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funkymeihem-fiction · 6 years ago

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Strange Honey- Rewrite Chapter 1

“Winifred, I know you’re out there! You’re a bad girl! You know you’re being bad and you just keep doing it! You’re going to end up getting stung and then I’m not going to feel sorry for you! …Well, maybe a little sorry…But you are in so much trouble!” She slammed the door and thundered down the rickety steps to the back porch, irritation in every step.

Mei hadn’t had time to put on all her beekeeping gear when she’d seen the familiar pink and brown-spotted streak go hurtling past her view from the duct-taped mesh of the screen door. Once she knew the pesky pig had made yet another break for it, she’d thrown on whatever was nearby and had gone after her. But a plastic poncho and a net helmet offered little protection from the little stingers and their owners, and the bees were buzzing about in clouds nearly as thick as the wet summer air.

At least Winifred was smart enough to give the hives themselves a wide berth. The young sow gave a sniff in their direction, but thought better of it and took off in the other direction. Mei was hot on her heels and wielding a net in both hands. She had no idea if the net would be helpful in capturing an escaped pig or not, but it was better than nothing. And Winifred seemed to think it was all great fun, speeding up into a trotting gallop as she led the disgruntled student on yet another merry chase; past the hives and the little back gardens, past the animal pens, and out towards the wider fields themselves.

At least the bees were ignoring them both for now. She occasionally felt one bump into her poncho or the helmet’s netting, but they were more intent on maintaining their airborne journeys for now, on their way to or from the surrounding crops and flowers. And Winifred, darn her hide, seemed to be enjoying herself more than she should have. The young pig would even turn back to look at Mei when she slowed down, only to kick back into a run the moment she got near. It was a all a game to her.

Mei did not think it nearly so amusing. Not again.

She’d taken on this job as an assistant beekeeper not for the pay, but for her studies. Her graduate degree was riding on the paper she was writing, on the effects of climate adaptation in bees and pollination of the local agriculture. Taking a job in the field (literally, in the field) was a vital part of her studies and her reputation as a researcher. And in her naivety, she had thought maybe that a summer in the countryside would be relaxing.

Unfortunately for her, she had chosen a farm with famously temperamental and difficult bees, and an even more temperamental and difficult owner. The free room and board was barely worth it, and even if the honey on her breakfast toast was amazingly delicious, she had the distinct feeling she was being taken advantage of. Mr. Rutledge had put her to work doing the most unpleasant, grungiest chores that didn’t even further her studies, and in her first week she had already had several stings while she was still figuring out the finer points of the suit.

Chasing after escaped pigs definitely hadn’t been on her sign-up list. But now Mr. Rutledge was off at the store, and the very first time she’d been left in charge of things here, Winifred had decided to make things hard for her. Mei preferred the bees, frankly. At least they just wanted to get their jobs done, just like her. But Winifred was one of Mr. Rutledge’s favorites, and Mei wasn’t about to let the little cretin run loose and risk Mr. Rutledge thinking that she wasn’t a responsible person.

She tried cajoling, lowering her net and opening both arms as she approached the errant sow. “Heeeere, girl. Come here, come here. Don’t you want to go back to all your brothers and sisters? I bet they miss you? No! Noooo…” She lifted her voice as Winifred grunted and sniffed, turning towards a row of squash nearby. “No! Don’t you eat that! You bad girl, don’t you dare! NO!”

Winifred promptly nosed her snout into the yellow dirt and fastened her jaws around one of the vegetables, ripping it up out of the ground and carrying it away as she took off yet again. Mei made a dash for her, swinging her net and missing by a mile. The cloven-hoofed menace left a wake of destruction behind her, taking them further and further out into the reaches of the farmland.

Huffing and puffing behind her netted hat, the plastic poncho did Mei no favors as it trapped in her body heat in the already-stifling air. She was sweating up a storm, unable to wipe away the moisture pouring from her dusty face as she remained in hot pursuit. Down the dirt roads, across a pasture, and through two fields of soy and corn, she followed them. Pushing through rows and rows of green stalks and leaves, she finally shot free of the cornfield, and stumbled into a field that was choked with wild sweetgrass and weed blooms. Past a single stunted old tree out among the grass, a row of green and yellow rose up.

It was a wall of overgrown sunflowers.

This was a field she had never seen before, far beyond the reaches of her tour of the farm. Was this the same property? Did the farm even grow sunflowers? She wasn’t entirely sure. They were giant things, tall green stalks growing so close together they resembled a tangled forest, each one topped with a cheerful, dazzling yellow and brown bloom. And they were so tall and large, she felt almost sure they must have been some species she hadn’t heard of, maybe even bio-engineered. She wasn’t really a tall girl to begin with, no, but these sunflowers towered over her like she had never seen. It was a solid barrier of overgrown green and yellow that would be nearly impossible to pass through.

And…where had Winifred gone?

She found a half-eaten squash at the edge of the sweetgrass, but it was well up past her knees and the pig could have headed in any direction. And unfortunately for her, hog tracking hadn’t been one of her studies. And not only that, but the field was thick with bees. The sweetgrass and wildflowers were causing a frenzy, and Mei didn’t want to disturb them while she was wearing such little protection. But she did see how the grass was bent down in some places, and over the shrieking of cicadas and the buzzing of bees, she thought she could hear a faint grunting sound.

There was nothing for it. She had to get that pig back before Mr. Rutledge got home.

Very, very carefully, Mei stepped into the field. Picking her way through the little trail of bent grass, she tried to stay light on her feet. The edges of her plastic poncho breezed the tops of the field, and the insects hummed around her. Occasionally she heard the thicker and heavier buzz of a hornet or wasp too, their distinctive tones hurrying by her as they hurried to pollinate the flowers too.

“Ow!”

There was a prickle of pain on one of her legs. Something hadn’t taken kindly to the intrusion and had stung her. She looked down, hand lifted to brush it away, but there was only a red spot already starting to swell. Wincing, she bit her teeth into her lip and continued forward. She could put ointment on it later. Along with all the other—

“Owch!” Another sting, and this time she saw the stinger still lodged in the side of her calf, from the honeybee that had given its life just to poke her a bit. “Please don’t, I’m just trying to pass through, please!”

Pleading didn’t work so well with bugs. But then again, wading thigh-deep into a field full of stinging insects probably hadn’t been the best idea. Only when she heard a familiar grunt-grunt-grunting nearby, she realized she had at least narrowed in on Winifred. Maybe she could at least get her in the net and drag her out of here before any more damage was done.

Winifred was chowing down on the rest of the stolen squash, grumbling and chewing noisily. So intent on her meal, that she didn’t even notice Mei coming up behind her. The shadow figure loomed up with its net raised high, and only then did Winifred’s ears shoot upward as she shot up off her haunches and ran forward with a panicked “REEEEEE! REEEEEEEEEE!”

“Darn you, Winifred! Ow! Ow, get back here!”

Mei chased after the pig, trying to ignore more stings that came her way as Winifred trampled more grass and disturbed the pollinators at their jobs. The buzzing grew louder. Mei swing her net again and missed, and the pig jolted to the side and ran blindly towards the sunflowers, squealing all the while. Mei was forced to give chase, and the two sent up a trail of angry bees as they went.

Suddenly Winifred’s squeal became a shriek, and Mei saw that the pig was trying to hit the brakes. Her hooves scrambled in the grass, kicking up dirt as she reeled to a stop just before she would have entered the tangle of sunflowers ahead. The little sow stood there for a moment, back bowed almost into a sit as she stared into the wild green and black ahead of her. Mei lifted her net again—

Something moved in the flowers ahead. The stalks shifted and clattered somewhere deeper within, like something was moving amongst them. Blinking, Mei forgot the pig altogether and twisted her hold on her net, holding it like a shield in front of her as she staggered a few steps back. It moved again, making its way through the shadowy stalks. An animal of some kind, no doubt, but what? Dog? Cat? Deer?

Winifred uttered a noise that was almost a scream, suddenly taking off again as she ran right between Mei’s legs and off into the opposite direction, squealing rapidly growing rapidly fainter. The rattling ceased abruptly as she fled, the unseen creature freezing. Maybe it had just taken notice of Mei and was as scared of her as she was of it? It seemed to have paused, but she had the distinct feeling that she was being watched. The hair on the back of her sweaty neck prickled all at once.

“H-hello?” she asked aloud, tilting her head. What could it have been that had scared Winifred so much? She quickly pulled her poncho on over her shoulders, slamming her hat more firmly onto her head. No matter how hot it was, if she needed to run away-

There was a strange little noise from the sunflowers up ahead, as the leaves started rattling all over the field despite there being no wind. Mei took another step back, eyebrows shooting upward, and was almost ready to book it back in the other direction when there was another sound…a buzzing sound.

She looked behind her and saw that the disturbed bees and wasps had lifted into the air, angrily droning all together. They faced her down, but were acting…strangely? They all hung there in the air, hovering and staying in one position— as if waiting for some signal. She’d never seen an insect wait before, but that’s what they were doing. Waiting…To attack her?

Mei nearly dropped her net, turning her back to the flowers and facing the cloud of angry buzzing. Taking a step or two back, she lifted both hands in a defensive surrender. Her glasses slid crooked on the sweat pouring from her face, but she could swear that she saw a shadow of movement behind her. And she couldn’t look; because in front of her, the insects all moved forward towards her in one dark furious cloud—

“I’m sorry!”

Mei made herself very small, cowering down in a hunch that she knew wouldn’t protect her if she got swarmed. She didn’t even know what she was apologizing to, or why begging would help. But it was instinctive and she simply didn’t know what else to do.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”

The buzzing continued in front of her, but when she peeked open one eye, she could see that the little blurred forms had all stopped again. They hovered there again, and then began to drift backward. One by one, they retreated, and zoomed off into the wildflowers and sweetgrass once more.

Baffled and alarmed, she turned to look into the sunflowers. But whatever shadow she thought she had seen was gone, or simply had never been. But that eerie prickling feeling was still tickling at the nape of her neck, and to say she was uneasy was an understatement. She awkwardly straightened her glasses through her netting, sweat dribbling down her body from heat and fear.

She shouldn’t stay here…

The field of sweetgrass lay open before her, the bees parted into two groups on either side. A clear path lay between them, giving her a chance to go. And she took it. Grasping her net in shaking hands, she clutched it like a spear as she warily stepped back through the overgrowth, heading back towards the relative safety of the farm and away from the sunflowers. The bees closed ranks behind her as she went, urging her on.

The cicadas kept screaming and somewhere far away, a crow started calling. But the bees were no longer angrily droning, only peacefully buzzing about the field as if nothing had been amiss in the first place. She stopped only when she got to the edge of the growth line, to the little strip that separated the wildflowers and grass from the more cultivated crops of soybeans. Looking back, she saw the sunflowers standing tall in the distance.

The blooms stood bright and cheery in the afternoon sun, just like before. Nothing seemed amiss, except for what looked like a speck of color out in the middle of the yellow? Were those clothes? A quick squint, and she could make out the ragged-looking old scarecrow that stood hanging from its pole out in the middle of the blooms. Strange…She must have simply missed seeing it out there before, with the flowers being so tall.

No time to worry about such things now. She’d never heard of bees acting the way that those bees had acted. She’d never read about insects having…self control? Why had they changed their minds about attacking her? What an awfully strange and confusing thing to happen. Wherever Winifred had led her, it certainly had—

She’d completely forgotten that she was still pig-less. Her chase had been most unsuccessful, and she still had an errant sow to hunt down. With one last, unsure glance back towards the sunflowers, she bolted back towards the fields and to the dirt road that would take her back to the farm.

Mei had gone so far away that she hadn’t even heard Mr. Rutledge’s truck rattle its way home. By the time she reached the borders of the yard, it was sitting in the drive. He and the truck were cast into the massive afternoon shadow of the crooked old farmhouse, and he was unloading bags of groceries onto the front porch. And to her irritation and embarrassment, Winifred was already there too. The little pig grunted and wiggled and was repeatedly getting under his feet, trying to stick her greedy head into the produce bags.

“Oh…Mr. Rutledge!” Mei bashfully made her way up from the side yard, pulling off her poncho and hat in a rather guilty way. “Welcome back. I’m really sorry about Wini, she—”

“Mm. She does that. Tried to chase her?” Mr. Rutledge’s baritone voice rumbled from somewhere under his hat, as he pulled Winifred out of a bag of cabbages and hefted her up under one arm despite her protests. “Go inside and put something on those. You’ll get used to them.”

“Put what on what?” she echoed, before looking down to see that her pale legs were marred with little red swollen marks from fresh stings, swollen into little welts. “Oh. Okay. Don’t you need help with the bags?”

“I’ve got them.”

She just nodded, feeling strangely chastised for her failure. Leaving the naughty pig to her owner, Mei creaked open the front screen door and headed into the cooler interior of the house. Heading to the downstairs bathroom, she found the twisted tube of ointment and sat down atop the toilet to begin rubbing it into her bee stings.

Her legs had taken a few shots, but it had almost been worse. A lot worse. What had that been all about, anyway?

Maybe Mr. Rutledge knew. It was his farm, after all, and his bees. And if his bees acted in such a strange way, there might be more to this research paper than she had first thought.

***

She decided to bring it up at dinner.

“Mr. Rutledge, can I ask you something?”

She always tried to be polite around Mr. Rutledge. Not just because of her good manners, but because she knew he was a particular man who simply disliked being disturbed. The man lived alone, worked alone, and ran his business alone, and that was how he said he preferred things. He spoke little, usually only to tell her to do things; and beyond seeing him at meals in the morning and evening, and occasionally watching television or doing a puzzle together, they rarely talked casually.

“Hm?” He paused, cup of coffee halfway raised to his scarred lips. That was the most usually saw of of him; was his lips, and perhaps the bottom of his nose, if she was lucky. He was almost always wearing his own beekeeping helmet, or a low hat, and kept his head down. Locks of stringy gray hair hung from his hat now, obscuring his eyes, but she knew he was looking her way.

The very last of the dying orange sunlight streamed in through the old glass panes of his kitchen windows. They sat across from each other at his table, with its charming red-and-white checkered patterned tablecloth, and the cute piggy-themed salt and pepper shakers, sitting next to the piggy-themed flower vase filled with fresh lavender, which was next to the piggy-themed coffee mugs still steaming with brew. She’d never been much for evening coffee, but Mr. Rutledge drank it often. But it never seemed to help much. The man always seemed so tired.

He’d made an attempt at cooking for them, but he had admitted to knowing only a bare few dishes and not all of them were very good. So he had made them pancakes for dinner, again. Pancakes, eggs, and fruit; all with fresh honey. There was always honey. The last few bites of her pancake were soaked through with the stuff, sitting sweet on her tongue as she finished them off.

“Your farm is pretty big, isn’t it? Do you own all the land around here?” she asked.

“…Mm.”

“So you own the big fields with the corn and soy and the pumpkins, those are all yours? Right?”

“Mm.”

“What about the big field of sunflowers? The one way off to the…east, I think it was? Northeast, maybe?”

He paused at that, and slowly lowered his cup of coffee back to the table without taking a sip. “Sunflowers…”

“Mmhm. It is east, isn’t it? There’s a big field full of sunflowers, with a-”

“What were you doing out that far?”

She blinked, fumbling with her glasses a moment. “I…got a little lost when I was chasing Winifred,” she said, which wasn’t a lie. But something about his reactions made her feel suddenly more guarded. “Are those your fields too?”

“There’s nothing out that far,” he responded gruffly. “No need to be out there. Don’t go out that way again, understand?”

“But I thought I saw something?”

His head turned very slightly, but very sharply. “…What did you see.”

It wasn’t a question, but dangerously close to a calm demand. His eyes were upon her, and she suddenly felt cornered. Bringing her coffee cup up in front of her mouth for a moment, she mumbled from behind it. “I mean…I didn’t see it. But I heard something big. There was some sort of animal, I think? It really scared Winnie. So we both ran.”

Should she have told him about the bees? Had he ever heard of patient bees, before? Or the way those insects acted around those flowers? Something about his sudden tension made her think twice.

He turned slowly back to his coffee. “Could have been anything. Could have been something…dangerous. And you would have been out there by yourself. Don’t need you getting hurt and your school coming after me. Don’t go out that far again.”

Her brows knitted a little and there was a strange little pang of disappointment. His words made complete sense, of course. It was a long way out there and she had no business going out so far by herself. If something had happened, she would have been completely alone. It was just common sense, really. But still he seemed a little…terse, about the subject, and she could not help but wonder why. But it was not her farm, and not her place to wonder such things. So she just nodded, and went to sip at the last of her coffee, instead.

“Okay.”

“Finish your dinner and I’ll show you how to repair the holes in the mesh before tomorrow. You’ve had enough stings for today.”

She looked down at where her legs were still a little swollen and bore red welts. Going into that field, near those sunflowers, had been a really bad idea. Her leg poor legs were proof of that. Although, something had kept them from stinging her even more. And she couldn’t help but wonder what.

***

She was left wondering for nearly a week before Mr. Rutledge needed to leave the farm again, for more feed and some medicine for a goat with a cough. Mei stood out on the front porch, waving to him as the old rattling truck turned the last bend in the road and went out of sight. And after a few more moments, just to make sure he wasn’t coming back or forgetting anything, she bolted back into the house. Clattering up the stairs, she paused only to grab her backpack; shoving her notebooks, entomologist case, her pencils, and a lunchbox into it, pulling it across her shoulders before pushing open the back screen door and running out.

This time, she made sure she was wearing pants. And she’d double-checked that Winifred was still in her pen and wouldn’t lead her into danger again. Her poor legs still bore enough band-aids from her first stings, and she did not intend to repeat her mistake.

The summer cicadas were drowning the world with their song, a constant rattling drone to accompany a hot, muggy, yellow afternoon. They had made it hard to sleep at first, but she had learned to ignore them. And their singing covered the sound of her feet as she dashed across the farm, passing by the uninterested goats and chickens, and swerving on her path to give the active beehives a wide berth. Across the pasture she went; through the fields, into the corn, out the other side, and down the dirt roads past the soy beans, until she came to the same field of sweetgrass and the sunflowers beyond it.

Out in the rows of sunflowers, she saw the ragged old scarecrow, hanging up and out above the sea of yellow. It was a little too far away to get a very good look at it, but it looked a little…off, somehow. Most of the scarecrows she had seen were little more than old clothes and burlap sacks with a smiley-face drawn on them, only vaguely resembling a human, just enough to scare the birds. This one looked almost like a human that had been strung up and left to hang on a pole, even slumping with its head down. What an odd choice for someone to make…

There were fewer bees than there had been earlier that week. It seemed that they had exhausted the blooms there, and only a few latecomers were buzzing amongst the little field, poking themselves into stray flowers to see if there was anything left. Mei decided to give them space, traveling around the very edge of the field and cutting a cautious path until she could head to the shade from the tree in the little clearing in the center. This spot seemed devoid of any angry stingers, and gave her a good view of the sunflowers.

Hesitantly, she pulled off her pack and opened it up, pulling out a blanket and spreading it amongst the grass. Tossing her lunchbox and her other supplies onto it not long after, she sat down and opened it up, pulling out her sandwich and her cucumber salad and settling down for a nice late lunch. The vegetables from Mr. Rutledge’s gardens and the local farmers’ markets were second to none, and she intended to enjoy the fresh produce while she could.

She paused mid-chew when she thought she heard something crackling amongst the flowers. But when she stopped and listened, there was nothing amiss, and there wasn’t that prickling feeling of menace that she had felt before. And the remaining bees were still going about their important business and ignoring her. The flowers rustled again. Probably just the breeze.

For a while she just sat there on her blanket amongst the field of sweetgrass, with the sun on her face and listening to the cicadas and birds serenading her meal. It was little moments like these that made all the hard work worth it, really; fresh air, fresh food, fresh honey, everything out here made her stop and appreciate the little things. Maybe once she finished her degree on agriculture, she’d buy a farm just like this one… But she had work to do, first.

Her first task was to just get a few samples and head back to properly preserve them. She needed a few cuttings from the flowers, and some live insects to monitor. Maybe she could send one of these clearly bio-engineered blooms to someone in her department and find out what this was all about? Maybe Mr. Rutledge used some kind of pesticide that was causing errant behavior? Perhaps it wasn’t just pollenators like the bees that were affected, but other insects too? Or perhaps there was some sort of divergent species from these very old hives with undocumented behavior patterns? Her professors were bound to impressed, if so!

Wiping away the remnants of her salad and brushing the crumbs away from her lap, she stood. She pulled out a few jars and a pair of tweezers, adjusting her glasses before approaching the wall of sunflower stalks. The bees had behaved so oddly, specifically around these flowers, and she had not been able to stop wondering why. Perhaps there were other insects here that she could study, and see if their behaviors were similarly abnormal? She wasn’t an expert in entomology per se, but she could at least get some spceimens for those who were.

Approaching the sunflowers, she leaned towards the rows of stalks and began picking at the leaves; turning them upside down, pulling them away from the main plant, checking every nook and crevice on them. No sign of insect activity at all, not even a stray aphid. There was nothing to take samples from. Leaning down towards the dirt, she checked for anything crawling there. Again, nothing. Not a single bug to be found.

Her brows knitted, squinting in a baffled sort of way behind her glasses. Things were becomings stranger and stranger, it seemed. But, just to be sure, she reached up, standing on her tippy-toes, and pulling down one of the sunflower stalks until it bent down to her level. The porous brown florets at the center, filled with seeds, had nothing crawling on it. The cheerful yellow petals didn’t have a single ant hiding In them. Nothing. Everything was so normal, it was completely abnormal, yet again.

Well, that was…strange. She’d have to write that down. Maybe she’d just take a few seed samples, instead, and she could—

But once she tried to pull too hard on that sunflower, the noises started again: like she had pulled on the thread of a spider’s web, and something had felt it from deeper in. There came another rustle from amongst the stalks, something clattering deep amongst the greenery just like before. Her eyes darted quickly, and she released the flower to let it spring back up, the movement causing a little ripple through the rest of the sunflower field. Whatever was moving around in there, stopped. Was it that ‘animal’ again? Or something else?

“Hello? Hello, is anybody there?” she asked aloud, tilting her head and putting her hands on her knees to peer into the inscrutable mass of stems and leaves.

No answer.

“Mr. Rutledge?” she tried, even though she knew it wasn’t him. “Or… Winifred! Is that you, girl? Did you get out again? Are you being a very bad pig?”

If it was Winifred, she was being strangely quiet and sneaky. Or maybe it was some wild animal, just like Mr. Rutledge had warned her about, one of the reasons she shouldn’t have been out here. That thought made her a little nervous. Of course, she didn’t think there was anything particularly dangerous around the area…no bears or cougars or wolves or such things. But even if it was ‘just’ a nasty feral dog, she didn’t want to be on the receiving end of anything with claws or teeth. She’d rather face the bees, any day.

That feeling was back. She needed to leave. But she didn’t want to leave without her samples.

She reached out with both hands, grasping onto one of the stalks, and started pulling. Just one flower. If she could only take one weird, giant, insect-impervious, possibly magical flower, this might be the start of something big…Although, oof, that might be harder than first thought. She twisted and pulled, trying to wrench off one of the giant blooms, but it wasn’t making it easy. No matter how she tugged and turned, it didn’t want to come off. She even dug her fingernails into it, trying to sever some of the fibers, clawing until green chlorophyll started leaking down her fingers, and it started to give way, just enough to-

“HHhhrrhh!”

There was a horrible noise, something she’d never heard before.

Again, the presence moved amongst the sunflowers, the blooms and leaves rattling noisily as it suddenly headed straight for her. Eyes widening, she dug into the dirt and pulled back with her entire body weight, one last ditch effort to pull up the flower before she could turn to run, just one bloom. She felt it start to give way, but then she saw the stalks parting in front of her, and then two of the sunflower blooms turned towards her…only they weren’t flowers, but glowing yellow circles, like eyes. She started to scream, and then the flower came loose in her hands just as the animal or person or monster or whatever it was, leapt towards her.

***

She must have hit the ground, because that was where she woke up. Maybe her feet had gone out from under her when she’d pulled the bloom loose, and she had hit her head? That might have made sense…if she hadn’t been laying on her picnic blanket, yards away from where the sunflowers were. But there she was, with the cicadas still churring away, and the birds were still singing and the sun was still shining, and for a moment she wondered if she had fallen asleep during her lunch and dreamed of everything that came after. But the tips of fingers tingled, and when she looked, there was still green under her fingernails. And laying on the blanket next to her, was the severed bloom…or was it? The sunflower she had picked earlier was now a withered and black lump of desiccated rot, and ants were starting to swarm around it, and on her.

“Uuuhgh!” With a shriek, she bolted to her feet and began brushing urgently at her legs, sending them scattering. A little kick sent the rotten flower flying, and she went about fluffing the blanket to fling off the remainder of the ants. Disgusting! What on earth?!

Even as she struggled with the remnants of her picnic, her eyes were drawn back to the field, and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise upward. She felt like she was being watched again, but it felt stronger this time, and closer. Maybe it had something to do with those eyes she had seen before…or had she actually seen anything at all, and was just spooking herself with her own imagination? She’d never had much in the ways of a very wild imagination, but maybe being out here alone was messing with her more than she’d thought?

“Is there someone out there? If there’s someone there, it’s not funny anymore!” She peered around her, vision still wavering a little. “Hello? Is this someone else’s land? If so…I��m really sorry! I’m from the next farm over and I didn’t mean any harm. Really, is someone there?”

The wind rustled the flowers again, but that was her only response.

So much for getting one of the blooms. How had that one rotted so fast, anyway? Should she try again…?

Something deep in her gut told her that was a bad idea.

She rubbed at her temples, and realized her glasses were missing. It wasn’t just her alarm causing the blurriness around her. With a little curse, she returned to her blanket and started searching. Her vision wasn’t the best without them, and everything was a little fuzzy as she reached out with both hands, patting around to see if she could feel them. There was no sign of them, and though she walked around the sweetgrass field and even searched by the flowers as close as she dared, she couldn’t find them. Great. She had no insect samples, no flowers, and she’d scared herself into losing her glasses. More money down the drain. And for the rest of the summer she’d have to rely on her broken back-up pair back at the farm, with the tape on the nose.

In a very foul mood now, especially as she brushed away a few stray ants that had clung to her pants, she began folding up her blanket and gathering up the remnants of her ill-fated picnic. The sun was starting to get a bit low in the sky, and she had to make it back before Mr. Rutledge returned to the farm. He’d been right about this place. Whatever these weird sunflowers were- She glanced up at them, and then recoiled slightly when she noticed something.

Even without her glasses, she noticed it. The scarecrow from earlier was gone, missing from his perch where he had been hanging out in the middle of the patch. Had it fallen down or…been moved somewhere else? No, that would be a silly thought. She was just scaring herself again, that was all. That weirdly human-proportioned scarecrow was just suddenly gone from its perch and that had nothing to do with the weird noises and movements she had heard, and how she’d been conked out and moved without her knowledge, and-

That bad feeling was back, and getting stronger now. Her neck hair was prickling and she wrapped both arms around herself, brows knitting as she backed away.

“I-I’m…I’m sorry? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m going to go now, okay?”

She looked back to the sunflower patch one last time, squinting to where the green stalks grew so thick they were almost black. And somewhere in the darkness there, she thought she saw a faint yellow light turn towards her. Her blood went cold, and she leaned to grab her backpack, zipping it shut before she turned and outright ran, hopping over the rotten black sunflower bloom as she waded into the field of soybeans and fled back towards the safety of the farm.

He watched her go.

***

She spent an uneasy night filled with bad dreams that she couldn’t really remember. She had dreamed of a buzzing in both her ears and light burning her eyelids, but those were easily explained away. The hum of the fan must have become the hum of phantom insects, and the light was the dawn promising another hot day. The prickling she’d felt over her body? Probably the fading itch from the bee stings. And the fingers she’d felt on her clammy forehead? Those were from… Well, dreams were just strange things, sometimes.

Pulling her sweating body from beneath the covers, she dragged herself into the bathroom, thrusting her tape-glasses askew onto her face. There was a little mark of dirt on her cheek. Had she missed it when she’d washed her face last night? She really had been out of sorts. Scrubbing it away, she rinsed out her mouth and spat into the aged porcelain, dragging on her clothes.

With the sun barely peeking over the treeline, she joined Mr. Rutledge at the breakfast table, pouring more honey than usual into her oatmeal. For once, she didn’t even try to make conversation with the man as he read his morning news, and her uncharacteristic silence actually seemed to unnerve the man a little. She just sat there, with nothing but the occasional clink of her spoon in her bowl, until he finally looked up at her with a low rumble.

“You feeling all right?”

“Hm?” She answered dully, gaze still far off behind her spare taped-together lenses. “Oh. No, I’m fine. Just a long night, couldn’t sleep.”

He turned the page in his newspaper. “Can you work?”

“I’m fine. Honestly.”

“Mm. Take it easy today. Finish your breakfast. Then you go inspect the hives while I feed the chickens and see to the pigs. Still don’t know how Winifred keeps getting out…”

She nodded with a little yawn, and went to dump her bowl into the sink for later. Plodding out towards the backroom, she began suiting up, pulling on the thick white armor and stitched mesh hat that would protect her from their stings. Yawning and stretching again as she gathered up her smoke canisters and clipboard, she opened the back door…and paused abruptly, mid-step.

There, on the little cracked concrete square at the bottom of the wooden steps, were her lost glasses. The big round wireframes were still intact, and the lenses caught the morning light and practically glowed where they had been sat conspicuously in the center of the square…surrounded by a circle of scattered, bright yellow petals.

Her heart seized and then started trying to come up out of her throat, and she had to swallow hard to keep it down. “Keep calm, Mei, keep calm…it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine…” Very, very cautiously, she approached the circle. Nothing about the glasses seemed amiss, and when she brought one thick gloved hand to poke at them (just to see if they were really there), nothing happened. Completely dumbfounded, she stood staring down at them, coughing a little before lifting her voice.

“Mr. Rutledge!”

He called back from inside. “Yeah?”

“Did you find my glasses?”

A pause before he answered, a bit puzzled. “Your glasses? Aren’t you wearing them?”

“Ah…I think I must have dropped my other pair! I found them though, thanks!” With her eyes darting to and fro, she quickly went to sweep the concrete clean with her foot, scattering and scraping the petals into the grass and under the stairs. Again, she saw nothing strange, just the sights and sounds of the farm starting to wake up like it did every morning. The insects and birds were still singing, the tangled windchimes hanging on the sagging porch jangled, and further away, a goat bleated for its breakfast.

“Mei? Everything all right?” Mr. Rutledge called again. He must have heard her pause.

“Um. Yes! Sorry, just getting everything together!”

Carefully taking her newly-returned glasses and setting them just inside, she gathered up her canisters and notes again, her mind whirring as she trudged on towards the beehives. The insects buzzed around her, clinging to her netting and crawling around her suit as she began pumping in the smoke that would calm them. She just needed to check on their progress and take notes, which gave her time to ponder.

Maybe this went a little deeper than strangely-behaving bees and a field of odd flowers. And maybe she hadn’t just imagined that missing scarecrow from earlier. Twice now, she’d lost her nerve and been sent fleeing…only this time, it had followed her home. To offer her her missing glasses back? Did that mean it was friendly? Then again, hadn’t it attacked her? Or had it only moved her? Had she really seen it at all? Or…

So many questions. So many strange, strange questions. Though, as a scholar, she was used to having questions. That was one of the reasons she was here on this farm, after all, was doing her research and asking questions. Well, now she had more questions.

And just like a good student would, she intended to find the answers.

#meihem #junkmei #mei #mei-ling zhou #scarecrow #mako rutledge #farmer mako #scarecrow skin #farm au #Farming AU #story #writing #rewrite #strange honey

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