MaddAddam (MaddAddam 3)

Bone Cave

Out of the bushes comes Swift Fox, straightening her pink and blue floral bedsheet. Right behind her is Crozier, similarly straightening, though his bedsheet is an understated black-and-grey stripe.

"Hi, Toby. Hi, Zeb," he says, overly casual.

"Taking a stroll?" says Swift Fox.

"Bee hunting," says Zeb. He doesn't seem upset. So maybe I've been wrong, thinks Toby: he's not feeling territorial about her, he doesn't care that she's been flailing among the weeds with Crozier.

As for Crozier, isn't he supposed to be pursuing Ren? Or has Toby been wrong about that as well?

"Bee hunting? Really? Hey, whatever works," says Swift Fox, laughing. "Us, we were foraging. For mushrooms. We foraged and foraged. We got down on our hands and knees, we looked everywhere. But we didn't find a single mushroom, did we, Croze?"

Crozier shakes his head, looking down at the ground. It's as if he's been caught with his pants down, but he's not wearing pants, only the striped bedsheet.

"See you," says Swift Fox. "Happy bee hunting." She heads back towards the cobb house, with Crozier following as if pulled on a string.

"C'mon, Bee Queen," Zeb says to Toby. "Let's get your supplies. I'll walk you home."

In a perfect world Toby would already have a Langstroth hive box, complete with supers and moveable frames. She should have prepared one ahead of time, on the off chance of finding a swarm; but, lacking foresight, she did not do this. Barring a proper hive box, what can she use that will appeal to the bees? Any cavity that's protected, with an entrance where they can go in and out; dry enough, cool enough, warm enough.

Rebecca offers a scavenged Styrofoam cooler; Zeb makes an entrance hole in the side, near the top, and several other ventilation holes. Toby and Zeb set it up

in a corner of the garden, surround it with rocks for stability and extra shelter, then add a couple of vertical slabs of plywood, raising them above the bottom of the cooler with small stones. It's only a rough approximation of a hive, but it will have to do for now, and perhaps for a long time. The danger is that if the bees get established here they'll be very annoyed if she moves them later.

Toby improvises a catching bag out of a pillowcase, and they trek back into the woods to collect the bees. She uses a long stick, scrapes quickly. The core of the swarm tumbles gently into the bag. The densest part holds the magnet of the queen: like the heart in the body, she's invisible.

They carry the pillowcase to the garden, buzzing loudly; a cloud of loose bees trails behind them. Toby eases the bee ball into the cooler, waits until all strays have found their way out of the pillowcase, then waits some more while the bees explore their new home.

There's always an adrenalin rush for Toby when she's handling bees. It could go badly: she might smell wrong one day and find herself the centre of an angry, stinging horde. Sometimes she feels she could wash herself all over in bees, like a bubble bath; but that's the euphoria of bee handling, like an altitude high or the rapture of the deep. It would be stupid to actually try it.

When the swarm has settled down she closes the lid of the cooler and places a couple of stones on top. Soon the bees are winging in and out of the entrance hole and rummaging for pollen among the garden flowers.

"Thank you," she says to Zeb; and he says, "Any time," as if he's a crossing guard rather than a lover. But it's daytime, she reminds herself: he's always a little brisk in daytime. He lopes off, around the corner of the cobb house, out of sight; mission accomplished.

She covers her head. "May you be happy here, Oh Bees," she says to the Styrofoam cooler. "As your new Eve Six, I promise to visit you every day, if I can, and to tell you the news."

"Oh Toby, can we do the writing again? With the marks, on the paper?" It's her shadow, little Blackbeard. He's climbed up the garden fence on the outside and is hanging over it, resting his chin on his arms. How long has he been watching her?

"Yes," she says. "Maybe tomorrow, if you come early."

"What is that box? What are the stones? What are you doing, Oh Toby?"

"I'm helping the bees find a home," says Toby.

"Will they live in the box? Why do you want them to live there?"

Because I want to steal their honey, thinks Toby. "Because they will be safe there," she says.

"Were you talking to the bees, Oh Toby? I heard you talking. Or were you talking to Crake, as Snowman-the-Jimmy does?"

"I was talking to the bees," says Toby. Blackbeard's face lights up with a smile.

"I did not know you could do that," he says. "You talk with the Children of Oryx? As we do? But you can't sing!"

"You sing to the animals?" says Toby. "They like music?"

This question seems merely to puzzle him. "Music?" he says. "What is music?" The next minute he's dropped down behind the fence and has run off to join the other children.