The Bees

by Laline Paull

FLORA WAS AMONG THE FIRST out. A rising front from the south wiped the last shred of gray from the sky and below her spread the great plain of different greens, pushed together in crude four-sided shapes as if by some primitive insect ignorant of the beauty of the hexagon. In the distance where once had shone the field of golden rapeseed, two great machines toiled away at the soil. Flora flexed a wing-tip and veered away from the smell. She had offered herself up, but she had not been taken. She was fertile, yet still alive. For whatever reason, it had not been Holy Mother’s will that she die—otherwise her confession would have been heard. Instead, a Sage priestess had passed her to the side of the living, and Sister Teasel to the dying.