Other thuds echoed through the forest. The people of the Falls weren’t the only ones suffering in this summer drought.
There was another explosion, closer to us, and giant comets rocketed into the sky, blazing orange and red. They arced high, blocking out the sun, before gravity pulled them back. They fell fast, plummeting to earth and pounding into the trees.
“Do you see now why I can’t stop this?” Lyra asked. “There are too many wheels turning. Too much madness in the air. Too much hatred burning. Burning and churning and—”
Dark smoke rose out of the pines, pushed about by a hot wind. It wafted toward town, whirling with specks of ash and dancing embers. Dread bloomed deep within me, filling my rib cage, unfurling its dark fingers into my wrists, my knees, until all of my bones ached with its weight.
“We haven’t had rain all year.” My voice sounded flat and impossibly far away. “The whole town will go up like a tinderbox.”
“That’s our cue to leave you.” She nodded to the others. Bloodlust danced across their faces, their eyes silver and hungry.
“No,” I said, holding out my hand. “Stop.”
The four Dark Watchers stilled. Lyra cocked her head.
“You may not be able to stop this madness, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to watch it play out. I banish you from Amity Falls. I want you to go far, far away, to where you can’t hurt anyone ever again, and stay there.”
The tall man bristled. “Who are you to—”
The Queen cut off his challenge with a sharp movement of her fingers.
“You want us to leave? This is your request?” she asked. Her voice was as light as silk, but her eyes burned with an acute resentment, flickering between me and the plumes of smoke. When another explosion went off, jolting the very ground we stood upon, her lips pressed together in a grim snarl, stifling back a howl of rage. “Then I suppose we’re all done here.”
“Wait,” I said, throwing out my hand.
The house was silent when I entered it, too still to be occupied.
“Merry?” I called out anyway, wandering from room to room. “Sadie? Thomas? Ephraim?”
There was no answer.
The empty loft worried me the most. The bedsheets were twisted and ripped, revealing the ticking mattress beneath.
Had Sadie’s condition grown worse, necessitating a trip to town?
Or had they all been taken by force?
My footsteps crunched as I entered the dining room. A teacup had fallen, and its ceramic shards lay shattered across the floorboards. I picked up a curved piece, examining the little flower painted on the handle.
It was a lilac.
Mama’s favorite cup.
Merry would have never allowed them to leave such a mess behind. She would have swept it up and run a wet rag over the floor to make sure none of the stray shards found their way into an unsuspecting bare foot.
Taken, then.
I didn’t want to imagine a mob of angry people marching to the farm, searching for Sam and finding my sisters in his stead, but the images flooded my mind, each more horrifying than the last. I supposed I should have been grateful that the only damage left was one broken teacup.
I needed to go after them. Needed to find and save them all.
I spun around in the room, searching for anything that would make me feel less alone, less small. I needed something to fill my hands, to buoy my sinking confidence. The situation had spiraled far out of my control, and with every second that ticked by, I grew less certain I would be able to right anything.
Not with words.
Certainly not with reason.
It would have to be by force.
I stared at the empty spot above the mantel. Papa had taken the rifle with him, but his tools were still in the barn.
Hatchets.
Scythes.
Metal.
Blades.
I could do this.
I was halfway across the yard when a familiar hum rose, loud enough to break my grim thoughts, stopping me in my tracks.
The bees.
I couldn’t leave the bees.
Not like this, with everyone else gone and the probability of my success dwindling.
They needed to be told.
I had to say goodbye.
I approached the hive boxes slowly, trying to push aside my worries and fears. They would sense them, and I had no time to waste putting on a veil.
I held my hands out, fingers softly splayed, showing them I meant no harm.
The bees drifted in and out of the boxes, seemingly unconcerned by my advance. I tapped gently on the middle box three times, as I remembered Papa doing whenever he had important news to share.
“Hello,” I started, overcome by a strange sense of timidity. There was no one remotely close enough to overhear and judge me. And besides…
I stilled, watching the honeybees dance in the white-hot sunlight.
These were my bees.
The hive boxes and tools might still have belonged to Papa, but it had been months since he’d been near them. The colonies inside had shifted and repopulated many times since then. Even the queens could have changed, new ones born since I’d stepped into his duties.
Until this moment, I’d never stopped thinking of them as his.
But they weren’t.
They were mine.
“It’s me, Ellerie,” I said, beginning again, with a fresh round of confidence and assurance. “I don’t know how much you know about life outside your hives, past the fields and flowers, but things have…well, they’ve not been good lately. And they’ve gotten even worse today. I wish I could stay here, with you, and just go on tending to the farm, watching you grow and thrive, but I can’t. My sisters and my brother—my hive—they need me.”
I ran my fingers over the wooden lid, feeling the slight vibration of all the buzzing bodies beneath it.
“And a good queen always tends to her hive, doesn’t she?”
A cluster of bees piled out of the entrance and crawled to the top. They were undoubtedly readying themselves for another forage, thinking of all the pollen to gather, but part of me hoped they’d come out to better hear my words.
“It’s going to be dangerous leaving the farm and I…I don’t know if I will make it back. It’s strange to think about that—that this could be my last time here, with you, with the farm, with…everything….”