Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Do you know that bees are not limited to the boundaries between worlds?” Jibril asked as he and Carys walked down the lane. “That makes them the perfect messengers.”
The beekeeper had changed from his white coveralls, but his new clothing, a pair of loose white pants and a cream-colored shirt that buttoned up the front, was no less radiant.
“What are the bees telling you about the Shadowlands right now?” Carys carried a basket of honey jars and freshly made bread in brown paper bags. “If the Brightlands are getting more magical, are the Shadowlands getting less?”
“Hardly.” He smiled. “There are many whispers and rumors. One of the old gods has returned to the Brightlands, and power may be shifting from the fae.”
“Would that be a bad thing? In my experience, the fae tend to look out for themselves and aren’t really worried about anyone else.”
“Would you say that about Naida?” Jibril looked at her from the corner of his eye. “She is your friend. She has sacrificed much to accompany you to this world, and yet she makes that sacrifice without complaint because she believes in your mission.”
“Naida isn’t like other fae.” As soon as she said it, she heard herself. “I’m prejudiced against them, aren’t I?”
“You have reason to be suspicious, but yes.” Jibril turned at a gate that had a sign clipped to it, then walked up to the front door. “Anna and Paul have a new baby,” he whispered, holding out his hand. “We’ll leave the bread and honey in the basket here.”
Carys handed him a bright jar of liquid gold and a brown bag. Then they retreated from the front door without ringing the bell.
“The fae are a unique kind of creature,” Jibril said as they continued walking down the lane. “Closer to my kind than yours.”
“They’re supernatural beekeepers?”
“A beekeeper?” Jibril shook his head. “I am a beekeeper by hobby. No, I am… a messenger.”
“Jack called you a druid.”
Jibril smiled. “Of course he would, because he is an ancient of this land.”
“And you’re not?”
Jibril looked at Carys with kind eyes. “I am as you are. An immigrant. Born of one world but thriving in another.”
“Where did you come from?” Carys asked.
“Nearer and farther than you might think.” He opened another gate and left another jar of honey and bag of bread, only this time he rang the bell before he backed away. “Do you know why your parents crossed an ocean after you were born, Carys Morgan?”
She had a flash of another dream.
“The Brightlands was both too familiar and too foreign for your mother. Better a place that was new to both of us.”
She smiled a little bit at the memory of her father’s voice. “I think my parents wanted to live in a place that was new for both of them. A fresh start, kind of.”
“Then they have followed in the same path as countless others through history,” Jibril said. “I hope their life there was a blessed and prosperous one.”
“I think they were happy,” Carys said. “They seemed happy. Why did you move?”
Jibril shrugged. “I was drawn here when people who believed in my god arrived. There is no faith without an object of faith, Carys Morgan.”
“So you’re a god like Jack?”
Jibril shook his head. “I am only the servant of a god. A messenger as the bees are.”
“And what does your god want me to know?”
Jibril paused in the middle of the lane. “Briton walks along the edge of a knife. There are many gods on one small island. Old gods, new gods. Demigods and magical creatures sneaking through the gates.”
“We knew that already.”
“The gods of other lands have noticed. The gods in Europe and Asia are not pleased. They worry that instability in Briton will spread to their lands.”
“They think the Morrígan is going to set her sights on other places after she wreaks havoc in England?”
“She is a goddess of conquest,” Jibril said. “Born in the east, yet she and her sisters moved with their people, and now she is pressed against the sea, limited by the vast kingdom of Aegir. She can no longer move any farther west.”
Aegir was the old Norse god of the Atlantic. More of a personification of the sea, not so much an individual. The Morrígan was trapped by the sea itself.
“So they’re concerned she might look east and think it wouldn’t be so bad to return?” Carys asked.
Jibril nodded. “Just so, Carys Morgan. The world is interconnected in a way that it has never been before. Ideas spread faster than my bees can fly. And ideas are all that is needed to create a god.”
Carys nodded. “You’re talking about deification of… what? Modernity? Science?”
Jibril walked to the right and opened another gate, stepping up a path through a lush cottage garden.
“Humans will deify anything, given enough time and popularity. There are gods of the internet and gods of greed. Gods of beauty that are never satisfied, and gods of the mind that do nothing but lie.”
“So the moment that enough people start worshipping an idea or a… pop culture phenomenon even… a god is formed?”
Jibril shrugged. “Of course.”
“I’ve never thought about gods like that,” Carys muttered.
Jibril frowned. “Why not?”
“I study mythology, so I mostly think about gods that have existed for a long time, but I guess anything could be a god if it’s worshipped enough.”
“A hero who is a scholar. The Builder would appreciate you.” Jibril set two loaves of bread on a small table near the front porch and knocked on the door. “Mrs. Havers does not eat honey, so I bring her extra bread.”
An old woman quickly opened the door and waved at them. “Thank you, Jibril.”
“You are very welcome, Margaret. This is my friend Carys.”
“Oh hello, dear.” Mrs. Havers took the bread and disappeared inside.
“She lost her husband last year.” Jibril’s voice was soft. “A sacrifice to one of my least favorite deities. Despair.”
Carys felt her heart sink. She was familiar with despair. “Despair is a god?”
“Of a sort. Despair is a god of the mind. Its worship takes many forms.” Jibril turned to Carys and took the basket from her arm. “Now that we have made our deliveries, do you think you can help my bees?”
“I have no idea,” Carys said. “But I can try.”
The apiary Jibril tended was in the middle of a clearing in the forest, and Duncan, Naida, Laura, and Lachlan were happy to join Carys when she went to watch it that night.
Cadell waited back at Jibril’s spacious house. The beekeeper had forbidden the dragon from approaching his hives as more than one queen had fled a hive when a dragon came too near.
“Did you know that?” Laura asked from her perch on a fallen log. “About dragons and bees?”
Carys shook her head. “That would be yet another topic that was not covered in my world mythology curriculum.”
“Maybe they’re afraid that dragons might steal their honey.” Duncan was leaning against a tree, his eyes scanning the dark forest. “It is gold, after all.”
Lachlan frowned at Duncan. “Dragons don’t hoard gold; that’s a myth.”
“Have a sense of humor, for God’s sake.” Duncan sighed.
“Which god?” Laura asked.
“What?” Duncan asked.
She turned to him. “You said, ‘for God’s sake,’ and I was just wondering which one.”
He shrugged. “Fair question these days.”
“Oh my god, it’s you.”
“Which god are you talking about?”
In the silence of the forest, Carys debated how much she should tell Lachlan about Seren and her dream. Would it make him more reckless? More angry? She should have asked Cadell, but it was almost impossible to get the dragon alone.
Cadell? Carys reached out for the dragon. Can you hear me? She heard nothing in response.
They must have been too far away from the house. Even with the Morrígan’s magic causing chaos in the Brightlands, Carys’s connection with Cadell only extended so far.
She and Laura, Duncan, Lachlan, and Naida had parked themselves behind a hedge that bordered the apiary and were waiting to see what happened when the world went quiet.
Naida sighed. “I love the sound of sleeping bees. So restful.”
“Okay, so the pictures of bees that fall asleep in flowers that you see online,” Laura said. “The ones with their little fuzzy butts sticking out. Are those real?”
“Oh yes.” Naida smiled. “Some pixies keep bumblebees like a sort of pet, not that they are tame. But they are lovely flying companions.”
For some reason it made sense that fae would like bees.
“What do you think is bothering the hives?” Carys asked Naida.
“My first guess would be imps,” she offered. “I sense multiple gates in this forest, and if imps have found a way through one of them, they will do nothing but cause trouble for anything and anyone they come across.”
“I remember.” Duncan rubbed his neck where he still bore tiny teeth marks from the imps in the forest behind his house.
As the night grew darker and stars appeared in the sky, the forest came alive.
Far from the quiet place that Carys had been expecting, Wyre Forest at night teemed with activity. Carys heard foxes yell and owls hoot. She could hear bats in the distance, sweeping over the neighboring fields as they hunted for insects.
Duncan walked to a lookout position closer to the hives, with Laura circling the other direction. Lachlan remained alert, his eyes fixed on the wooden boxes in the distance, and Carys watched him.
“You are worried about him,” Naida said quietly. “Worried about his mental state now that he knows his wife exists in Annwn.”
“Yes,” Carys whispered. “He thought she was dead. Gone. He grieved for her.” She pointed at her own chest. “He even moved on in a way.”
“Do you wonder if he really moved on or if he just transferred his love for Seren to you?”
It was a fair, if piercing, question.
“You know, when we were together, I used to worry about that. Even before I knew about the Shadowlands,” Carys said. “I worried Lachlan was just missing his wife and wanted someone to love.” Carys turned to Naida. “But I do think he loved me. So maybe it doesn’t matter.”