Hive

by A. J. Betts

  Celia keenly wanted marriage and I wanted it for her, but not then, not when so many worries crowded my thoughts: the drip that wasn’t; the son’s dragon that breathed fire; the death-sting of bees, and Geoffrey . . .

  It was my fault Geoffrey had died. My fault, therefore, that Celia was now due to marry. We all knew how it worked: a gardener girl plus a netter boy equalled an enginer baby. Celia’s marriage would replace Geoffrey’s loss, eventually, returning the houses to balance.

  It was my fault I was losing her now.

  After her marriage – three nights in the kitchen house and three days resting in the upper house – when Celia would grow heavy and baby-burdened, she’d move into the nursery where, after two more seasons, she’d give birth. She’d live there for four full seasons after that. Only then would she hand the baby to the mothers and return to the garden and to me.

  Seven seasons was a long time to be without my best friend. Who would know to ask me of my headpains? Who would grow hidden feverfew for me and care for me in the forest while I slept? Who would tell me that I was well; that everything would be okay?

  And, by the time she’d finally return to the garden and our shared bunk, she would be a woman who knew the manners of babies and men. Would she remember the language of our hands? Would she even want to?

  Beside me, Celia smiled in her dreaming. Already, she was changing, and I had no-one to blame but myself.

  When I eventually found sleep, my dreams were of Geoffrey, trembling and translucent. What have you done, Hayley? What have you done?

  ‘I’m sorry!’ I called out, waking myself.

  It was morning: growlights were blushing their earliest pink. In their bunks, women were starting to stir. I squinted up at a growlight, letting my thoughts reconfigure. A bee had killed an uncle. Bees were deadly. I would have to be more careful with the flowers . . .

  ‘What about Noah?’ Celia said. She was lying awake, twirling her hair.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The netter boy on spools. The one with the shell.’ With a fingertip she drew a shape in the soft indent between her collarbones. ‘I think he’s nice. Or what about Spencer?’

  ‘Which one is he?’

  ‘The boy with a birthmark on his cheek. Krystal thinks Spencer is sweeter.’ She sighed. ‘He tends the tank of small meat . . . what are those called?’

  ‘Fingerlings,’ I murmured.

  ‘You’ll help me, won’t you?’ Celia’s voice was husky; her breath warm and heavy from sleep. It wasn’t like her to be vocal so early in the early morning.

  ‘Help you what?’

  She propped herself up on an elbow. Her hair spilled down and tickled my neck. ‘Choose the boy to marry, of course!’

  What have you done, Hayley?

  ‘Of course.’

  Celia squealed and hugged me, cradling me in her happiness.

  Geoffrey’s death was announced during morning meeting. The son had come especially to do so. It was one of his few jobs. After the garden, he’d be going to the other houses to do the same.

  It unnerved me to see him there, standing at the hub beside Llewellyn. The son belonged in the upper house with his mother, lazing around or playing games or whatever it was he did with his days. He was out of place in our garden amid the musty smells of soil and compost.

  With a quiet solemnity, the son informed us that Geoffrey, having lived a long, noble life, had died a peaceful death of old age.

  How effortlessly he spoke, without a waver or flinch. How earnest was his tone. For a moment even I believed him, before recalling the truth of it: the red swell of the sting, the rash, the parted blue lips of an uncle who’d died too soon.

  The son’s eyes met every gardener’s but mine. As he spoke, his hands remained clasped behind his back. Perhaps, I thought, he couldn’t trust them; that his hands, set free, might reveal the truths his mouth couldn’t.

  Standing beside him, Llewellyn was pretending too. Her expression was sorrowful, as if hearing the news for the first time; as if she hadn’t seen what I had seen. Gardeners tutted and nodded, consoling each other with the belief that the uncle’s death was timely and painless, and blessed by God. If only they knew.

  The son led a prayer for Geoffrey’s life, and only when everyone bowed their heads did his gaze find me. Though his lips spoke the words of gratitude, his eyes communicated something else to me alone, something urgent but unreadable. A secret? A reminder that our supposed adultery had died with Geoffrey? I couldn’t be sure. I needed to ask him, but how? He mostly kept to the upper house, and besides, it would be a sin to be alone with him.

  Amen.

  The son rocked on his heels then turned. He’d barely taken three steps before Llewellyn, with a rush of breath, declared what most had already figured out: Celia was to marry. The entire garden erupted in a commotion of cheers and applause and whistles as Celia stood, blushing, a vision of joy. When I looked for him again, the son had left through the way.

  Girls bunched around Celia – Have you chosen a boy? Have you decided on flowers? Which foods will you request for the banquet? – while aunts hugged her in turn, eyes glistening with their own memories. An upcoming marriage always altered a house, changing the nature of days. Even after the gardeners dispersed – moving to collect trowels, scissors, stepladders and buckets – there was an audible relish to their chatter as they worked. Many came to Celia with private sentiments or whispered advice. To them, Celia’s marriage overshadowed the news of Geoffrey’s death.

  If only that were true for me.

  Solitude wasn’t a sin, but to desire it was a cause for suspicion. It could be a symptom of sickness or melancholy – or worse, madness. Solitude was frowned upon and not to be trusted.

  But sometimes solitude was exactly what I craved, and in those times I was especially grateful for the bees and the tranquillity I would find within the cage surrounding the hive. I would set Penny to a task – repairing a frame or pruning the salvias – while I sat wordlessly inside. The honeybees’ constant humming didn’t bother me, nor did their furry crawling along the edges of the cage and over me. I let them. They didn’t sting me, and I wasn’t an anomaly.

  I liked that the bees never asked if I was well or happy or hungry or upset or afraid. I liked that they never expected anything of me or monitored my expressions when things were changing.

  ‘You must be happy,’ Llewellyn had said after the meeting, and though she’d meant it as an observation – a girl happy for her best friend – I’d heard it as an order.

  ‘I’m delighted,’ I’d replied with a smile.

  At least here with the bees, I didn’t have to pretend. Bees cared for nothing but the collection of pollen and the safekeeping of their babies.

  I’d always had an interest in bees. When I’d first been given the role as junior, I’d enjoyed crouching with Llewellyn in the pale pink mornings and witnessing the honeybees’ waking. I’d listen to the dreamy hum they made inside, and watch as the first bees – the undertakers – emerged, carrying the dead. Then, one by one, the scouts would poke out their little heads to taste the air before pitching out, returning soon after with plans that they would dance to the others. Foragers would take flight, as instructed, while the younger bees were left behind to clean the cells and tend the larvae. Deep inside, I knew, the queen would be laying, filling the nursery with babies that resembled wriggling grains of wet rice.

  As the senior beekeeper at the time, Llewellyn would drowse the bees with paperbark smoke every tenth day, sending the whole hive to sleep so we could pull out the frames that were heavy and dripping with comb. Other days we’d follow the foragers, tracking their paths to learn about nectar. I discovered which flowers were necessary every season, and how each affected the flavours of honey. I came to understand the bees’ moods just by the tones of their humming, and began to see the world’s patter
ns and colours through the honeybees’ domed eyes. I learned of their temptations: alfalfa sprouts and flowering herbs in the kitchen house; willows, canna lilies and lotus flowers in the netter house; hops and hemp in the seeder house; honeysuckles and soapwort in the nursery; and the countless unknowable medicinals in the sickroom. Even the commons and most of the ways had breathers and vines: tomatoes, grapes, asters and jasmine.

  The bees’ daily routines were predictable, but even so, one would occasionally go rogue.

  When I was thirteen, a teacher told me she’d spied a blue-banded zigzagging up the stairs towards the upper house. I doubted it was true, for I knew that bandeds were attracted only to blues and purples – lavender, salvia, bacopa, violets, purple heart and butterfly bush – none of which existed outside the garden. There was no reason for a banded to make its way to the topmost house.

  Still, I went up the steps. It was the first time I’d slid open the upper house door myself; the first time I’d entered without a teacher or councillor. That was the season Fiona was being treated for madness, which meant the judge was with the doctor in the sickroom.

  I slipped in quietly, hearing the gurgling of the source as water tripped over rocks and spun itself into tight spirals. It was humbling to be the only one there, so close to the source, and to God.

  The upper house was empty, or so I’d thought.

  I circled the wide curve of the source, looking for a hint of a blue-banded rogue. I searched near the council table and chairs, and the cupboards where old diaries were kept. I checked the baths and near the toilet compost. I wondered if God was watching me then. I hoped He would see what a good girl I was for doing this job without the help of my mentor.

  That’s when I heard it: a low humming from inside a sleeper. I crept in and saw it – the bee. And the son.

  He was curled on a bunk, sleeping. The other bunk – the one belonging to the judge – was empty, its sheets neatly folded. Unlike the rest of the world, the child of the judge was raised and taught here. It was a rule made in the early days. The role of judge was the only one born into, filled by the son or daughter when they were old enough, regardless of how popular they were, how clever or hard-working.

  This son was none of these. He was lazy. Everyone knew that. He would turn up late to meetings, slouching when he thought no-one saw. We all knew he’d never dug in soil or climbed a ladder. He’d never washed dishes or fashioned new ones out of gourd. He’d never husked rice or mended fabrics. We’d all accepted that he was spoiled, but to catch him sleeping in the day was something else. It was a sin and another reason to dislike him.

  From the edge of his bunk, the banded bee drifted up. It hummed, hovered, and lowered again onto the son’s apron. I could see then what it was drawn to: three small violets had spilled from the pocket. Violets? I went closer, to be sure. I knew violets – I’d planted them by the garlics – and I also knew they grew solely in the garden for the purposes of pleasing bees and making dyes. They contained no nutrients for eating. There was no reason for the son to have plucked them, yet he had.

  I crept even closer. The son appeared different in sleep. The vertical line between his eyebrows was no longer there. He seemed like a child though he was fifteen; two years older than me. Closer still, I noticed the scent of him: salt-sweet; kind of bitter, like meat.

  When the banded bee lifted again, I trapped it fast in the collection box. My job done, I backed away. Between my hands, the box vibrated with the bee’s annoyance. The son didn’t stir.

  Lazy, I’d thought then, and my opinion hadn’t changed. To lazy and spoiled I now added lying. He’d lied to the world about Geoffrey’s death. He’d lied about being in the way. He’d lied for both of us, without even consulting me first.

  I switched on the cage light and altered the thermostat. I heard the bees’ first sounds and watched as the undertakers took out the dead. I envied this too. Bees held no ceremonies or prayers, no speeches or mourning. Bees had no secrets. No guilt.

  Guilt. That was what upset me the most. How could the son not be bothered by it? He’d tracked the bee with Geoffrey and even praised him for slapping it. How could he not feel guilt the way I did?

  ‘Are you ready?’ Celia was standing outside the cage, a pink camellia tucked behind her right ear.

  ‘Ready for what?’

  She laughed, carelessly swishing at a bee flitting past her.

  ‘To help me choose!’

  ‘Choose?’

  She exhaled. ‘A boy, Hayley.’

  ‘Now?’

  I’d known it would be my role to assist with Celia’s preparations. I’d have to help her choose a boy then begin the assembling of balms, oils and bouquets. It would be my job to make her marriage special: to make her feel special. But did it have to begin so soon?

  ‘Won’t the netter boys be busy with the catch?’ I asked.

  She raised her eyebrows and grinned. ‘Exactly.’

  Celia and I knew the netter house well. For years, we’d been coming every twelve days to tend their arecas and money plants. It always surprised me to find the breathers thriving, despite the constant cover of salt crust. We would wrinkle our noses at the briny smells as we sidled between the raised tanks, inside which meats were grown and fed. Netter men and women would be leaning over the low tanks’ edges or climbing to the platforms of the high ones to monitor water, air, feed and temperature, while below, meats of varying, shimmering sizes swam in circles and nibbled on seaweeds. Sometimes they would thump the sides with their tails, sending up splashes that would wet the netters’ faces, making other netters howl with laughter.

  Two other tanks were for growing rice, which is where many of the netter boys and girls were found. That’s where Celia began to gravitate to, when she became the next gardener girl to marry. She’d bring me to the netter house more frequently, and each time I’d notice refinements in the netter boys’ behaviour. They started to observe Celia more keenly, raising their heads from the tanks with shy smiles. Their hair seemed more neatly combed, their skin smelling of perfume rather than brine. Some of their necks were adorned with threaded bands, from which hung a knotted design they’d made or a talisman that had been netted during a catch: a shell, a tooth, a bone. They wanted Celia to notice these things, for they all wanted to be chosen. Every boy wanted to be made a man.

  Celia and I had never visited on the day of a catch, however, for the boys would be too preoccupied. I’d been glad to avoid the noisy ruckus, and Celia, especially, had been keen to avoid the sticky trails of salt and blood.

  But Celia, now, was changed. Emboldened by the marriage ring on her finger and the camellia in her hair, she practically dragged me.

  At the netter threshold, a hunchbacked uncle greeted us with a toothy smile. Uncles adored Celia. If only they knew how keenly she could impersonate them.

  ‘So tell me, how do the berries grow?’ he asked her.

  On cue, Celia sang, ‘With silver bells and cockle shells, and pretty maids all in a row.’

  The old man joined in the song, his eyes glazing over, lost in ancient, sentimental thoughts.

  ‘The everests are bursting,’ Celia assured him, prompting the uncle to smack his lips. ‘You’ll see them tonight, at the feast. There’ll be blackberries too.’

  Above the man’s white hair, near the tangle of hop vines, a blue-banded bee was skimming. I watched it, though the uncle neither noticed nor cared. When it hovered closer, I prickled with worry. What if the old man was an anomaly, like Geoffrey? Was it possible to tell just by looking at a person?

  ‘And will there be honeycomb at the feast?’ The wrinkly face had swung towards me.

  ‘No.’ The pantry stock was empty. Frames weren’t due to be combed for another three days.

  ‘A pity. There’s nothing so funny as honey that’s runny,’ he sang, accompanying it with a spirited jig. Then his eyes li
t up as he recalled another. ‘A spoon full of honey makes the medicine go down.’

  Celia and I didn’t join in. We didn’t know many of the old songs and had no desire to learn. When it was finished, the uncle caught his breath and we clapped supportively.

  ‘It’s not a good day to be tending the breathers,’ the uncle advised, remembering his role at the threshold. ‘An enginer died yesterday, didn’t you hear? There’s a catch underway.’

  ‘We know.’ Celia held up her ringed finger. ‘The breathers can tend themselves today.’

  The old man whooped and jigged some more. ‘Why didn’t you say so, pretty maids? Stop dilly-dallying with this old man and get yourselves in there with the boys.’

  Chapter 7

  Every house in the world had a hub, but only the netters’ could be opened.

  Only the netters’ hub led somewhere.

  On the day of a catch, four men would loosen bolts from around the hub’s edge then twist the central circle until it lifted, like a lid from a jar. The lid would be slid across, revealing the hole underneath that was six foot wide and much deeper than that. The first foot or so was just air, but then there was water, murky and still. It wasn’t pure for our drinking like the water from the source, but briny like in the netters’ tanks, all the better for the meats to swim in.

  This was where God left us meats for our feasts. Deep, deep down, unseen by any person, was the special tank where God alone would go, gifting us meats more decorative and flavoursome than those the netters grew. These were delicacies straight from God’s hands, and they were signs that the life He’d taken had been one well-lived; a recognition that God was proud of the dead, and all of us, for living the ways of the truth and the light. They were also a blessing on the marriage that would soon take place.