kind of fluke.’
‘Try telling that to Geoffrey.’ The enginer elect. ‘He was a good uncle; a good enginer. Your girl’s been sloppy. Her bees are killers.’
‘They’re not hers, they’re ours,’ Llewellyn countered. ‘Everyone’s.’
His tone was mocking. ‘Enginers are too busy for hobbies. I’m sure the netters are too. Those things come from your garden – from her hive – and they need to go. All of them.’
‘We need the bees.’ Llewellyn. ‘You know that.’
A gravelly laugh. ‘For what? Honey? Is your tea not sweet enough, darling? I warned you it would happen again.’
‘Again?’ The voice was mine and it made them turn. They seemed surprised to see me still there. Steadying myself against the wall I asked, ‘What do you mean, again?’
The enginer elect glared at Llewellyn. ‘You didn’t tell her? You didn’t tell the beekeeper what bees are capable of?’
‘It’s ancient history,’ Llewellyn said, her voice faltering. ‘It’s only happened twice, and both instances were long before her time. No-one expected it again. Hayley didn’t need to know –’
‘Know what?’ I asked, though it was obvious, now, what bees could do.
‘Come over here,’ the enginer said, ‘and see for yourself.’
I approached the sickbed where Geoffrey’s body was laid out straight. His neck was swollen. His lips were as blue as the bee that had killed him. I noticed a rash sweeping from his hand up to the curve of his shoulder. His face appeared lifelike, as if he were only sleeping. I expected him to open his eyes and raise a trembling finger at me. What is going on in here?
Behind me, Llewellyn spoke softly. ‘Geoffrey must’ve been an anomaly. This isn’t your fault, Hayley. It’s not the bee’s fault either. It’s just a rare, unfortunate situation.’
‘It’s inexcusable.’ The enginer elect’s breath was sour. ‘This is what your precious bees do, girl, when you don’t control them. They go where they shouldn’t. They get into engines. They attack –’
‘They don’t,’ Llewellyn argued.
‘Your bees are killers. You understand?’
‘Even the honeybees?’ I asked.
‘All of them.’
Crushed, I could barely breathe. Geoffrey’s body sickened me. I’d caused this, with my rogue. My lie.
‘Five times this girl’s come to the engine house for rogues,’ the enginer elect told the others. ‘Five times already, just this summer.’
Nine, I thought.
‘So how are they getting in, Llewellyn, despite the new dropnets and filters? How is this –’ he prodded the bunk ‘ – even possible?’
‘We’ll rig up new nets.’
‘The nets aren’t working. Get rid of the bees – or I will.’
‘You can’t!’
But Llewellyn was wrong. The enginer could, easily. One week of thermostat adjustment and the honeybees would all be dead in the hive: the workers would die first, then the queen, then the brood. To kill the bandeds, he’d only need to tear down the high-hanging houses we’d made for the females. The males didn’t live long, and there’d be no brood to replace them.
Maybe I’d miss them; maybe I wouldn’t. There’d be no more wax for making into balms, or death candles, or crayons for diarists. There’d be no honeycomb for marriages or babies, but did this really matter? Pollination in the garden would be more difficult, but we would find another method, wouldn’t we? The world would adapt and carry on. I would carry on, without the worry of this happening again.
It was wrong for them not to have told me.
‘The bees stay.’ The judge’s three words fell across us like a blanket. As always, her decision was absolute.
The enginer elect swore and strode out of the sickroom. The others let him go.
In the silence that followed, the judge stepped closer to the bed. There, she brushed her fingers through Geoffrey’s wispy hair. It occurred to me that he might have been a teacher to her once. Before his back had hunched, perhaps he had lifted her onto his shoulders so she could draw her dreams high on the nursery wall.
I’d never seen the judge so sad, with lips pressed tight and her blue eyes spilling over with tears. Her skin was as pale and silken as a peony.
Without shifting her attention from Geoffrey, she said, ‘Hayley, did anyone else see what happened?’
Only then did I notice the son. He’d been there the whole time, sitting on an empty sickbed behind the others, listening, watching, saying nothing. He gave a slight, hasty shake of his head. I felt it more than saw it, and understood it was meant only for me. It was odd how little I knew him and yet, without words, we could communicate what couldn’t be said aloud. We had headpains in common. Now, we had more than that. We had the secret of our supposed ‘adultery’; a secret that had died along with Geoffrey. As far as the councillors knew, the son had never been there.
‘No. I was alone,’ I answered.
‘Then no-one can know about this, Hayley; no-one but you and us here. You can’t tell a single person that Geoffrey died because of a bee. You understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you understand why?’
‘Fear,’ I answered, instantly aware of how the world would change if it was known bees could kill. Gardeners would cower at the hydrostacks and forest, distrustful of each passing bee. No-one would choose to climb the trellises loaded with flowers or linger by the breathers. There’d be fear in every house that welcomed bees: the kitchen with the herbs; the sickroom and nursery; even the commons with vines along its walls. If every hum sounded like a threat, people would avoid gathering in community and prayer. More dropnets would be hung, separating the houses, and the hapless bees would get killed one by one, anyway, out of spite.
‘There’d be chaos,’ added the priest.
Chaos was the word used to describe what had happened in the service house long ago as it burned, when servicers panicked and clambered over each other, scratching at the doors long after the handles had melted away. Chaos, the previous enginer elect had warned, is what happens with terror and desperation. Chaos changes everything.
‘Geoffrey was an . . . anomaly, Hayley, but even so, people need to feel safe. We all do.’ The judge’s mouth softened. ‘It’s not a wrong, you know. It isn’t a sin to keep a secret with the council, but more of a . . . responsibility. You understand, don’t you?’
I nodded. No-one could know a bee had killed an uncle. Not even Celia. There was no need to make people afraid.
The judge wiped her chin of tears. ‘Now,’ she said with a sad smile, ‘we must prepare our uncle for God.’
Even death was a good opportunity for a lesson.
Though the rest of the world would not hear of Geoffrey’s passing until the next morning, pyjama-clad children were led into the sickroom to learn that death was nothing to be afraid of. By the bunk, Teacher Neil told them the bittersweet news that Geoffrey would be going to God tonight.
‘Can I go to God tonight?’ asked a boy.
‘Not until you’re old and have lived a good, long life.’
The children nodded in agreement. They knew this was the nature of things.
It wasn’t always so. Three days after I’d first been housed in the garden, a thirteen-year-old boy had fallen from a ladder while picking passionfruit. I’d seen how white he turned, and how his arm stuck out at a strange angle. The senior doctor straightened it but the boy grew paler, and sicker, until he died, eventually, with a fever.
On the night the boy was to be collected for heaven, the mood in the sleeper was grim. Celia and the other girls cried; they’d known him
and liked his boisterous, tomfoolering manner. ‘God works in mysterious ways,’ Aunt Maggie had tutted before the sleeper door locked and the growlights faded to black.
Sometime that night, I knew, God would be coming to the commons to collect the boy from beside the source. I’d tried to remain awake, straining to hear sounds beyond the garden and the way. I’d hoped to hear the footsteps of God, but I must have fallen asleep, for the next morning the boy’s body had gone.
Geoffrey, at least, had lived a good, long life. I stood beside the children and watched as he was bathed, his skin soft and limp. The marks of the rash had been covered with a funeral sheet, leaving no hint that the uncle had died of anything other than old age. The children would never suspect it was because of a bee, nor could they, for the knowledge would cause them to panic. I understood the need to keep this a secret. It was my responsibility, shared with the council.
The judge and the son tended to Geoffrey’s body. She was at his head, dabbing jasmine water on his nose, forehead, cheeks and chin, then combing his fine silver hair. The son washed the uncle’s feet and legs. His eyes stayed low and attentive. How respectful he appeared in those moments. How innocent.
There was so much I was desperate to ask him – about the drip and its mending; the impossible flame he had conjured from a tool; how the unused way made our headpains dissolve – but the mood was sombre and, besides, these questions weren’t for others to hear.
When the priest returned with two beeswax candles, lit from the ovenfire, the councillors lifted Geoffrey’s body. Wordlessly, each held a part of him – ankles, knees, back, shoulders, head – and followed the priest out through the sickroom door. Teacher Neil and the children fell in behind. I was the last of this strange procession through the nursery. Our feet stepped over hopscotch lines, yo-yos and dolls made of twine.
Outside the nursery door, Teacher Neil stopped on the platform, as did the children and I. From there we watched as the body was carried smoothly down the twelve stairs and across the bare commons, now cleared of food and dinnertime tables. Face up like that, Geoffrey seemed to be floating. When they reached the well, the body was lowered beside it then covered with the funeral sheet.
Geoffrey was dead – the truth shocked me afresh. Most shocking of all, it was me who had caused this.
‘How will God lift the uncle all by himself?’ asked a girl.
‘God is super strong.’ A boy.
‘How does Geoffrey get into heaven?’ Another boy.
‘God carries him up,’ replied Teacher Neil.
‘But how do they get into heaven?’
‘God moves in mysterious ways.’
The children nodded, satisfied. God’s ways, however mysterious, were always a comfort.
‘Will there be clothes for Geoffrey in heaven?’
‘Of course. Now let’s get ourselves to bed.’
The group was bustled back into the nursery. From inside, I could hear the children’s requests for the story of Little Red and the big bad monster. They shouted eagerly for those big eyes and ears and teeth, as if made-up monsters could be more frightening than this – the premature death of someone who deserved better.
I didn’t fear hairy monsters, for I was no longer a child. Now, I was a girl whose lie had killed an uncle.
It was late – the growlights were thistle – but even so, I went to the hive. The thermostat needed lowering and the cage had to be closed. Regardless of the unexpected events of the day, the bees’ routines didn’t change.
But I discovered the tasks had already been done by Penny. She was only the junior, just three seasons into her training, but already she was stepping in, assuming responsibilities that should have been mine.
The hive was mostly quiet. I kneeled beside it, inhaling the honey-musk sweetness. I could hear the bees’ fragmented drones as they settled in, safe and warm, oblivious to the hatred of enginers, and how close they’d come to dying. Tonight they would simply tuck in their wings and dream of nectar.
I envied them. How simple they were in their hive, committed only to their tasks of feeding and protecting their brood. How predictable their lives. How honest their routines. Did any of them know a sting could kill a person?
‘Hayley?’
I looked up. Celia was standing outside the cage, looking in. She was in her nightdress, her long hair spilling loosely over her shoulders.
‘What are you doing?’
‘The thermostat,’ I said.
‘You were talking . . . to the bees. I heard you.’
I smiled. ‘Just saying goodnight.’
Beyond the cage, two gardener aunts were leaving the baths. It was almost bedtime. The evening games of chess and mah-jong were being packed away. A few people remained outside the sleepers, chatting softly by the doors.
The first curfew chimed so I went with Celia to the baths. When I changed my clothes, her eyes lingered on the fresh wound on my stomach. I wished to tell her everything I knew – about the drip, the son’s secrets, and the uncle’s bee-sting death – but I had trouble recalling which parts were for sharing.
‘I’m not mad,’ I reminded her.
‘I know.’
I let her unbraid my hair. She ran her fingers through it.
‘Tomorrow will be better,’ she promised over my shoulder.
I nodded. It would be. It had to be.
At the second chime of curfew we went to the female sleeper. We were the last ones to enter; the other gardener girls and women were already settling in. Aunts complained of sore knees and hips, as they always did when they eased themselves into lower bunks.
I climbed into the top bunk that was for Celia and me. Soft and safe and strawberry-warm, it was my favourite place in all the world, where we would lie side by side and whisper right up until the final chime, then continue to talk with our hands, teasing the aunts and gossiping about other girls.
But that night, before lights-out, Celia rested her chin in her palm as she studied me.
‘Where did you go during dinner?’ she asked.
‘The upper house. I had to.’
‘Does the council know about your headpains?’
The question had fallen from her mouth as plainly as an apple from a tree. It surprised me. Disappointed me.
‘No-one knows but you. Something else happened today.’ I paused. What could I say? What couldn’t I? ‘An uncle died. I was the last person to see him alive, that’s all.’
It was a small lie – not a terrible one – but I hated the taste of it. I’d never had to lie to Celia.
Improbably, she believed me. Her eyes softened with sympathy as she reverted to the Celia I knew. ‘Oh, Hayley, I’m sorry. That’s awful.’ She smoothed her hand across my shoulder. ‘You must be so sad.’
The third chime of curfew rang, followed by the locking of the sleeper door. Women murmured. Already, a snoring.
In the dark, Celia’s fingers found mine.
Sad? she signed.
Sad, I agreed, though it was much more than that. It was guilt. How could I forgive myself for causing the death of an uncle?
Her hand asked a question. Who?
I paused, wondering. It wouldn’t hurt, I figured, to tell her this much. Everyone else would find out in the morning anyway.
Enginer, I replied.
Enginer uncle?
Yes.
Good.
At least, that’s what it felt like. Good? I thought I’d misunderstood until she signed it again.
Good. Good! Wonderful!
Appalled, I drew back my hand. It was true that gardeners didn’t warm to enginers – enginers were too different, too arrogant, too swift to criticise our soil-stained fingers and feet – but none of us ever took pleasure from an enginer’s pain or death. Celia’s response was cruel and uncalled for.
She reached again for my palm but I snapped it shut. I didn’t want to hear more of her meanness. There was nothing good about Geoffrey’s death.
Her hands grappled for mine. Her body twisted, trying to wriggle closer. Her lips found my cheek then pressed at my ear. Her breath was too sweet for her words.
‘This is wonderful!’
‘Take it back,’ I hissed, and someone shushed me from the dark.
My face was stilled in her hands. I tried to turn away but Celia held me in place.
Intently, she whispered, ‘An enginer died, yes?’
‘Yes. So?’
‘Shh!’ An aunt in the bunk below.
‘So? So it’s everything. So it’s me. So it’s my turn next.’ Her fingers fluttered as she laughed. ‘So, Hayley, I’m getting married!’
Chapter 6
We all wanted marriage. We all wanted to be the right age at the right time, wearing flowers in our hair and red balm on our lips. We all wanted to take our turn with the gold ring and the white dress that had been worn by every girl since the first days, handed down from generation to generation. Which girl didn’t wish to be made beautiful? To feel special?
Marriage, in our world, wasn’t a commitment for life. It was only ever temporary: three privileged nights in the kitchen house when rules no longer applied. Marriage meant a double bunk near the kitchen oven, decorated with petals and encircled by ceremonial candles. Marriage meant three nights of private banquets prepared exclusively for the girl and her chosen boy: three nights when pantry doors were left open for gorging on salted meats, jams, rice, or whatever else might be desired. Marriage, I’d heard, incited all kinds of hungers.
Every girl wished for marriage, and not just for the feast or fuss or dress, or the honour of turning a boy into a man. Every girl wished for her belly to swell, a season later, ripe with a baby. Every girl wanted to become a woman.
Celia, especially, wished for this. As the next gardener girl in line for marriage, she’d already had four lessons with the senior doctor from which she’d emerged with startled wonder. ‘How strange,’ she’d remark, and I’d catch her stopping for no reason other than to think or blush or wrinkle her nose with disgust or confusion. When I asked her to explain the content of the lessons, she would say, ‘I’m not quite sure . . . and besides, you’ll hear it for yourself. It’s your turn after mine.’