The Bees: A Novel

by Laline Paull

  Sister Sage nodded. “And what do you hear, of other departments?”

  “Oh! Mere canteen gossip, idle tittle-tattle, nothing I would repeat—”

  “Please do.” Sister Sage focused her attention on Sister Teasel, her scent flexing in the air. Flora looked down at the waxen tiles and kept very still. Sister Teasel twisted her hands together.

  “Sister Sage, we are very fortunate in the Nursery, plenty of food, everything brought to us—we do not feel the shortages, we face no dangers . . .” She faltered.

  “Come, Sister. Unburden yourself.” Sister Sage was calm and kind, and Sister Teasel dared look up.

  “They say the season is deformed by rain, that the flowers shun us and fall unborn, that foragers are falling from the air and no one knows why!” She plucked at her fur convulsively. “They say we will starve and the babies will all die, and my little nurses are worrying so much I fear they will forget—” She shook her head. “Not that they do, Sister, ever, for they are most strictly supervised, and the rotas are always guarded even if they could count—you may kill me if it is not so.”

  “You need not give permission.” Sister Sage smiled and Sister Teasel burst out laughing and reached for one of her hands.

  “Oh, Sister Sage, it does me such good to jest with you—now that I have shared the burden, I am no longer fearful!”

  “That is the role of the Melissae: to carry all fears, so the hive is free.” A calming scent flowed from Sister Sage and filled the chamber.

  “Amen,” said Sister Teasel. “But oh for the courage of the kin of Thistle.”

  “Why? What do they do?” Too late Flora remembered herself.

  Sister Teasel looked at her in outrage, her own distress forgotten.

  “She speaks? The impudence! Sister Sage, please spare my curiosity and tell me the reason for her presence. If it is to clean, then I shall add her to the next detail—but I hope all Sanitation is not now possessed of tongues for we shall be in uproar!” She glared at Flora. “Obstreperous, dirty creatures.”

  “Does Sister Teasel stand in judgment of our purpose?”

  “No, Sister, never. Forgive me.”

  “Then kindly recall that variation is not the same as deformity.”

  “Sister graces me with her superior wisdom—though to my ignorant eyes those terms are one and the same.” Sister Teasel stood back from Flora. “How monstrously large she is—and that fur when it dries will be thick as a drone’s, and her shell as black as a crow’s—not that I have ever seen one, thank Mother.”

  Sister Sage became very still. “You are fatigued perhaps, by your long duty? Your loyal heart wishes to serve longer, yet your spirits tire?”

  Sister Teasel shook her head in alarm.

  Sister Sage turned to Flora. “Open your mouth, 717. Let Sister Teasel look.”

  Flora obeyed and Sister Teasel promptly peered in. She looked to Sister Sage in surprise. Then she grasped Flora’s tongue and pulled it to its full length before letting it snap back in her mouth.

  “I see! It might indeed be possible, but with that tongue comes—”

  “She will lose its use when it is time for her to rejoin her kin. And should it linger, I will personally wipe any knowledge from her mind. Test her, and if she does not produce anything, send her on immediately.” Sister Sage looked kindly at Flora. “This experiment is a privilege. What do you say?”

  “Accept, Obey, and Serve.” The words blurted from Flora’s mouth unbidden. Sister Teasel shuddered.

  “Let us hope she will. Such ugliness!”

  Ashamed, Flora turned back to Sister Sage as her shield, but the priestess had vanished.

  “They do that.” Sister Teasel watched her. “Never know where you are with them, always surprising you. Come along then.” She pushed open a door and Flora smelled the sweet, pure fragrance beyond it. “If Sister Sage herself hadn’t told me to do this, I’d call it sacrilege.” She pushed Flora through the door with her foot. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Four

  THE ENORMOUS NURSERY WAS FILLED WITH ROW AFTER row of glowing cribs, some with little rippling streams of light above them. Flora followed Sister Teasel deeper into the chamber. To her wonder, the light was, in fact, a luminous liquid, pouring in droplets from the mouths of the young nurses who leaned over the cribs. Many more young, pretty nurses moved silently about the ward with glowing mouths.

  “It is so beautiful!”

  Despite her resentment, Sister Teasel smoothed her chest fur and nodded. She pointed to an unattended crib. “What gender?”

  Flora looked in. The larva was newly hatched, soft, pearly tendrils of shell still clinging to the translucent white skin. Its tiny face was closed in sleep and a sweet milky smell drifted above it.

  “A female. She is so beautiful!”

  “Just another worker. Now find a male.” Sister Teasel indicated the whole vast Nursery.

  “Yes, Sister.” Flora raised her antennae. At each row she drew in the smell of female babies, strong and constant.

  “You can’t do it from here you silly girl—”

  Flora did not answer. She smelled the different kin of the young nurses and all the thousand female children. There was no scent of male.

  “I have searched and there are none. Why is that?”

  Sister Teasel stared at her. “Late in the season Holy Mother stops making them.” She shook herself. “A fine sense of smell is the gift of youth. But it will pass, and in any case, it is not enough to keep you out of Sanitation. Now hold your bold tongue and let us conclude this foolish experiment.”

  Sister Teasel pushed Flora back to the first worker crib she had shown her and tapped on its side so that the little creature woke. When it opened its mouth and began to cry, she folded her arms in satisfaction and looked at Flora. “And now?”

  Flora leaned in to look, and the larva-baby flexed and stretched toward her. As it opened its tiny mouth to cry, its warm scent rose more strongly, threaded with the delicate fragrance of the Queen’s Love. Immediately, two pulses began flickering in Flora’s cheeks, and her mouth began to fill with sweet liquid. She looked to Sister Teasel in alarm.

  “Flow!” cried Sister Teasel. “Don’t swallow, let it come!”

  She guided Flora into the right position as the luminous drops spilled from her mouth. They fell onto the larva-baby and it stopped crying, wriggling around to lap them up. The drops thickened into a thin stream, which pooled around the baby’s body until it could drink no more.

  Flora’s cheeks stopped flickering and the liquid stopped. Completely exhausted, she held the side of the crib for support. The baby grew as she watched, and the base of the crib glowed. Other nurses looked across.

  “Well,” said Sister Teasel. “If I had not seen it for myself. A flora from Sanitation, able to make royal jelly. Flow.” She corrected herself. “You must only ever call it Flow.”

  “Why, Sister?” Flora felt warm and sleepy.

  Sister Teasel tutted.

  “No more questions. All you need to remember is feed as your supervisor instructs you. Not a drop more, no matter how the babies beg. And they will. Now I must find you a place to sleep—though I don’t know what the other girls will say about it. You mustn’t expect them to touch or groom you.”

  SISTER TEASEL LED FLORA to a rest area where young nurse bees lay talking quietly or sleeping, luminous traces fading around their mouths. She lay down at once.

  “Flora 717 is here by Sister Sage’s express wish.” Sister Teasel’s tone dared anyone to remonstrate. “Yes she makes Flow, and yes it is most irregular for her kin, but we are in the season of irregularity, with the rain and the cold and the lack of food—so we will all be helpful. Is that clear?”

  The nurses murmured assent and placed food and drink within Flora’s reach, but she was too tired to move. Sister Teasel’s voice continued above her and she knew that when the comb shivered, the divine fragrance that rose up from it was the Queen’s Love, and that thi
s was the sacrament of Devotion. She wanted to join the sweet harmony of nurses in prayer, but the room was warm and dark, and the bed was soft.

  LIKE THE OTHER NURSES’, Flora’s job was simple. She must give Flow to the babies as directed, rest when it stopped, then repeat. As Sister Teasel had stressed to Sister Sage, the feed timing was very strictly observed and marked with different bells that signaled when one or another area of the Nursery was due more or must stop feeding. These constantly chiming bells and the shimmering energy of the fed larvae created an intense and dreamlike aura in the Nursery, but one sound always alerted Flora’s attention. It was the bright, resonant tone of the sun bell, and its particular frequency told all the bees that beyond the safety of the hive walls, day had risen again.

  Flora particularly enjoyed its vibration and listened out for its rare pleasure. Every three chimes, the supervising sisters came around and collected all the nurses whose fur had risen and whose Flow was dwindling, and replaced them with new ones fresh from the Arrivals Hall, their fur still soft and damp.

  Flora’s fur had not changed, so she was kept on. By the sixth sun bell, every nurse around her had changed, but her own Flow continued as strongly as ever. Supervising sisters also changed, but there were always several Teasels in their number. As she watched them go about their business, Flora began to understand the workings of the Nursery.

  The cribs were always being rotated. Each day the nurses who were soon to leave would clean out a thousand of them, then a small army of sanitation workers would arrive to remove the waste and scrub the floors. Surreptitiously, Flora watched them. Though they never made eye contact or said a word, their vigorous energy was tangible, and all the nurses were relieved when they left, none more so than Flora, ashamed of her own kin. Then the nurses would prepare the empty cribs in the newly cleaned area and the supervising sisters would say prayers of purification before veiling the whole section with the shimmering scent of discretion, ready for the next day’s Royal Progress when the Queen laid her eggs.

  When the next sun bell sounded, the glorious pure fragrance of new life rose in the Nursery and a thousand new eggs lay pure and perfect in their cribs. Every bee in the Nursery joined in songs of praise for Immortal Mother’s fertility. It took three more sun bells for the eggs to hatch into larva-babies, and then it was time to feed them Flow.

  Under strictly timed supervision from a senior sister, for the next three days Flora and other feeding nurses watched in amazement as the babies grew before their eyes. Their sweet scents rippled with changes in their bodies, and then came the stark moment when the supervising sisters piped a quick whistle to stop the feeding. No matter how hungry a baby might be, not a single drop more might be given, for it was time to wean them in the Category Two ward.

  To Flora, this was a far more desirable place to work. Through the big double doors that separated the two nursery wards, she had often glimpsed older nurses playing and singing with the bigger children, even cuddling them in their arms.

  Everything about the Ceremony of Transition was exciting to Flora, from the way the babies started wriggling and laughing in excitement at the delicious food smells coming from the double doors dividing the wards to the first strains of the cheerful hymns sung by the nurses who came for them. With graceful curtsies to all in the Category One ward, even Flora, the nurses scooped up the laughing babies and returned to Category Two, the doors softly closing behind them.

  With their fully risen fur, elegant limbs, and narrow curtsies, these sophisticated Category Two kins of Violet, Primrose, and Vetch won Flora’s particular admiration. Discreetly, in the dim, holy atmosphere of Category One, she practiced her own curtsy to overcome her shameful splay—just in case Sister Sage should reappear and move her to Category Two.

  This was such a wonderful thought that Flora began including it in her prayers at Devotion. She forgot it each time the enchanting fragrance of the Queen’s Love rose up through the comb, but when the nurses changed again, and her fur had still not risen, she gathered up her courage and sought out Sister Teasel.

  “You want to move?” Sister Teasel stared at her in amazement. “From Category One, the holiest place in the hive and the closest you will ever come to Her Majesty? Why, she passes by us every day!”

  “But I have never seen—”

  Sister Teasel swiped Flora’s antennae with a sharp claw.

  “Impudent, ignorant girl! Do you think a sanitation worker is ever likely to be in the true presence of Her Majesty? I knew it would come to this. I was against it from the start— Why pray are you now so eager to move to Category Two?”

  “It looks so bright and happy there. And the nurses play with the children.”

  “Yes, and as a result they are riddled with frivolity and attachment. I cannot believe it—move away from the Queen? Please tell me: Do you fantasize you are a forager, able to survive beyond Holy Mother’s divine scent? For clearly it is not enough to be a nurse!”

  “It is, Sister—forgive me for asking—”

  But it was too late, for Sister Teasel’s agitation spread through the whole ward. The babies grew fractious, distracted nurses looked up from their feeding, and Flow splashed against the cribs.

  Sister Teasel waved her arms at them. “Focus!” She turned back to Flora. “Now you listen to me. We deliver one outcome here: identical care for identical brood. There is no improvising, no requesting a transfer, and, until you were forced upon us, no exception to the immaculate kin of our nurses.”

  “I know, Sister, I’m very grateful, it’s just that so many nurses have changed—”

  “What business is that of yours? Have you been trying to count?” Sister Teasel came very close to her. “Have you been studying the rotas, 717? Confess at once if you have, for it is a matter of hive security—what do you know about them?” Her scent became fragmented with anxiety, and the babies began crying again.

  “Nothing, Sister! I just wanted to ask—”

  “There, that is the very seed of it: you wanted!” Sister Teasel groomed her antennae back from their trembling state, then glared at Flora again. “Desire is sin, Vanity is sin—it is all very well praying and splaying, 717, and don’t think I haven’t seen you practicing your ridiculous curtsy—”

  “Idleness is sin.” Humiliated at her exposure, Flora continued the Catechism. “Discord is sin, Greed is sin—”

  “And as for your appetite—as bad as a drone’s. No matter what the sainted Sage may think”—and here Sister Teasel threw a quick glance around the ward—“you are typical of your kin. Greedy, ugly, obstinate things. Girls, what is our first commandment?”

  “Accept, Obey, and Serve,” chanted the eavesdropping nurses, staring at Flora.

  “Accept, Obey, and Serve.” Flora knelt before Sister Teasel. “A flora may not make wax, for she is unclean; nor propolis, for she is clumsy; nor ever may she forage, for she has no taste; but only may she serve her hive by cleaning, and all may command her labors.”

  “Exactly.” Sister Teasel’s antennae twitched. “Yet here you are, feeding the Queen’s newborns. Summer is cold; floras speak—the world is upside down! Just be grateful for the honor, for it will soon be over. But I wish I knew when, for I have never seen the like of your Flow.”

  “What does it mean, for my knowledge to be wiped?”

  Sister Teasel’s expression softened. She sighed.

  “You will find out soon enough. Now spare us both—ask no more questions.”

  FLORA RETURNED TO THE MAIN FLOOR, her hope replaced by dread. She joined a group of nurses who stood waiting to hear which section next needed Flow, their mouths already brimming with the bright liquid. The chime sounded, and ahead of them a dark little sanitation worker ran to get out of their way. Walking at the back of the group Flora saw her clearly, cowering with her pan and brush, holding her wings back so that she would not touch a higher kin by accident. Their eyes met for a moment. The little worker grimaced in a smile. Flora looked away and hurried o
n.

  The next baby was big and hungry. She looked down at its open mouth, always the trigger for the pulses in her cheeks to begin the feeding trance. Nothing came. The twisted, friendly grimace of the sanitation worker stuck in her mind and Flora shook herself. She adjusted her position and concentrated.

  The baby yearned up toward her, openmouthed. The pulses in her cheeks flickered, and a few drops of Flow seeped out. Flora shook her head so they fell onto the baby, and it lapped them hungrily. It looked up and opened its mouth for more. She concentrated until the sides of her mouth were throbbing with the strain, but nothing came. The baby began to cry.

  A new nurse appeared at Flora’s side, her mouth and face glowing with fresh Flow. She was very young and deep in the feeding trance. She stood by Flora’s side and leaned over. Immediately, the luminous stream began to fall and the baby quieted as it fed. Confused, Flora stepped back.

  “The miracle,” said a kind, familiar voice, “was that you could feed at all.”

  Sister Sage stood by her, beautiful and frightening. She smiled.

  “If your job bores you, 717, I will give you something more exciting to do. Consider it another test.”

  Five

  AT THE SIGHT OF SISTER SAGE, ALL THE CATEGORY Two nurses and nannies curtsied, though they looked warily at Flora walking with her. The priestess was not angry that her Flow had stopped, and seemed only to want to talk.

  “I would have said the experiment was a success,” she said to Flora. “And I am sure Sister Teasel impressed on you the privilege of such sacred service.”

  “Yes, Sister. I am very grateful.”

  “But you are very curious about Category Two—a rather prosaic place, to my mind. Why is that?”

  The more she breathed of Sister Sage’s strong scent, the more Flora grew calm, and felt an overpowering desire to tell the truth.