They smell of hope as they approach and the few thousand healthy workers rush to greet them. The not-bee girl skips ahead of the flower-scent girl, and there are two others. One smells sharp and angular. (We don’t like her. Scent of death on her.) The other smells of contradictions. She smells a bit like the death-scent-girl but also a lot like the not-bee-boy. The missing boy. The one we have died searching for and not found. His scent lingers on her like pollen clinging to bee fur.
The not-bee-girl is joyful. Her footfalls send tremors through the hive, and each tremor says It’s ok! It’s ok!
I don’t know how it can be ok, but my workers seem to know something I don’t. The hive hums with hope and my attendants hassle me closer to the entrance.
A thrill runs through the comb. The scent
