Hour of the Bees by Lindsay Eagar

mouth. A triangle of light hits his eyes. They’re blue as cornflowers, every line in his irises pulsing. Rings in a tree trunk.
    We work, Lu plays. Our conversations drift through every possible sheep topic: sheep diseases, the best lamb cuts for Easter dinner, the way these sheep used to have dark bones and long hair, but they’ve changed over the years . . .
    If it was anyone else, I’d be bored to tears, but when Serge talks, it feels like the only sound. My ears are magnets for his words.
    Lu munches on Goldfish crackers, and they look ridiculous and modern, too orange, out of place in this barn full of secrets.
    By the time I spoon tonic into the last sheep’s mouth, I’m ready to drop. But Serge never stops moving, never tires, just trades the spoon in my hands for a pair of rust-splotched shears.
    “Uh,” I say before he pats my shoulder.
    “I’m not going to make you touch a sheep,” he answers. “But shearing wool is a handy skill to learn, even for a city girl.”
    That’s debatable
, I think.
    “This will at least make a good story to tell your classmates,” he says, fetching a sheep from the pasture.
    Stories.
    “You never told me the rest of the story last night,” I say. “Does R — I mean, does the girl ever leave the lake?” I don’t want to say the name “Rosa” aloud; after all, our number-one goal this summer is not to upset Serge.
    Serge reaches around to the sheep’s belly and begins clipping. “Let me ask you something first, Caro-leeen-a. What would you have done? Would you leave the lake?”
    I shrug. “I wouldn’t want to stay in the middle of the desert for eternity.”
An entire summer is bad enough
, I think, but don’t say.
    “You would throw away the gift of the tree?”
    My palms itch. This smells like a test, one I’m bound to fail. “I don’t know,” I fumble. “It’s a big world out there.”
    Serge turns the clippers sharply at the sheep’s hind legs. “You’re right,
chiquita
. It is a big world, full of things that steal your breath and fill your belly with fire.” He pauses, holding out a shaky finger for emphasis. “But where you go when you leave isn’t as important as where you go when you come home.”
    “So the girl did leave the lake,” I say, trying to steer him back to the story — that’s what I want to hear about. “She does leave, but she comes back? Is that what you mean?”
    “Caro-leeen-a.” Serge’s whisper is rough, like a rattler’s dancing tail.
    “Carol,” I correct him.
    “Your name is Caro-leeen-a,” he says, louder. “Forget about the story for a moment. Close your eyes. Think of a tree.”
    Grudgingly I shut my eyes and picture a gnarled, black-barked tree, with leaves so green they shine gold, branches reaching like fingers into a cloudless sky.
    “The roots of a tree stretch deeper than you think,” Serge says. “No matter how far away you are when you bloom, you are always tied to your roots.”
    I open my eyes. He stares at me, his forehead knitted with wrinkles.
    “Your roots are part of you, Caro-leeen-a. You must never spit on them.”
    The freshly shaved sheep in his arms bleats, and Serge pats its rump. “This wool!” He stretches out what he’s shorn so far, and it’s pathetically sheer, a few strands of sheep hair held together by air. “And Raúl said the sheep were too bony.”
    The barn is mostly shadows, but Serge would have to be blind to miss the sheep’s bones sticking out from its skin so far that you can practically see the white of them. This isn’t good, usable wool — it’s garbage.
    “Look, Rosa,” Serge says, and goose bumps prickle my arms.
    “I’m Carol,” I say, frowning. What happened? He was fine just a second ago, wasn’t he?
    “Have you ever seen such wool?” he says. “We’ll get fat coins for this wool, once you spin it into your magic scarves.”
    “Carol. I’m Carol, your granddaughter,” I try again.
    “It must be all this rain,” he continues,