The Honeys

by Ryan La Sala

The hive needs you. Not Dad and Mom and all those adults, but the hive. The girls. We are the ones connected to the bees. All those other people are the parasites that have built up a fortress around us. They think they’re in charge, but the whole system collapses without us. And you’re our queen now. The hive chose you for what must come next. Do you understand?”

Caroline and I automatically raise our hands against the light, casting shadows across each other’s eyes. Together we dissolve in the rising radiance, but together we stay for just one more second.

Before she fades, I think: I love you. I love you. I love you, Caroline. Then I can see only her eyes, and my reflection in them, and I’m falling backward, backward, back through the stars, through the earth, through the watching woods. Over a lake. Across a meadow. Into a house. Into a home. Into a hive, where a young queen has just awoken.