More With Honey

Officer Hale shook his head at the dust and weeds all over his recently washed squad car, and waved away a curious bee. Half a mile before entering the More With Honey summer camp, the road had crumbled from smooth pavement to an overgrown dirt track. As the officer waited, he watched a line of children, little knees hiking in theatrical march after their willowy counselor as she led a buoyant call and response.

There was a tree

There was a tree

The prettiest tree

The prettiest tree

That you ever did see

That you ever did see

The tree in the hole and the hole in the ground and the green grass grows all around, all around, and the green grass grows all around

Another counselor came jogging up to Hale, white teeth first. He had the same long limbs and improbably glossy hair as the singing woman did, and wore the same style of forest green T-shirt, with the camp’s logo of a bee and an apple tree. “Officer!” he grinned, thrusting into a firm handshake. “I’m Andy New.”

Hale took his hand back, clicking the spring of his ballpoint pen. “You run the summer camp here?”

A doubtful cloud floated over that sunshiny smile. “Myself and my sister, Allie.”

“Uh-huh.” Hale took his time surveying the landscape. Beside a long cabin hall were neat rows of young vegetable sprouts, fenced in by curving barricades of marigolds and spiraling espaliers alive with berry blossoms. The air was thick with pollen from the sprawling apple trees, still too sparse to conceal the sunlit gleam of a winding brook. “You all self-sustaining, or is this more of a hobby farm?”

Andy New, completely abandoning his smile, let his slim shoulders slump as he shoved his hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts. “More educational agriculture.”

Hale picked up that orphaned smile, but it twisted slyly on his lips. “You don’t just circumvent child labor laws by neglecting to pay them?”

“We get some income from a small farm stand,” Andy said, studying Hale from the side of an amber eye. “And that helps us keep the lights on, but the main purpose is not to profit. The kids learn about things like germination and the water cycle by actually planting bulbs and seeds.”

“Spreading bovine manure?” Hale guessed. “Or do you not cover that particular cycle?”

“We have some animals, around which the children are well-supervised,” Andy explained. “A few goats, some ducks, button quail. And, in the off-limits area, a handful of pigs.”

Hale raised an eyebrow. “You don’t sound very fond of pigs.”

Taking a diplomatic breath to unclench his jaw, the counsellor with catalogue hair said, “We find them…unpleasant to explain. It’s easy to tell a young person about the origins of eggs and milk, but pigs are…of limited use in their lifetime. Oh, and of course, we have the apiary.”

The golden wood hives were on the far side of the long cabin, surrounded by wild buttercups, little pinstriped speedwells, and soft white clover. Hale didn’t know if it was the bees or his rioting sinuses buzzing in the roots of his teeth. “Don’t the children get stung?”

Andy nodded. “Of course they do, they just don’t mind. We’re very accepting of bug bites and bee stings, and the older kids lead by example. Put a little salve on it, and they’re absolutely fine.”

“Don’t the parents mind?” Hale snorted.

Keeping that sideways scrutiny on the abrasive officer, Andy New said, “We cater to a very particular type, here. Ex-hippies, environmentalists, Unitarians. People who care about what happens to the bee.”

The children, led by Andy’s pretty sister, were following a meandering path past where Hale’s car was parked, still cheerily chanting to keep up the pace.

And on that branch

And on that branch

There was a fruit

There was a fruit

The prettiest fruit

The prettiest fruit

That you ever did see

That you ever did see

The fruit on the branch and the branch on the limb and the limb on the tree and the tree in the hole and the hole in the ground and the green grass grows all around, all around, and the green grass grows all around

Although he could feel the heat of Andy New’s sidelong eyes, Hale drank in the details in his own good time. There were no power lines that the officer could see, no paving after the road ran out, and if their little interview lasted another half hour, Hale would have to find out about any indoor plumbing. “I would have thought it’d be too early for summer camp.”

“We have after-school care programs for first to third graders and fourth to sixth graders,” Andy told him. “Then a weekday summer camp for five to sevens, eight to tens, and eleven to thirteens. As enamored as you seem to be with our establishment, you may be beyond our upper age limit.”

Seeing the high red flush on Andy’s perfect cheekbones, Hale grinned as broadly as the counselor once had. “I’m here about a former camper of yours, a young lady named Susan Haslet.”

“Oh, I remember Susan!” said Andy New. “Very bright, very creative—”

“She killed nine people.”

“Bit impetuous.” The counselor shifted away from Hale. “What brings you to me?”

Hale raised his thick eyebrows. “You’re not interested in what she’s done?”

“It interests me,” Andy confirmed. “But I’m reluctant to believe you drove all the way out here to give me the terse courtesy of a recap. I could spend the rest of our time guessing what you want, or you could take a second to assure me I don’t need a lawyer.”

“You don’t need a lawyer,” tumbled out of Hale’s mouth fast enough to put some of Andy’s smile back, colder this time. “Miss Haslet was apprehended following an explosion at a fracking site, which killed nine of the company’s employees. It also blew off both of her hands.”

Andy gasped, covering his gleaming teeth. “Her poor hands!”

And the green grass grows all around, all around—

“I mean, yes, obviously, those poor people,” Andy grumbled. “But Susan was a violinist. She had beautiful hands.”

“Uh-huh.” Hale clicked the spring on his pen. “She’s been classified as an eco-terrorist, and when I interviewed Miss Haslet’s parents, this place came up. While she is very much under arrest, we are trying to find anyone else participating in this violent ideology, and it’s possible the connection starts here.”

The smile Andy put on was waxy, mask-like, uncanny even on his stunning features. “You’re the detective; take a look around. Do we look like violent radicals here?”

Following the hand Andy waved across the sunlit grass, Hale’s eyes stumbled into pretty Allie’s warm amber gaze. She smiled as she stared into Hale, her rose petal lips curling around the song in her mouth as her silken hair glided over her shoulders. Her long legs led the little line of children through the apple orchard, and it was a moment before Hale realized he was following them.

And in that fruit

And in that fruit

There was a seed

Andy New kept pace beside him. “We’re very far removed here,” Andy said, his voice as idle and wandering as their footsteps. “We do not engage with the iron-clad world. Our purpose, and the purpose we endow upon these children, is to nourish the earth and foster new life.” He handed Hale an apple, and the officer didn’t take his eyes off the pretty line leader as he took a bite.

The little party of dancing children twisted through the blooming trees, to the grassy slope between the orchard and the brook. When Hale squinted, licking apple juice from his fingers, he could see a dark shadow on the landscape, and as he neared it, it resolved into a deep gouge through the lush green, the verdant skin of the curving field ripped into a deep pit. Hale’s heart seized as the children leapt and twirled around it, with no fence or barrier to keep them from falling in.

Andy’s hand at Hale’s back kept the officer from retreating. “We teach the kids about cycles,” the counselor went on. “How everything is connected. The rain falls, the sun shines, the seeds grow. And, every now and then, a weed must be removed. There can be no apples for the rest of us if the worms are allowed to have their fill.”

Edging closer, through the line of dancing kids, Hale peered down into the pit. The steep walls were black clay, bejeweled with stones and twisted roots, beetles and earthworms squirming in the muck. Down at the bottom of the sheer drop, the officer could see the silver-white branches of a tree, twisting and twining toward the distant sun, huge red buds pregnant with the coming spring. As Hale watched, one of the swollen rubies began to quiver, to shudder, to bloom.

The sudden buzzing in his pocket at first made Hale fear the bees. He dropped the apple core, swatting at his trousers, then retrieved his innocent cell phone. He shook his head, clearing the pollen from his senses, and squinted at the message. Andy New raised his eyebrows. “Problem, officer?”

Hale glanced at him, and read the message again. “It’s Susan Haslet. She died in custody.”

There was a shriek from the pit, and Hale’s heart leapt, his eyes wide as his hand lost control of the cell phone, and the glowing screen tumbled into the yawning depths. Andy grabbed Hale’s shoulder before the policeman could fall in after it, delicate fingers remarkably strong as the children continued to sing. Hale ignored him, eyes fixed to the blossoming tree, red petals unfurling from a creature, an infant monster, clay-black skin and jagged teeth, pale lamp-like eyes screwed up in its wailing cry, little legs kicking as it entered the world. The officer’s blood forged icy tracks through his skull as he saw that the creature didn’t have any hands.

The beast in the seed and the seed in the fruit and the fruit on the branch and the branch on the limb and the limb on the tree and tree in the hole and the hole in the ground, and the green grass grows all around, all around, and the green grass grows all around.

Hale’s shoulder shrank away from the uncanny counselor’s touch. As he watched, vision swimming at the corners of his eyes, more mud-grey creatures emerged all around the tree in the pit, picking up the fallen cell phone with their clawed fingers, staring up at Hale with their luminescent eyes, baring their pointed teeth. Hale’s spine hunched, curling over as his fingers locked, his mouth opened wide to scream. But only an agonized squeal came out.

Andy patted Hale’s back as his uniform fell away, four cloven hooves stumbling back from the pit. “Ah, pigs,” Andy sighed as his sister approached. “Sweet, intelligent creatures, but of limited use in their lifetime.”

Allie took her brother’s hand and peered down into the pit. “We can’t keep them away forever.”

Reaching down, Andy plucked Hale’s ballpoint pen off the ground. “We don’t need to. Just a few more years until the tree is tall enough, and we should have plenty more little soldiers by then.”

“I see we have Susan back,” Allie noted. “Oh, D, her poor hands!”

Pocketing the pen, Andy stroked Hale’s pink head, and pinched an ear to steer him toward the others in the pen. “Never mind, L. Bug bites and bee stings.”

And the green grass grows all around, all around, and the green grass grows all around