Music is "Magic" by Sia.

Picture is Claudia Doumit as Sarai.

}0{

Apis Nearctica

Now an extinct species of honeybee, Apis Nearctica existed in what is now the United States during the middle Miocene period. It is the first fossil honeybee described from the New World.

}0{

Chapter Six: Nearctica

No, no, no. This can't be happening. I can't be hearing a fucking bee. They can't talk. They're bees. What the hell is going on?

"Do not be afraid, Your Majesty!" the little worker bee chimes. "I am not here to hurt you, Your Majesty."

My chest heaves up and down with my labored breath. I turn slowly to look at the bee on my shoulder. It's tiny, but even a tiny bee can be deadly to someone as allergic as I am. I've never been stung before, and I don't intend for the first time to be today.

"To bees, you are not allergic, Your Majesty," the honeybee replies to my hurried thoughts. "The opposite is true! You are our Queen!" The bee buzzes excitedly. "That I found you, I can not believe, Your Majesty! We bees have been looking for you for a very long time. I was the one to find you, I can not believe it!"

I shake my head and pull myself to my feet. They start moving towards the dorm, but I still feel the bee on my shoulder. I pick up the pace and run through the corridors and up the stairs. I'm definitely going crazy. Bees don't speak. I'm not their Queen. I'm just an orphaned girl without her parents or adoptive father-figure. I'm a student at a shitty school in a shitty city, just trying to start her life over again for the third time.

I'm no one, especially not a Queen.

"But...you...are!" the bee exclaims as she holds on to the collar of my jacket. "You are our Queen, just like your grandest mother before you."

I brush past a couple other students in the hallway and find my way to my dorm. Once inside, I hear the bee buzz and fly around to face me. Her wings move faster than I can see, and she hovers a foot from my face. I back against the door and shake my head. My mother's mother was a seamstress, and my father's mother died before I was born. I never knew her.

"Your father's mother was a keeper of bees," the honeybee responds. "She was very kind to us bees, even as our Queen."

My mind goes crazy with internal dialogue. How can this bee hear what I'm thinking? I haven't said a word aloud, not one.

"I can hear your thoughts, Your Majesty. It is one of the many gifts you carry as our Queen."

"Stop calling me that," I think, as if I'd said it out in the open.

"But this is your title!" The bee stumbles in the air, wings faltering for a moment. "I am sorry, Your Majesty. A long way have I flown to find you. I must...I must..."

The bee stops flying for a moment longer than the last, and I catch her in my hands before she falls to the ground. She coughs softly, and I instantly go into caregiver mode. I move her over to the moss bed Wanda keeps on the windowsill. After placing the honeybee there, I grab the sugar next to our coffee pot and half-cup of water. I quickly make a sugary syrup, scoop a spoonful onto a bottle cap, and bring it over to the bee.

"Here," I think, hoping she can still hear my thoughts. "Sugar water will give you your energy back."

The bee crawls over to the bottle cap and begins to drink from it. For a few minutes, the room is silent as she regains her strength. When she finishes, she steps back from the cap but still remains on the moss bed.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," she sighs peacefully. "I feel the betterest now."

I take a seat at the desk by the windowsill. "Where did you come from?" I ask her.

"Very far away. Very, very far away. I have been searching for you for so many sunrises. Everyone in my hive has."

"Why? Why me?"

"Because you are of age!" the honeybee replies excitedly. "You the Queen we have all been searching for, for seasons. Ever since you were a little one, we have not been able to find you, but now I have!"

"What the hell does 'of age' mean?"

"You really know not a thing about your family, do you, Your Majesty?" I shake my head. "Your grandest mother, your father's mother, was a keeper of bees, but she was the muchest more than that. She was our Queen, just like her mother and her grandest mother. Your female family has been our Queens for as long as bees have been bees. You are royalty, Your Majesty!"

My memory goes back to what little I know of my grandmother. She was a Lebanese beekeeper, but that's pretty much all I know. She died before I was born, when my father was a teenager. I never knew her, and father didn't talk about her much. I wonder if he knew about all this.

"He did not," the female bee responds. "He was male. Only females are Queens. All the power of the Queen skipped him and went to you."

"When did I become 'of age'?" I think, asking the most obvious question.

"On your fiftieth season," she tells me. "Ordinary humans have four seasons in what you call a year."

I quickly do the math in my head, realizing that I became of age between the ages of twelve and thirteen. "Why couldn't I hear bees before? Can I hear all bees?"

"You can hear us all, Your Majesty." The honeybee crawls onto the spoon and then onto my finger. She sits down and folds her wings onto her back. "Your grandest mother was our Queen, but your mother had magic also. She was not of the same magic. She was a Witch."

I resist the urge to laugh at the bee's statement. My mother wasn't a Witch; she was an architect. She didn't have magic; she had her intellect. But then again, I didn't know anything about my grandmother until now. Maybe I'll be wrong twice in a day.

"Your mother put a protection on you," the bee continues. "A spell. Your mother knew about your grandest mother and her title as Queen of the bees. She did not want that for you, Your Majesty, so she put a spell on you that made you hidden from us. She thought she was protecting you, but you came of age and we did not have a Queen."

"Then my parents died, and my mother couldn't undo what she'd done," I complete.

If a honeybee could nod, she would. "We do not know why the spell has worn off. We only know that this sunrise was the first sunrise we could find you. And I have! I found you, Your Majesty!"

I smile softly as the honeybee's wings flutter with joy. "So, my mother lied to me when she said I was allergic to bees."

The bee nods again. "This was to keep you away from us, we think."

"Was my mother the only Witch? Was she from a family of Witches?"

"Witches like your mother are not Queens like your grandest mother. The title of Witch is not passed down through human hives. A Witch is made, blessed or cursed. We do not know how your mother became a Witch, but she was the only one in your human hive."

"Are there others? Like, at my school?"

"Do not I know, Your Majesty, but Witches are everywhere. Be wary of them, Your Majesty."

"Please, don't call me that," I think. "Makes me uncomfortable. Call me Sarai."

The honeybee's wings flutter again. "What should you call me!"

"You don't have a name?"

"Not exactly. Bees have a hive mind. We communicate with the the others like I am communicating with you now. We always know who is speaking. There are no need for names."

I huff and bring my hand, and the honeybee, closer to my face. "Well, I need you to have a name. I can't just call you 'bee.' Do you have a preference?"

"Oh, anything you like, I like, Your--I mean, Sarai!"

I glance away in though, a big grin forming on my face when I recall a name with a perfect meaning. "What do you think of Melissa? It means bee."

The honeybee, Melissa, hops from my finger and flies speedily around my head. She buzzes happily, eventually landing once again on my shoulder. "That name, I love it so! I am Melizza."

I give a soundless chuckle as the honeybee turns the double "S" in her new name to a double "Z."

"Melizza it is!"

END CHAPTER SIX.