A novelette in 20 chapters
Telling the Bees: Chapter 20
Market Day
It was a perfect April morning amidst the thickly forested hills of the Upper Yarra Valley, full of light and warmth and the songs of insects and birds. Rivers of bees spiralled upward and were lost to the eye in that impossible blue, while others descended in reciprocal streams.
The beekeeper sat between them, bareheaded, no suit or veil, her hands resting on the warm, rough-sawn cypress pine of the hives to left and to right.
‘So you probably already know that she isn’t coming back,’ continued Lottie. ‘She loved you very much. She asked me to look after you, to treat you kindly. And I will, I promise.
‘She was my best friend, you know, the only one who listened to me, respected me. Who treated me like a person, not just a big, lumpy thing with a spotty face and enormous boobies.
‘I wasn’t there when it happened. But this is what I was told.
‘Somehow, she smuggled her gun to the market in that little white delivery van that they drive — that they drove. In Harris’ blanket, they said.
‘She knew they would be there, you see. They come to — came to — every market, Jason and Louisa. Just like real locals.
