Bee World: The First Dance | Book One, Chapter 3 — The Visitor in the Leaves

By morning, everybody in the hive knew Flame's dance.

That did not mean everybody knew how to dance it.

A forager named Pippin turned the wrong way and led a small group toward a patch of bitter flowers. Someone else performed the four movements so quickly that Loop couldn't tell whether the run had been short or whether the dancer had simply been in a hurry. One very enthusiastic bee shook so much pollen loose that Nook had to ask everyone nearby to stop laughing and help clean the comb.

Flame thought all of this was wonderful.

For the first time, she had invented something the older bees wanted to learn. They waited for her to move, watched her feet, studied the angle of her turn. When she flew across the warm comb, little gatherings formed behind her.

"Again," someone would call.

So she would dance again.

A shake for the sweetness. A turn toward the sun. A run to show the distance. And a looping return to the place where she'd begun.

Four movements. Always four.

"You're going to wear a path through the wax," Nook told her.

"Can wax wear out?"

"Anything can wear out if you don't give it a rest."

Flame stopped, concerned.

Nook's antennae twitched. "That wasn't a request for another investigation. I'm teasing you."

Flame laughed and did the dance one more time.

The hive had been worried about food only a day earlier. Now its hum carried hope. The new flowers beyond the river could help feed the young, replenish the stores, and give the foragers somewhere to go while the nearer meadows recovered.

But Queen Bee did not send the whole colony out to celebrate.

She had called Anchor and Loop to the brood comb, where they could speak while the nurses continued their work.

"How many can the crossing safely hold?" she asked.

"Not too many at once," Anchor answered. "The wind leaves only a narrow shelter behind the pale stones."

"And the flowers?" the Queen asked Loop.

"They are rich. But they are not endless."

The Queen regarded the newly gathered foragers. "Then we will send a larger flight, but in groups. Each group will return before the next leaves. No one is to strip the smallest blossoms merely because they are easiest to reach."

"Why not take everything while it's there?" asked a bee at the edge of the gathering.

"Because it needs to be there when we return," Nook said.

Bristle was standing beside the others, with pale pollen still tucked among the hairs of his hind legs. He had been among the scouts who followed Flame's dance successfully the day before. He had also been the first bee to test an earlier version and follow it to the wrong bend.

Everyone seemed to remember that part.

"At least Bristle knows where not to go," someone whispered.

A few bees laughed.

Bristle's antennae folded back.

Flame heard the laughter, but not the hurt underneath it. She was busy explaining the difference between a short run and a long one.

"Maybe we should let you lead," she told Bristle brightly. "You know the wrong way better than anybody."

She meant it as a joke.

Bristle didn't laugh.

"Maybe I could lead without dancing at all," he said. "Some of us can remember a route after we've flown it."

Flame blinked.

"Of course you can."

"Then perhaps the hive doesn't need to keep watching you turn in circles."

The bees around them went quiet.

Flame felt something prickly rise beneath her fuzz.

"I didn't ask everyone to watch."

"You don't have to."

Bristle moved away before she could answer.

Flame watched him cross the comb. She had wanted him to be pleased with her. Yesterday they had laughed together when he returned from the hidden flowers. She couldn't understand why this morning he'd looked at her as though she'd taken something that belonged to him.

Bee Righteous came to stand beside her.

"That didn't go as you hoped," he said.

"I didn't do anything wrong."

"Perhaps you didn't mean to."

Flame disliked that answer.

"Are you going to tell me what I should have said?"

"No."

"Then what are you going to tell me?"

"That being heard is not always the same as being understood."

Flame looked toward Bristle.

For the first time since inventing her dance, she wished everybody would stop watching her.

The first foraging flight left when the sunlight rose above the eastern trees.

Anchor went ahead to check the crossing. Loop followed to compare the dancers' directions with the changing sun. Flame remained close to the middle of the group, where the others could ask questions.

Bristle flew near the front.

They travelled over the familiar meadow, past the reeds, and toward the pale stones. Once the wind calmed, the group crossed in a loose line above the water.

When the hidden garden opened before them, even the bees who had heard Flame describe it gasped.

White petals floated above the pool. Pink blossoms crowded the rocks. Blue flowers wound between the mossy stones. Insects moved among the leaves, and sunlight turned the flowing water into a thousand little mirrors.

The first few workers landed carefully.

Then the others followed.

Flame watched the group spread over the blossoms and felt joy lift her so high she could hardly keep her wings steady.

"See?" she called to Bristle. "I told you it was wonderful."

He answered without looking at her.

"I saw it yesterday."

"Right. Of course."

Bristle landed on a white blossom, worked quickly, then flew to another.

He was a strong forager. Flame noticed how much nectar he could gather in a short time. The more bees praised her dance, the harder he worked.

A worker called down from a high leaf, "Bristle, there's more nectar on this side!"

"I've got plenty here."

He bent deeper into the flower.

A second bee landed near him. The blossom tilted under their combined weight, and its delicate stem struck a stone. One petal tore away.

"Careful," Loop called.

Bristle lifted off. The flower drooped.

"It's only one," he said.

Flame looked at the torn petal lying against the rock.

Only one flower.

Then she looked around the hidden garden.

Dozens of bees had arrived. More were still crossing the river. Each had work to do, and each wanted to bring home a good load.

They had come to a place Flame had loved because everything seemed to fit together.

Now, beneath the happy hum of foraging, she heard a different sound.

The brittle snap of a stem.

A little farther down the bank, Pippin found a cluster of cup-shaped flowers sheltered beneath a wide leaf. They held more nectar than the higher blooms.

"There's enough here for three of us!"

Bristle turned first. Flame followed.

The flowers grew close together. When Bristle landed, one flower dipped but held. When Flame settled nearby, the leaf above them trembled.

Then Pippin tried to climb into the largest cup.

Its stem bent.

The flower folded sideways against a stone, catching Pippin's wing beneath the edge of a petal.

For one startled instant, Pippin said nothing.

Then came a frightened buzz.

"My wing!"

Bristle reached the flower first.

"Stop pulling," he told Pippin. "You'll make it worse."

"But I'm stuck!"

"I can see that."

He landed on the stone and inspected the bent stem. His answer came quickly.

"Flame, take the weight from above. I'll lift the petal."

Flame flew to the broad leaf. It was heavier than she expected, and the motion made the cluster sway.

"I can't hold it!"

"Don't hold everything," Bristle said. "Just that edge."

She found a place for her feet and pushed. Bristle slipped underneath the petal, bracing it against the stone. Pippin wriggled free.

The little bee shot upward, buzzing in fright, then hovered with both wings moving.

"You're all right," Flame called.

Pippin looked down. "I think so."

"Then rest on the bank."

Flame eased the leaf back carefully. Bristle released the petal. The flower remained bent, its cup spilling nectar onto the stone.

Pippin stared at it.

"I only wanted to bring back more."

"So did I," Bristle said.

That surprised Flame. She had expected him to blame Pippin or complain about losing nectar. Instead, he was checking that the other bee could fly.

When the scouts gathered around, Bristle told them what had happened. Not who had been careless. Not who had acted first. Only which flowers were too fragile to hold more than one forager at a time.

Loop inspected the cluster.

"We should remember this patch as delicate."

"How will we tell the others?" Flame asked.

"First, by showing them," Loop answered. "And next time, we'll explain before anybody lands."

Flame surveyed the hidden garden.

She could still see what made it beautiful.

But she could also see what might be lost.

Anchor flew in from the riverbank with news that the wind was rising. It was time for the first group to return.

A few bees protested. Their pollen baskets were not full. The white flowers had only just opened wider in the sun.

"We can gather more on the next flight," Anchor said.

"What if someone else takes it?" Bristle asked.

Anchor looked toward the blossoms.

"Then they'll have found food too."

"That doesn't help our stores."

"No," Anchor said. "But damaging the flowers won't help tomorrow's."

Bristle's wings tightened. He glanced at the drooping flower. For a moment he appeared ready to argue, then said nothing.

The bees turned toward the river.

On the way out, the hidden garden had seemed like a reward. On the way home, Flame kept looking back, wanting to be sure the flowers would still be there.

The afternoon return brought more nectar to the hive than anyone had expected.

Nook had made room for the new stores, and the workers carried their loads into clean wax cells. Nurses moved among the brood, and the colony hummed with relief. Yet at the centre of the gathering, the news from the hidden garden was not entirely happy.

"There is food enough," Loop reported, "if we visit carefully. But some blossoms are fragile. We can't crowd them, and we should leave the youngest flowers undisturbed."

Queen Bee listened without interrupting.

"And Pippin?" she asked.

"Unhurt," Bristle answered. "The wing was pinned beneath a petal. Flame helped me free it."

Pippin, resting close by, lifted both wings to demonstrate.

"They still work."

"Then I'm grateful," said the Queen.

Bristle glanced at Flame. She glanced back. Neither spoke.

The Queen considered the nectar, the fragile flowers, and the faces of the waiting workers.

"The hidden garden has helped us," she said. "We must learn to help it remain alive. Tomorrow's harvest is part of today's responsibility."

One worker murmured, "But the dance belongs to Flame. Shouldn't she decide who uses it?"

Flame's heart gave a hopeful little leap.

Decide.

She had not thought of it that way before.

Her dance had brought the new nectar home. Without her, the hive might still be wondering where to fly. Perhaps she should get to choose.

"I could show only the best foragers," she offered.

Bristle stiffened.

"And who decides who the best are?"

"I don't mean you—"

"Why not me?"

Flame faltered.

"Because you keep trying to bring back too much."

"And you're the one who raced into the wind yesterday. Would you have trusted yourself?"

Flame remembered the river swinging sideways beneath her. Anchor's voice telling her where to find shelter.

That was unfair, she thought. But it was also true.

The Queen spoke gently, giving both bees a chance to answer.

"Flame, why did you invent your dance?"

"To show everyone where the flowers were."

"Everyone?"

Flame hesitated.

"Yes."

"And Bristle, why did you fly so hard today?"

Bristle looked toward the newly filled cells. It took him a while to answer.

"I wanted to prove I could bring something back without being told where to go."

A hush settled.

Flame felt her earlier joke return to her: You know the wrong way better than anybody.

She had laughed because she thought they'd survived the mistake together.

Bristle had heard something else.

"I'm sorry," Flame said. "I didn't think that would hurt you."

Bristle looked toward her.

"It wasn't only the joke."

"What, then?"

"Every time someone talks about your dance, they talk about how I went the wrong way. I was there when we finally got it right, too."

"You were," Flame admitted.

"And today I helped Pippin."

"I saw."

"I don't need everybody to cheer. I just don't want them to forget that I can do something useful."

Flame was quiet.

She knew the feeling. Hadn't she longed for the hive to understand what she found beyond the river?

Queen Bee glanced at the gathering workers.

"A colony isn't made stronger when one bee's success becomes another bee's humiliation," she said. "And no useful gift is made greater by withholding it from those who need it."

Flame looked at Bristle.

"I don't want to choose who gets to learn the dance," she said. "I want the dance to help them find the flowers."

"And I don't want to spoil the flowers," Bristle said.

"Then we'll have more to learn," the Queen replied.

The bees began discussing routes, timing, and how to protect the delicate plants. The Queen did not appoint a winner between Flame and Bristle. There was no prize for the bee who had felt the most important.

There was only the work they shared.

But as Flame moved away from the gathering, she felt uneasy.

She had been pleased when someone suggested the dance belonged to her. For one brief moment, deciding who deserved to use it had sounded better than teaching it.

Why had that felt so good?

That evening, Flame found Bee Righteous near the entrance, watching a small stream of foragers return.

"You heard what happened," she said.

"I heard several versions."

"Which one was right?"

"I think each bee was telling the part that mattered most to them."

Flame sat beside him on the warm comb.

"I thought the dance would make everything easier."

"It has made some things easier."

"Not everything."

"Not everything," he agreed.

She watched a forager hesitate on the landing before another bee guided it toward the stores.

"I wanted everyone to know it was mine," she said.

"And now?"

"I still do."

"Good."

Flame looked up.

"You think that's good?"

"You made something wonderful. There is no need to pretend otherwise."

"But I almost decided only the best bees could use it."

Bee Righteous regarded her for a moment.

"Does making a thing give you the right to decide what every other bee may become because of it?"

Flame thought of Bristle catching Pippin before the wing had been damaged. No dance had shown him how to help. He had simply noticed what was needed and done it.

"No," she said.

"Then you have learned another part of what you made."

"What's that?"

"How to let it matter without making yourself the centre of everything it touches."

Flame considered the words.

She didn't much like them.

Which usually meant she'd keep thinking about them.

Beyond the bark, the first evening stars appeared. The Garden darkened from green to blue, and the river carried sunset into the valley.

High among the branches of a flowering tree some distance away, something moved.

It was not a bee, and not a bird.

A slender bronze body crossed the bark with an ease that seemed impossible. It curled around a branch, paused, and slipped between two clusters of leaves without shaking a single petal.

Flame raised her antennae.

"What was that?"

Bee Righteous turned toward the tree.

For a moment neither could see anything but leaves.

"Something tending the branches, perhaps," he said.

"Does the Garden need someone to tend its branches?"

"Many things need tending."

Flame looked again, but the bronze shape was gone.

The next morning, the colony sent a smaller flight to the hidden flowers.

This time Bristle travelled beside Flame.

There had been no grand agreement between them. They had not become the sort of friends who finished each other's thoughts. But when Bristle reached the gathering place, he made room for Flame to stand beside him, and she understood the invitation.

Anchor checked the wind. Loop examined the changing angle of sunlight. Nook reminded the foragers to leave the fragile clusters alone.

Flame performed the familiar four movements.

Bristle watched.

"Your run was longer than yesterday," he said.

"The sun has moved. The direction's changed a little."

"I noticed."

Flame smiled.

"Of course you did."

Bristle hesitated.

"Would it help if I showed the newer foragers the safer way around the reeds?"

"Yes," Flame said. "You're good at that."

He looked almost startled by the answer.

Then the scouts lifted into the air.

They found the hidden garden bright beneath the morning light. The damaged flower by the pool had not recovered entirely, but one of its unopened buds had turned toward the sun.

Flame landed beside it.

"I hope we didn't ruin everything," she whispered.

"Everything is a very big word," Bristle said from the nearby stone.

She laughed.

"You're starting to sound like Bee Righteous."

"Maybe he has a few good answers."

The foragers spread carefully through the patch. No flower held more bees than it could bear. Loop compared the blooming times with the morning before. Anchor watched the bank where the wind could turn without warning.

Flame flew between the flowers, showing a younger scout how to approach the delicate petals from the sheltered side.

And all the while, the bronze shape watched from the branches above.

Lucifer had come to that part of the Garden to examine a tree whose new shoots grew beneath a tangle of older limbs.

His temporary serpent form suited the work. It could move along bark without breaking the tender growth and could reach between leaves with small, agile limbs. His scales held a soft bronze glimmer in the morning light.

He had spent much of the early hours easing a heavy branch away from a thinner one beneath it. The smaller branch had bent toward the ground, deprived of sunlight, and the flowers at its tip had struggled to open.

The task was simple enough.

That was part of what interested him.

A slight change in position, and the blossoms received the morning sun. Their petals began to unfurl.

It pleased him to see a small adjustment make so much possible.

Then he had noticed the bees.

One small creature turned upon the comb in the distant hive, and others flew toward a place that had seemed hidden even from them. Now they moved together across the river, following knowledge they had never possessed before.

Lucifer was curious.

He watched them at the pool and saw how one bee approached a delicate blossom while another waited. He saw a third point the way around the stones for a companion that had flown there for the first time.

He did not understand their method.

But he could see that it worked.

When Flame landed upon a pale flower beneath his branch, he spoke.

"That is a remarkable way to find breakfast."

Flame startled and nearly fell into the blossom.

The voice had come from above.

She looked up.

A bronze serpent rested along the branch, his body curving between leaves. His eyes were bright and attentive. Small limbs gripped the bark, keeping his weight away from the tender stems.

For a moment Flame could only stare.

"Did you say something?"

"I believe I did."

"To me?"

"There appears to be no one else looking up."

Flame considered this and decided it was a fair point.

"You're very good at hiding," she said.

"Only when I wish to remain unseen."

"Why would you wish that?"

"Sometimes it's easier to understand a creature before it knows it is being watched."

Flame frowned.

"Wouldn't it be easier to ask?"

The serpent paused.

Then he laughed, a low, surprised sound.

"Perhaps it would."

"What's your name?" Flame asked.

"Lucifer."

"That's a very large name."

"And yours?"

"Flame."

"A very small one."

"Only until I grow into it."

Again the serpent laughed. It had been a long time since any creature had answered him quite like that.

"Tell me, Flame. How did the others know where to fly?"

"I showed them."

"With words?"

"Not exactly."

"Then how?"

Flame stood taller on the blossom.

"I made a dance."

"You made it?"

"Every movement."

"And they followed?"

"Most of them. We had to practise."

Lucifer studied her. A small creature, a small invention, and an entire colony moving in a new way because one mind had found a pattern the others could share.

"Why make it?" he asked.

"Because I found the flowers and couldn't explain where they were."

"And now?"

"Now everybody can find them. Well—everybody who learns carefully."

A bee called from across the pool.

"Flame! We're going back soon."

Bristle was waiting near the stones.

Lucifer looked toward him.

"Your friend?"

Flame hesitated.

"Sometimes."

"Only sometimes?"

"We argued yesterday."

"Who was right?"

She considered the question.

"Both of us. A little. And neither of us, about some things."

Lucifer found that answer unsatisfactory.

"If one of you was mistaken, surely the other was correct."

"We weren't arguing about one thing," Flame said. "He wanted the hive to notice what he could do. I wanted the dance to belong to me."

"Does it not belong to you?"

"I made it."

"Then it is yours."

Flame turned toward the bees gathering their loads.

"Yes. But they can still use it."

"And suppose they use it badly?"

"Then we try to help them do better."

"Even the ones who bring back less than the others?"

She looked up sharply.

"Of course. They still belong to the hive."

The serpent was quiet for a moment.

He had asked the question out of interest, not accusation. Yet something in her answer troubled his neat understanding of effort and reward. A creature might fail and still be welcomed. Might be helped without proving first that it deserved help.

He had seen Michael act that way more than once.

Now this tiny bee was saying something very much like it.

"How curious," he murmured.

"What is?"

"That you would teach those who are not as capable as you."

Flame thought of Bristle lifting the petal from Pippin's wing.

"Maybe they're better than I am at something else."

Lucifer regarded her more closely.

"You have many unusual ideas, little Flame."

"That's what Bee Righteous says."

"Who is he?"

"A friend. He asks questions until I find my own answer. It's very annoying."

Lucifer smiled, as well as a serpent could.

"I imagine it might be."

Bristle called again.

"Flame! The wind!"

She opened her wings.

"I have to go."

"Will I see this dance of yours?"

"Perhaps. If you visit the hive."

Lucifer glanced toward the old tree.

"I may do that."

Flame lifted from the white blossom, then circled back.

"Did you really move that big branch yourself?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"So the flowers beneath could grow."

She regarded the opened blossoms beside him.

"Then you did something useful too."

Before he could answer, she flew toward Bristle.

The serpent remained on the branch as the scouts formed their return flight.

He watched Flame wait for Bristle instead of racing ahead. He watched the smaller foragers follow Anchor toward the sheltered crossing. He watched Loop pause until the reeds had turned.

No one there seemed to agree about everything.

Yet they travelled home together.

Lucifer stayed long after the last bee had disappeared among the trees.

He had come to tend a branch. Instead, he had found a creature who could invent something new and then give it away without losing it.

He wanted to understand how she had done that.

He also wondered what else she might be capable of, if someone knew just the right question to ask.

Back at the hive, Flame found Bee Righteous near the entrance.

"How was the garden?" he asked.

"Still wonderful. And we were more careful."

"Good."

"We met someone in the branches."

Bee Righteous looked up.

"Who?"

"A serpent. He said his name was Lucifer."

For a moment, Bee Righteous watched the sunlight moving across the bark.

"What did he want?"

"He wanted to know how we found the flowers. And why I shared the dance."

"What did you tell him?"

"The truth."

"Which truth?"

Flame gave him a tired look.

"The one I knew."

He laughed softly.

"That is a good place to begin."

She moved toward the open stretch of comb where the foragers were gathering. The workers had returned with nectar and new directions to share, and a younger bee was trying to remember the turn toward the hidden garden.

Flame showed the movement again.

A shake for the sweetness.

A turn to the sun.

A run to show the way.

Home when you're done.

Four movements, ending in stillness.

Far away, on a branch where morning light warmed bronze scales, Lucifer remembered that rhythm.

The little bee's dance was complete.

And yet, without knowing why, he found himself listening for what might come after the last beat.