By Kayla E. Green

The holes in the bottom of my shoes don’t irk me no more. My feet had gotten tough even before all this walking. ’Cause when the honeybees got sick—Mama said they was dropping like flies—food got scarce. People got hungry and then sick like them honeybees. And when people didn’t know how to fix things, the world went mean.

I ’member first grade—the last time I sat in a classroom—the grown-ups arguing over the honeybees. That was prob’ly a good two years ago. Lots of important people on the TV said life would change a little. Other folks said the world as we knew it would end, but the TV people called them “fear-mongrels”—I think that’s the right word.

Them people that didn’t think nothin’ would change much said them fear-mongrels were wrong. Might have less flowers to look at. Less vegetables to pick from. But just ’cause the honeybees was gone didn’t mean the world would end.

Boy, I bet those important people wish they had let them mongrels put some fear in them. ’Cause not only was plants dying, the land started changing—mudslides, earthquakes, floods.

Now, I’ve been making my way west to find Miss Belle’s Honey Farm, ’cause Mama said that’s where she’d see me again. I’s real proud of myself for reading my map all by my lonesome. I’ve had it since my first-grade teacher made us do a big project on honeybees. Back when the leaves were pretty colors and everyone had pumpkins on their porches. We’d learned about frogs and butterflies and how seeds grew into flowers. And pollinators helped flowers. So, it was time for honeybees—right when the fear mongrels started talking. That’s how me and Mama learned about Miss Belle. When we worked on my project, we found an article on the library computer that said Miss Belle’s Honey Farm was the last to still have honeybees.

We’d talk every day about the hope Miss Belle gave the world—maybe she really would help the honeybees come back so life would be normal again. I’d take being back in school every day over Mama being scared for me to be outside without her. Because of all these new sicknesses popping up, making Mama spend more hours helping at the hospital, even with her coughing spells. Maybe I’ll be a helper, too, one day.

This climb is getting steeper and steeper. No surprise here in Appalachia. The wind chills me to the bone. I don’t mind. The leaves being carried in the wind are pretty. The yellow and pale orange remind me some of honeybees. I think it’s a sign I’m on the right track. Even with my legs burning.

And then I see a real sign. Even though it looked weather-worn, as Mama would have said, fancy curling letters say, “Miss Belle’s.” There’s a painted honeybee with a dotted line behind it, like it’s flying toward the mountaintop. I move as fast as I can, my nearly bare feet slapping the rocks through my worn shoes.

A dirt trail with another old sign comes into view. It’s half off its hinges, but that yellow honeybee is plain as day. I walk up to a dingy house. My heart is pounding even though I ain’t running no more.

I knock. Nothing. “Miss Belle? Mama?” I ring the doorbell. “Anyone home?”

The door cracks open. “There’s no honey for sale. We closed up a long time ago.”

“Miss Belle! I ain’t needing no honey. I’m supposed to be meeting my mama here.”

She pulls the door open wide, so we get a good look at one another. “Sweetie, you’re the first guest that’s knocked in I don’t know when. Your mama ain’t here.” Her voice is soft. I wonder if she’s a mama. “Are you all by yourself?” Blue-gray eyes scan me over. Her lips go thin. Like Mama’s when she’s upset.

Try as I might, I can’t stop the tears welling up in my eyes. “No, Mama told me she was going where the land flows with honey. That’s the last thing she said before her eyes closed and she got real still… She’s gotta be here. The land of honey has to be the last place with honeybees. She’s gotta be here!” My shoulders sag forward. My legs shake. “If she’s g-gone, I can’t…”

Miss Belle grabs my right wrist, opens my hand, and puts my palm up to my chest. “You feel that, child?”

“M-My heart?”

“Your mama is with you in every beat you feel. You gotta keep going so she keeps living through you.”

I wrap my arms around myself. “This world don’t have no land with honey. No honeybees—you had to close! The computer said you was the honeybees’ last chance. There ain’t no reason to keep going.”

Miss Belle tips my chin up, like a mama needing to make a point. “There’s always hope.”

I drag my palms down my face. “But the honeybees.”

She offers her hand to me. “You wanna help me bring more hope into this world?”

“What d’ya mean?”

“Look.” She points to my busted-up shoe. Above the scuffed toe hovers a beautiful yellow and black sight.

“Is that…?” I can’t form the words.

“Yeah, that’s hope—the hope you need to hold onto for your mama.” Miss Belle breathes in real deep. “You’ll find her in the land of honey one day. But first there’s work to do here.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kayla E. Green is an author, poet, and queso aficionado. When she isn’t writing, reading, or spending time with her family, she loves singing loudly and off-key to K-LOVE Radio and pretending she’s a unicorn. She has written an award-winning YA fantasy novella, Aivan: The One Truth, and an inspirational poetry collection, Metamorphosis. Kayla also has stories and poems featured in various anthologies and contest-winning stories published with Clean Fiction Magazine and online with WOW! Women on Writing.

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