FullReads

“Now you see what we have done,” said the Wax-moths. “We have created New Material, a New Convention, a New Type, as we said we would.”

“And new possibilities for us,” said the laying sisters gratefully. “You have given us a new life’s work, vital and paramount.”

“More than that,” chanted the Oddities in the sunshine; “you have created a new heaven and a new earth. Heaven, cloudless and accessible” (it was a perfect August evening) “and Earth teeming with the merry, merry blossoms, waiting only our honest toil to turn them all to good. The–er–Aster, and the Crocus, and the–er–Ladies’ Smock in her season, the Chrysanthemum after her kind, and the Guelder Rose bringing forth abundantly withal.”

“Oh, Holy Hymettus!” said Melissa, awestruck. “I knew they didn’t know how honey was made, but they’ve forgotten the Order of the Flowers! What will become of them?”

A Shadow fell across the alighting-board as the Bee Master and his son came by. The Oddities crawled in and a Voice behind a Veil said: “I’ve neglected the old Hive too long. Give me the smoker.”

Melissa heard and darted through the gate. “Come, oh come!” she cried. “It is the destruction the Old Queen foretold. Princess, come!”

“Really, you are too archaic for words,” said an Oddity in an alley-way. “A cloud, I admit, may have crossed the sun; but why hysterics? Above all, why Princesses so late in the day? Are you aware it’s the Hival Tea-time? Let’s sing grace.”

Melissa clawed past him with all six legs. Sacharissa had run to what was left of the fertile brood-comb. “Down and out!” she called across the brown breadth of it. “Nurses, guards, fanners, sweepers–out!

Never mind the babies. They’re better dead.–Out, before the Light and the Hot Smoke!”

The Princess’s first clear fearless call (Melissa had found her) rose and drummed through all the frames. “La Reine le veult! Swarm! Swar-rm! Swar-r-rm!”

The Hive shook beneath the shattering thunder of a stuck-down quilt being torn back.

“Don’t be alarmed, dears,” said the Wax-moths. “That’s our work. Look up, and you’ll see the dawn of the New Day.”

Light broke in the top of the hive as the Queen had, prophesied–naked light on the boiling, bewildered bees.

Sacharissa rounded up her rearguard, which dropped headlong off the frame, and joined the Princess’s detachment thrusting toward the Gate. Now panic was in full blast, and each sound bee found herself embraced by at least three Oddities. The first instinct of a frightened bee is to break into the stores and gorge herself with honey; but there were no stores left, so the Oddities fought the sound bees.

“You must feed us, or we shall die!” they cried, holding and clutching and slipping, while the silent scared earwigs and little spiders twisted between their legs. “Think of the Hive, traitors! The Holy Hive!”

“You should have thought before!” cried the sound bees., “Stay and see the dawn of your New Day.”

They reached the Gate at last over the soft bodies of many to whom they had ministered.

“On! Out! Up!” roared Melissa in the Princess’s ear. “For the Hive’s sake! To the Old Oak!”

The Princess left the alighting-board, circled once, flung herself at the lowest branch of the Old Oak, and her little loyal swarm–you could have covered it with a pint mug–followed, hooked, and hung.

“Hold close!” Melissa gasped. “The old legends have come true! Look!”

The Hive was half hidden by smoke, and Figures moved through the smoke. They heard a frame crack stickily, saw it heaved high and twirled round between enormous hands–a blotched, bulged, and perished horror of grey wax, corrupt brood, and small drone-cells, all covered with crawling Oddities, strange to the sun.

“Why, this isn’t a hive! This is a museum of curiosities,” said the Voice behind the Veil. It was only the Bee Master talking to his son.

“Can you blame ’em, father?” said a second voice. “It’s rotten with Wax-moth. See here!”

Another frame came up. A finger poked through it, and it broke away in rustling flakes of ashy rottenness.