Amber Honeywell's Arc

Chapter 7 of 14

Amber walked home with the girl's words still in her ear. The path felt longer than it should. She had left the hives quiet that morning. She did not expect them quiet now. She heard the cottage before she saw it. A low hum rolled through the garden like a second wind. The thatched roof shook with it. Bees moved in a thick rope around the eaves, in and out of the open upper window. She had not left the window open. She ran to the brood boxes. The painted lids would not close. Comb pushed up between every seam, heavy and wet, the color from the vessel — that color with no name. It ran down the sides of the bright boxes and pooled in the wooden tray she used for spills. The tray was already full. A second tray she kept for rain had filled too. The bees were not angry. They were working faster than she had ever seen bees work. She opened her journal on the garden stone and tried to write the weight. She could not. A strong hive gave forty pounds in a good year. One box here had given that since dawn. She wrote the number, then crossed it out, then wrote it again. Her hand was steady. Her chest was not. A shadow fell across the page. Winter Flint stood at the gate with his staff. He looked at the boxes. He looked at the pooled color in the tray. He did not come closer. "They heard her wake," he said. "The flowers in the trees did. So did these." He nodded at the bees. "You fed something a voice. It is answering." Behind him, Durgan came up the path, slower, the painted fox tucked under one arm. He stopped beside Winter and looked at the overflowing tray for a long moment. "Cover it," he said. "Before evening. The woman is still coming." Amber knelt and pressed her palm to the wood. It was warm. She closed the journal. She had wanted, for eleven years, to know the recipe was real. Now her hives were telling everyone within a day's walk. She stood up. "I will cover it," she said. "And then I will decide who gets to taste it." The bees kept working. The color kept rising. The choice was hers now, and only for as long as the lids held.