Chapter 4 Eva
Eva
By the time Eva gave up swimming her anger away, her fingers had shriveled to prunes.
She tromped back up to the house. A piercing quiet heavied the air, making every noise feel overly loud as Eva toweled herself dry and wriggled into an old T-shirt and sleep shorts.
She had to bite her lip to keep from crying out when she stubbed her toe on the bedpost. Eva crawled under the covers with Izzy, and her older sister turned and curled like a sickle moon around Eva’s spine.
The silence was at odds with the buzzing in Eva’s ears, her thoughts spilling like honey from uncapped comb. Tucked in the safety of her sister’s arms, Eva could pretend.
She wasn’t brittle. She was safe. She was soft.
Sleep took her in snatches, never giving any real relief.
At the rooster’s cry, Eva flipped the blanket off her legs and padded to the kitchen.
She rifled through tins of flour and sugar, anxious energy running through her.
After a fitful night of sleep, she needed comfort food to stave off her most unpleasant self, and there was nothing more soothing than sweet and sticky food.
Pancakes would do. At least with batter, she got to whip something.
Hyssop meowed loudly at the back door. Eva opened a container of tuna and filled another with water. The latest litter scattered when she opened the door and set the plates out for the kittens and their mother, scratching the furry old queen behind her ears.
Back inside, Eva washed her hands and cut off a square of butter. When it sizzled to a lake in the hot pan, she plopped in three gloopy circles of batter.
Hey, bee girl.
Arthur hadn’t looked like himself. He was taller, leaner, rimed in scruff. A frisson shivered down her spine as she pictured his new face, and the soft plea in his eyes.
When bubbles formed in her batter, Eva flipped on autopilot.
She wasn’t upset he was back. She was just surprised. Arthur had stayed away so long that after years of no contact—no letters, no calls—she’d assumed he’d never return.
Pressure built at the bridge of Eva’s nose. She shook herself, aborting the train of thought entirely. No, she wasn’t upset that Arthur had come home.
Come back. That was what she meant.
No, this was about the bees. The hives were more than her family’s occupation. Every queen, nurse, and drone was part of a deeper legacy that stretched back generations. They were the Moreaus’ history and future. They were magic. They were home.
Charlotte Connoway didn’t deserve them.
Telling the bees about the passing of a beekeeper or one of their loved ones was a sacred, ancient custom, labeled by some as mere superstition.
Not Dad, though. Heaven’s not a place in the sky, he would always say.
It was deeper. Weightier. Real as the soil underfoot.
When Mama died, Dad had said the bees would guide her soul back into the earth that had created her, and then he had tied a black ribbon onto the hive box and knelt in the grass, as though it were an altar.
When he had told the bees that Mama was gone, something in Eva unclenched. She could breathe again. It hurt, and she cried, with Izzy holding her far too tight.
But she could breathe.
That’s what men pounding their pulpits would never understand.
Sacred things didn’t hide in churches—they lived in the gentle hum of good, bright creatures, and in anything trying to make life more beautiful for others.
At the end of the day, humankind was no more lord of the earth than the tiniest mayfly.
Some cultures centered honeybees in their creation stories. Others, like her family, honored their connection to death, revering the honeybee as a bridge between the natural world and whatever came after a person died. Fields of wildflowers, perhaps, or a bright blue, always-humming sky.
One thing Eva knew for certain, though. There was something special about her bees, something more. And maybe it made her petty and mean, but even in death, Eva didn’t want to share them with Charlotte Connoway.
“Your pancakes are going to burn.”
Eva’s gaze snapped to the doorway where Arthur sagged, hazel eyes drunk with exhaustion.
His night clearly hadn’t been any kinder than hers.
Gritting her teeth, she stuck her spatula beneath the bubbling cakes for a peek.
Damn it, he’s right. Her usual perfect gold had darkened while she’d stared on, lost in distraction.
Eva smacked the back of her spatula against a pancake, a wild fizzing in her chest as she pushed the cake deeper into the heat of the pan. She could let them burn. Let him eat them charred.
“Don’t look at me like that, Ev.”
How dare he call her Ev with so much ease, as though the intimate nickname he’d given her years ago was some kind of claim, some proof that he still knew her.
How dare he look so tired and indefensible when all Eva wanted was battle.
She wanted his armor, so they could fight, but the rough scratch of his morning voice and those sad, bruised eyes hardly made for a fair opponent.
Eva flicked off the stove and began winding her hair back into a braid, twisting her strands into submission. She didn’t want to be here anymore. She had enough grief with her own wild magic and her father’s ailment. The last thing she needed was Arthur Connoway’s ghosts nipping at her heels.
She burned her fingers flinging the overcooked pancakes onto a plate and shoving it down the counter. “Syrup’s in the cupboard,” she clipped, setting her apron on a hook and all but slamming the kitchen door behind her.
“Thank you.” Arthur’s voice came muffled through the wall.
Eva scowled at the watercolor sunrise drenching the dewy yard in rich strawberry hues. It was gorgeous, and she hated it. This was so clearly a bitter, gray-sky kind of day.
At the workshop, she slowed, letting herself wilt against the door.
It embarrassed her how even that simple interaction had left her raw-edged, the bridge of her nose burning with unshed emotion.
She rubbed it with her knuckle and forced the feeling down, dwelling instead on the furious growl of her stomach.
In her haste to leave, she’d forgotten to grab a pancake. Clearly that was Arthur’s fault too.
It felt good to be mad at him.
At least here she could clear her mind and lose herself to the harvest: comb by comb, wing by delicate wing. Only, when Eva sat on her stool, an empty bucket stared back at her, which meant either Dad or Izzy had finished up last night.
The windows diffused the morning light into a gentle spray across her toes. Dust motes swirled around her still-bare feet, and for several long moments Eva watched the air sparkle and dance. A honeybee found her, as they always did, latching on to the crook of her finger.
She smiled despite her bitter mood. They were so beautiful, it hurt sometimes.
The crunch of boots on gravel drew Eva’s gaze to the doorway. The door was open, but Arthur paused on the threshold anyway. His knock was a fragile thing. “Can I come in?”
He’d changed into a dark gray T-shirt, forgoing the hoodie he’d slept in.
Eva’s mouth went dry, her eyes dropping for the first time to the long swirl of tattoos climbing his arms. She must have been too stunned to really take those in last night.
Now they were all she could see, and the sight made an itch crawl over her skin.
When had he gotten those? Whom had he trusted enough to let them touch him?
Taking her silence as permission, Arthur stepped inside, his eyes moving over the equipment she’d washed and laid out to dry after the honey pull. The heavy, cotton bee suits hung on the wall near him. Arthur reached out, trailing a finger down one of the long white sleeves. “Can we talk, Ev?”
Ev.
The short, sharp sound burrowed like an arrow in her skin. He was the only one who called her that.
At seventeen, Eva had loved Arthur Connoway with every cell in her body. She’d trusted him with all of her, and then when she needed him most, he’d fled.
“Sure. Talk.”
Maybe part of her did want him to grovel.
Time had sharpened the lines of his face, his jawline slightly softened beneath a dark beard. The new hollows in his cheeks upset her. He upset her, so changed and unfamiliar.
Arthur tugged the sleeve of the bee suit. “I know you’re angry.”
“How could you tell?” Eva deadpanned, not caring how childish she sounded.
Something unreadable flashed in Arthur’s eyes. “Your neck gets pink when you’re pissed off.”
To her mortification, his words made a lick of heat spread up from her collar. He was right, and at that moment, she hated him a little for noticing that detail. For remembering.
“Why did you come back?”
It wasn’t for her—that much was abundantly clear. Eva’s chest felt tight. It wasn’t fair to still be wounded by him long after she’d stopped caring what he thought of her.
“My mom wanted her ashes brought here,” Arthur said, his expression pinched.
He was still so bad at lying.
Eva crossed her arms. “That all?”
His hesitation made her stomach drop. Eva stood and took a step toward him, despite her inner voice warning her away.
She was no glutton for rejection, but something in her needed him to keep looking at her like that, as though she were sour to the taste.
It was better than Dad and Izzy, who walked on eggshells in every conversation with her. Always so damn careful.
When they were toe to toe, Arthur’s throat bunched with a swallow.
“Well?” Eva prodded.
A muscle twitched in Arthur’s jaw, and he cut a sharp nod. “That’s all.”
He smelled like sleep, like bedsheets, like skin. Heat spread all the way up to Eva’s cheeks. She fought the urge to cool them with the backs of her fingers.
“I should have called you, Ev.”
He might as well have cracked an egg on the top of her head. A trickle of feeling rolled down Eva’s spine, spreading out into her limbs until her whole body was overwarm.