All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 5

5

That same day Saint woke at dawn, crept down the stairs and out onto the rear porch.

Seven streets away Patch watched that same sunrise.

She rubbed her eyes as mist smoked from the grass like fire burned beneath.

Her morning routine, same each day since they arrived.

She was about to head in when she heard it.

Or didn’t.

She crossed the yard, bare feet in the damp, stopping a few feet from the hive.

Saint crouched and peered inside at the stragglers.

She looked around, back at the tall house, the neighbors, the treetops.

Her eyes wide as she tried to make sense of it.

The bees had gone.

—

Inside she barreled up the old staircase and crashed into her grandmother’s bedroom.

“Someone’s stolen the bees,” she said, breathless.

Norma turned from her spot by the window. “You’re not wearing your glasses. Maybe the bees are there but you can’t—”

Saint ran from the room.

“And brush your teeth,” Norma called.

Up spiraling steps to her bedroom in the attic. She took the round glasses from her nightstand and watched the world come to focus through

lenses so thick her eyes magnified as if in perpetual amazement.

She pulled on denim dungarees, both knees newly patched.

Saint cleaned her teeth with paste on her forefinger because she’d used her brush to dust mud from a fossil Patch delivered that later turned out to be dried dog shit.

Outside she found her grandmother standing before the empty hive, squinting toward the sky.

Norma cleared her throat, her silver hair cut short, wiry muscles in her forearms hinting at steel beneath. “But why would they—”

“Could be ants. But I laid the traps,” Saint said, low panic in her voice.

“Can’t be then.”

“Like, if you keep interfering then they go. But I…”

Norma sighed. “You sit out here with them each day, sometimes for hours.”

“They know me by now. It’s been four years.”

“Could be a skunk,” Norma offered.

Saint straightened at that. “A rotten old skunk. I’ll go fetch my slingshot.”

“I read about a keeper over in Wayne County…. He got arrested for stealing hives.”

Saint stopped dead, her small nose turning up into a snarl. “Someone stole my bees?” She paced up and down, oblivious to the burgeoning regret on her grandmother’s face.

“I’ll bet it was Mr. Lewis.” Saint spat the name.

“The old deacon? He’s—”

“He’s a greedy old diabetic—”

“Language,” Norma warned.

“He took three samples last time I laid out my stall. Licking it from his fat old fingers, didn’t even buy a jar neither. I told Patch to limit the tasters.

I’ll go there and I’ll—”

“You will not go there.”

“I’ll take it to Chief Nix then. He can cuff the fat old—”

“Enough.”

Saint turned and ran from the side gate.

Norma sighed and shook her head in despair.

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