Samantha Honeycomb

by Scott Zarcinas

  SAMANTHA HONEYCOMB

  “Enchanting and full of joy.” Inner Self

  Other eBooks by Scott Zarcinas

  The Pilgrim Chronicles:

  The Golden Chalice

  Fiction:

  Thanksgiving Day

  Non-Fiction:

  Your Natural State of Being

  What Am I Doing With My Life?

  Pleasure & Pain

  What’s Love Got To Do With It?

  Proof of God

  SCOTT

  ZARCINAS

  SAMANTHA HONEYCOMB

  A Pilgrim’s Chronicle

  DoctorZed Publishing

  DoctorZed Publishing

  86 Valley View Drive, Highbury

  South Australia 5089

  DoctorZed Publishing website address is:

  www.doctorzed.com

  This DoctorZed eBook edition published 2011

  © Scott Zarcinas 2002

  Scott Zarcinas asserts the moral right to be identified

  as the author of this work

  A CIP record for the printed book can be found at the

  National Library of Australia

  ISBN eBook 0-9775963-0-3

  ISBN parent 192120702-7

  Cover Photograph by Creacart

  www.istockphoto.com

  file no. 935057

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

  reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form

  or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or

  otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  For My Girls

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book could not have come into existence without the loving support of Dr. Martie Botha. Her patience and faith go far beyond the call of duty. Beyond her marriage vows, in any case. I know of few women who are prepared to suffer the stings and arrows of outrageous dreams. Few husbands have had it so lucky.

  I extend my gratitude to Megan Davidson for her early editorial of the manuscript. Her critique made this book more technically correct than a mere writer could have ever hoped to achieve. The reader has her to thank for Mad Jack’s survival.

  I would also like to thank the many individuals who were kind enough to review the manuscript and provide an input to its metamorphosis. Thank you to Melinda Economos and Greg Rinder for their help with designing the cover.

  Lastly, to God, who is always helping me to be my best, whether I like it or not.

  “Something is nothing and nothing is something.”

  GERALD THE GREAT

  PART ONE

  SAMANTHA B. HONEYCOMB buzzed around the garden admiring the hundreds of rose buds spread out before her. Only one thing occupied her mind of late: flowers. Tulips, roses, geraniums, lilies, orchids, pink ones, blue ones, red ones, yellow ones – she loved them all – but every day, it seemed, she changed her mind as to which one she favoured. One day it was yellow pansies, the next day orange tulips, today red roses. There were just so many.

  How terrible, she thought, hovering over the rose bed, that a teenage honeybee couldn’t decide which flower she liked most.

  She buzzed toward a rose the colour of crimson fire. It seemed to welcome her closer, wanting to embrace her with its petals, and when she inhaled its perfume she was lifted away in a glorious, dreamy haze.

  “I wouldn’t even think about it if I were you,” said a worker bee buzzing past. “You know the rules.”

  Though taken off guard, Samantha smiled and nodded politely, watching the worker bee buzz out of sight to some other part of the garden. She knew the rules all right. What bee didn’t? Everyone not of the Sisterhood was strictly forbidden to enter the heart of a rose, the corolla, and there was nothing she could do about it. It had been that way for ever and ever, and it was a constant source of conflict with her mother. They had even had an argument as recently as this morning over breakfast, in the kitchen of the hive-cell.

  “Why is it a sacrilege to gather nectar from a rose?” she had asked.

  Isabeella was readying herself for a hard day’s toil, making sure her wings were in working order, flapping them in short bursts every so often, wiping dust from her stripes, checking that her pollen sacks were clean and free of holes; doing everything, it seemed, to evade the question.

  Samantha was well used to her mother’s delaying tactics, and she wasn’t going to give up that easily. She asked again, and Isabeella smiled, as if in resignation. A trying smile, Samantha thought, knowing what she was going to say next, what she always said in such circumstances: “Because, Samantha, just because.”

  Samantha stared at her, not content to let it be. She wished her father was there to help her out, but he was still in bed. That was another thing she didn’t understand: only females gathered nectar. The drones just made sure the hive was kept nice and tidy and sometimes moonlighted as guards or cleaners to earn some extra honey. A lucky few, when summoned to the palace, kept the queen amused with tales of victorious battles and ballads of forbidden love. Reginald Honeycomb was particularly famous for his rendition of the epic battle of the War of the Wasps, a story the queen never tired of hearing. “He’s never had a real job”, her mother had complained more than once (he had been chosen to stay in the queen’s harem as a younger drone, until he was too old to perform his duties; then he found a wife and slept late every morning). Samantha had to agree – he certainly lived the good life – yet it bugged her that bees who entertained for a living had it much easier than those who had to labour in the garden for their honey. When she was older, she promised herself there and then, she was going to be a performer, or a queen, or whatever came first.

  At that moment, though, she had greater things on her mind. “Why are roses sacred?” she asked again.

  Isabeella plonked the nectar sack on the table, scowling. “Because they belong to the Sisterhood.”

  “Even the wild roses that grow near the border with the Crazy Lands?” Samantha asked.

  Isabeella sighed. “Even those.”

  It wasn’t fair, Samantha thought. There was no good reason why the Sisterhood should own every rose in the queendom while lay bees couldn’t have any. The law was stupid and it was wrong. She was going to do something about it.

  “Why do you want to gather rose nectar, anyway?” Isabeella asked. “It’s no different than tulip or orchid or geranium nectar, and you can gather as much of that as you like.” Her tone, if Samantha didn’t know better, bordered on patronising. “Besides, the rules are the rules,” her mother added. “There’s a reason the laws are written the way they are, and it’s not for worker bees like us to ask why. There’s no point in trying to change them. Not even the queen would do that.”

  “You’re wrong!” Samantha said, and clenched her claws until they hurt. “I’m going to go to the queen and I’m going to ask her to change the law so that every bee can own a rose, too.”

  “Next thing you know, you’ll want to change the law so that drones can work with females. How ridiculous,” her mother said. “The law is the law and you’d do well to know your place and accept it.” With that said, she left for work.

  How often she had wished things were different, Samantha thought now, staring into the rose. It was the law and there was nothing she could do to change that. But, oh, how she yearned to enter its corolla. Was she never going to know what it was like? She wondered why the Great Mother Bee, the Creator of the entire universe, would give the world roses if only the Sisterhood were allowed to enjoy them. Wasn’t it true that bees were around for millions and millions of years before flowers even existed? If so, wouldn’t that mean that they were a gift for every bee?

  Then a temp
ting thought made her giggle. What if she entered while no one was looking? It was an outrageous idea. Did she have the courage to go through with it? She looked around, left and right, over her wings, behind her stinger, and saw no sign of anyone else. Except, in the distance, in the direction of the hills and the setting sun, she saw a kite gliding on the wind. The pilot was obscured behind the maple tree on which the hive was hanging, most probably one of the humans that lived in the farmhouse nearby. The kite soared in the air, far, far higher than she’d ever dared to go herself, almost to the very clouds, a swirling red petal lifted higher and higher on invisible wings.

  One day, she wished, she would buzz as high as the clouds too, maybe even higher.

  She turned back to the rose below. If she was going to enter its corolla, it was now or never. The fear of being caught, however, was like a wing-shackle. Her wings were suddenly heavy and an effort to flap. If she were caught inside the rose, she would be summoned before the queen, that was for certain. Then what? Punishment of some kind, most probably. Imprisonment, execution, she didn’t know exactly. No one had broken the ancient law, ever, as far as she knew. No one had dared. Perhaps it was better if she didn’t.

  She was about to turn and buzz away when she heard a voice. It seemed to be coming from the crimson rose, as if the Great Mother Herself was speaking directly to her.

  “Samantha,” the voice said, ever so faintly. “Be a bee. Sip the Nectar of Life.”

  The temptation was just too much. Samantha Honeycomb landed on its welcoming petal and entered its secret and forbidden realm.

  THE MOMENT SAMANTHA emerged from the rose, three worker bees buzzed overhead. Her eyes widened in alarm. From the looks on their faces she knew she was in trouble, even more than when she enrolled in aerobatic flying school instead of attending hive-economics (her mother had immediately removed her from the flying school when she eventually found out, and had made her clean the hive-cell as punishment, but by then Samantha had already learnt some quite spectacular stunts), and within the time it took to pull herself from the rose, several royal guards had already descended upon her. It was a bee’s worst nightmare. The guards swarmed down from the sky like wasps attacking the hive. She didn’t have time to hide. She didn’t even have time to try a mosquito roll, a forward somersault with a double-twist and pike, or a blowfly back flip, a full reverse-loop with a half-twist, or any of the escape manoeuvres she had learnt at flying school. The guards completely encircled her, thrusting their stingers only bee-inches from her chest and back and sides.

  “We’re arresting you on suspicion of poaching sacred nectar,” said the captain of the guards, and Samantha’s eyes widened further. “You’re coming with us to Hive Prison young lady.”

  Two of them seized her wings, lifted her into the air, then began to haul her toward the maple tree and the hive.

  It happened so quickly that she was halfway across the garden, past the spurting water fountain and pond in which the goldfish swam, past the birdbath and the sandpit where the swallows and the blackbirds frolicked, past the outdoor table that the humans often used on summer afternoons, and past the patch of rosemary, coriander, sage, and basil, before she even had time to wiggle her antennae. She barely registered the shock of the workers that had stopped gathering nectar to watch what was happening.

  Almost at the maple tree, she heard her name being called. Her mother was hovering over a large geranium bush, staring in disbelief. A sack of nectar slipped from her grasp, bouncing off several petals before splattering onto the grass beneath.

  “Where are they taking you?” Isabeella asked. “What have you done?”

  Only now did Samantha realise the trouble she was in. She wanted to reply, but her voice seemed to have been captured too. She wanted to say that she was sorry she didn’t listen to her advice this morning. She wanted to say that she was scared, that she didn’t want to be taken to the dungeons, but her voice remained stuck and the guards didn’t slow. Then she was at the maple tree, and her mother’s calls were lost in the rustle of wind through its leaves.

  Samantha glanced up, almost too frightened to look. Hanging from a high branch was the hive of the eastern queendom. It had never looked so daunting. The entrance yawned like some unspeakable monster from the Crazy Lands; and as she passed through, several sentries glared at her with suspicion. She felt very small, like a young grub being reared in the nursery. Her wings flapped nervously and her legs trembled, but it only got worse inside. The lower level was buzzing with activity, by far the busiest of the hive’s seven levels. Bees entering and exiting the gates stopped to stare, much to her dismay, and though the chamber was illuminated via small air vents in the honeycombed walls, it felt uncommonly dark and cool. Samantha shivered and trembled even more, thinking, for some reason, that her wings were feeling particularly brittle and fragile.

  The guards set her down and marched her deeper into the hive. Samantha struggled forward, still unable to comprehend what was happening. Just above and ahead of her was the central bee-way, the chimney-like corridor that divided each level into two sectors, east and west, and on any normal day Samantha would ascend it to her hive-cell on the third level on the inner western side, the working-class neighbourhood just across from the large pollen and nectar storage sites of the honey factories. Except this day had suddenly become anything but normal. It had mutated into something distinctly abnormal, with a capital A.

  Some bees descending from an upper level stopped and stared before heading to the market over in the eastern sector. Samantha recalled the countless hours spent wandering through the sprawling maze of the Grand Beezaar, where anything and everything was for sale; beautiful caterpillar silks from the southern queendom; exotic pollens and nectars from the west; woodcraft – hiveware and furniture and such like – from the carpenter bees that lived somewhere near the Crazy Lands; gardening equipment from the bumblebees; and, of course, the one thing every bee desired (and the ants and wasps and aphids and termites, and just about every other insect Samantha knew about), honey: the common bond that united every creature in the known world, the very reason the Grand Beezaar was the busiest place in the whole hive. Samantha usually loved the aromas of pollens and nectars and beeswax and honey, the tireless buzz and energy, but today it felt somewhat menacing, like a mob on the verge of rioting.

  Samantha suddenly felt the sharp point of a stinger between her wings. She stumbled forward, almost falling over. “Stop staring and get moving,” the captain said, prodding her again. “You know where the dungeons are.”

  Like every honeybee in the hive, her wing-spines prickled at the mention of the dungeons. She had heard many rumours of what happened inside: torture, starvation, disease, and any number of horrors. Bees entered that unspeakable place and were never heard of again.

  With legs still trembling, Samantha was marched to the front of Hive Prison. The walls loomed over her, almost touching the ceiling of the lower level. The gates were just as high; and hanging from them was a cage, inside of which was a rotting exoskeleton, yawning (or was it screaming?) back at her, its claws still gripping the bars. Samantha stood immobilised with terror. Even her hearing seemed to have seized, for as if from the other side of the hive she heard the captain yelling for the gate to be opened. Several seconds later, it creaked ajar.

  “Move!” the captain said, prodding her again.

  A waft of stench drifted past. Samantha didn’t budge, her petrified legs stuck to the ground as if she were standing deep in a vat of honey.

  Then, after a brief moment, she felt herself being picked up from under her wings and hauled into the prison.

  IT WAS PITCH black behind the gate.

  When her eyes adjusted, she saw that she was being taken across a narrow bridge that spanned a deep, dark pit smelling of rotting carcasses. Another door was opened on the other side of the bridge, smaller and more conventional than the main prison gates. The guards took Samantha through it into a dank tunnel that dripped a treacle-
like substance from its ceiling, a substance Samantha hoped wasn’t the liquefied remnants of some prisoner’s entrails.

  They emerged into a large courtyard surrounded by four low tiers of prison cells, as many as five to six hundred in total. She was dragged to the other side of the courtyard and thrown onto the cold, hard floor of a cell. It smelled of vomit and bee-dung, and for a moment she lay there, stunned. She heard the prison guard laugh and the slamming of the door, followed quickly by the jingle of keys and the clunk of the lock.

  After a short while, Samantha picked herself up and slumped her tired body onto the bed beneath the window. She had little or no energy, too tired even for tears, so she just lay there, even though the straw mattress stabbed her wings and legs and made it impossible to get comfortable. Time passed extraordinarily slowly. For what seemed hours, she wondered what she was going to do. Her thoughts also drifted to her godmother, the bee she had always turned to for advice when she was feeling lonely or down.

  “The Great Mother would want you to learn from this,” she imagined the wise old bee saying. “She has a plan for every bee in the world and She makes sure that everything happens for a reason.”

  Samantha questioned whether she could really believe in a Grand Plan. It seemed that that sort of thing only happened in fairytales, to heroines falling in love with handsome princes, never in real life to an everyday bee like herself. Why would the Great Mother bother with someone like her, anyway? She wasn’t important. She was never going to change the world. Samantha drew a deep breath and sighed. It was too difficult to see the meaning in everything that happened, and much easier to believe that she was simply the victim of circumstance.