Read Online Hour of the Bees by Lindsay Eagar - Free Book Online Page B

this tree.” She glared at the nearest blossom. “We’ve seen everything there is to see here.” She sipped the lake water from the pot, and the two of them quieted as the sun fell
.
    Inés, finally worn out, curled up next to the tree trunk and snoozed
.
    The village, if one had a hawk’s view, would be a vivid green dot in the middle of the thirsty desert: an oasis. The pale-green lake filled a basin between mesas, and where its water ended, lush, cool grass grew. If the village were an eye, staring up at the sun, the tree was its black pupil, dead center
.
    Rosa was right. The same people in the village did the same things every day. The only excitement was when a new baby came, born of the same old village families. But even that excitement wore off eventually; because of the tree, babies took longer to grow up than desert tortoises. A dozen years of watching the same baby coo erased the novelty of infancy
.
    Time in the village moved slower, decades coming and going, almost in a dream
.
    If time even existed in the village at all
.
    And of course, when the babies finally did grow up, they stayed
.
    Everyone stayed
.
    Travelers were rare, since the village was far off the beaten path. Few souls crossed the desolate heat of the southwestern desert, and anyone who did find the village passed through quickly, as though somehow sensing the strangeness of this place — though they never suspected the truth about the oddly mesmerizing black tree. In their memories, the village was a helpful but forgettable stop on their journeys to bigger, better places
.
    “
Father Alejandro says the tree is —” Sergio said
.
    “
A gift, I know,” Rosa said. “Then we should use that gift to see the world. What else is life for?”
    Sergio shrugged. “What about love? And marriage?”
    Her teasing grin glowed through the foliage. “Me, married? To who?”
    “
No one. I don’t know.” He stared at his whittling knife
.
    Rosa stood. “Marriage is just another kind of sameness,” she said. Suddenly she sprang into a swan dive and disappeared in the water, a white ring of foam rippling into stillness
.
    “
Rosa!” Rosa’s younger sister, Carolina, rang the mission bell. “
Mamá
says to come help make
the chile caribe
!”
    Rosa let out a sigh that could be heard from the ridge. “I hate grinding the chilies. Makes my eyes burn.” She trudged to the shoreline. “It’s a child’s chore, anyway.”
    “
But you
are
a child,” Sergio said
.
    Rosa scoffed. “I’m a century old! Father Alejandro says that in the world outside the village, children become adults when they’re twelve. Twelve!”
    “
Yes, but he also says people die when they’re fifty. Sometimes even younger. And that’s if they don’t split their heads like melons,” he added, feeling queasy at the thought
.
    “
Then maybe it’s time we grew up.”
    Inés wagged her tail as Rosa passed, whining for attention. “When are you going to make a sheepdog out of this puppy, eh?” She patted the dog’s head
.
    “
Wait!” Sergio called. “Rosa, what if I”— he turned red —“or
someone
could make you a life worth staying here for? Would you get married then?”
    Rosa plucked one of the blossoms from the branch above her and handed it up to him. “Only if you can figure out how to turn this lake into an ocean.”
    She walked back to the mission, a cloud of bees orbiting her head
.
    Sergio inhaled the blossom’s honey-vanilla fragrance. Rosa was his oldest friend. Just as the village was contained inside the perfectly green, perfectly safe circle of the oasis, Sergio lived his life contained inside a smaller, safer circle. But Rosa always pushed him past his limits, and he always ended up thanking her for it
.
    He stayed in the tree until the village was dark and the fiesta was over, the lamb’s blood drained and ingested, and the stars were out. He stood, the same way Rosa had, clinging to the branch the way she did. He wondered if he looked as