Angela Ant's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Angela came home from the cottage still warm from Summer Sun's palm. She wanted to tell Tracie about the way the light had felt up there. She never got the chance. Three of her sisters stood at the base of the anthill, crowded around something white on the dirt. A sugar cube. Bigger than any of them. It smelled like burnt honey and something else underneath, something Angela's legs remembered before her mind did. "Don't touch it," Angela said. Tracie looked up from the edge of the group. "There's more. Four along the north tunnel. Two by the south door." Angela circled the cube. The sweet under-smell was the same smell that had come off the trail Matilda had once laid to pull her back to the bramble cottage. She had walked away from that trail. Her sisters had never smelled it before. They would not know to walk away. "It's the witch," Angela said. "She's baiting us. If we eat these, she owns the colony." One sister was already leaning in, antennae twitching. Angela shoved her shoulder hard. The sister staggered back and hissed. "I know how it smells," Angela said. "I've had it in my head before. Trust me or lose everyone in there." Tracie stepped up beside her. "We move them. Now. Before the foragers come out." They worked. Angela and Tracie rolled the first cube away from the mound, then the next. The sugar was heavy and it left a bright trail in the dirt that Angela scuffed over with her back legs. Sisters who had been curious started to help once they saw Tracie carrying. By the time the sun tilted, seven cubes sat in a pile at the far edge of the flat stones, well clear of every tunnel mouth. Angela climbed the top cube and looked across the garden. The witch was there. Ragged black, hat crooked, hands empty at her sides. She had been watching from the fence line. Angela walked down off the pile and crossed to her. "Take them back," Angela said. "They aren't going in my hill." Matilda's face did not move. "You smelled it." "I've smelled it before." "You have." Flat. She looked past Angela at the pile, then at the anthill, then at the cottage in the distance where a bright shape stood on the step. "You'll tell her." "I already am." Matilda bent and gathered the cubes into the fold of her robe. She did it slowly, one at a time, and she did not argue. When the last cube was up, she straightened. "Next time you won't smell it," she said. Then she walked back toward the fence. Angela watched her go. Her sisters were safe. The witch knew she'd been seen, and she had chosen a warning over a fight. That was worse than a fight. Angela turned and started across the stones toward the anthill.