The Inis Oírr bumblebees, their thoraxes pinned to the blue crinoline bed beneath, taunted her. Not only was each row of five bumblebees (with two missing spaces) centered in the box to create uniform columns and rows, but the bumblebees were also unblemished. Each one looked precisely like the anatomy diagram she had seen in Ms. Malone’s classroom. Their exactness made them emblematic – conveying “Bumblebee” more than those buzzing creatures harassing the shepherds outside ever could.

Shuffling forward on her strong leg, Máire acquainted the bumblebees with the tip of her nose, her eyes only an inch and a quarter away.  One by one she examined their legs for flaws. Surely at least one might have lost or injured a leg while battling for the sweetest nectar. Yet all ten sported complete sets of six. Maybe she was looking in the wrong place. The bumblebees could have just as easily lost antennae more frequently than legs. She checked each, moving from left to right and then down a row. Each had two. She then inspected the crispness of every wing. Again, each vein fanned out in a way that mirrored its twin. How was such a tiny insect effortlessly symmetrical when she could never be? Maybe if she could somehow see through their eyes she might discover that the third bumblebee in the second row was blind in his left eye. At least all of them were nothing more than drones – at least she had that for sure.  

Tentatively, she extended her forefinger towards the third bumblebee in the second row, but then stopped. It was almost too forward, too ungainly. No, the ring finger was the way to go. It spoke of – promises. She brushed the pad of her finger along the fuzz circling the embedded head of the pin. Somewhere between the layers of skin separating her from the bumblebee and its furry thorax, the shadow of a hum answered her touch.  A ripple seemed to run through the bumblebee’s surrounding cousins, echoing its frustration. Engaging her thumb now, she carefully pinched the pin’s head and drew it up. Just as the fabric released the tip with a crinkly sigh, the door opened behind her.

“Máire, no’ agin! I tol’ yeh I need those.”

Snatching her cane with her right hand from where it leaned against the dresser, Máire pivoted to face her twin, the third bumblebee from the second row lying in her left palm. Seeing the expression on his face, she bit her lower lip – her tongue peeking out first, and then ducking back as teeth and skin met.

Alasdair crossed the flagstone floor of their shared bedroom in exactly four seconds (Máire counted). Upon reaching her, he raised his chin and dropped his shoulders to show off his full height. Only two years ago they had been the same. Now at twelve he was a good two and a half inches above her, which he wouldn’t let her forget. Gingerly, he retrieved the skewered bumblebee and placed it back in the box. After correcting the pin’s angle twice, he snapped the bee-box lid shut and clutched it to his chest. Máire glimpsed the painstakingly carved letters D.A.I.R. on the front of the box in the space between his forearms. She had watched him do it two weeks ago when he found the hardwood scraps lying on the side of the road. He had stared at the wood for a day before he started to scratch his name into the surface, and it was nearly a week before he had finished nailing the planks together.

 “Wha’ were yeh doing t’ them anyway?”

            Máire, still probing her lower lip with her teeth, didn’t answer. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t know what to say to him or that she was embarrassed that he caught her attempting to free the bumblebees, but that she simply didn’t want to stop. She rolled her lip a bit between her teeth. The skin was dry and almost broke.

            “I almos’ have all twelve bees in there. Tha’ means I could win.  Yeh could’ve ruined it fer me.”

            Máire released her lip to correct her brother. “It’s no’ Jimmy’s boat it’s his da’s.”

            Alasdair stepped a little closer.  “Yeah alrigh’, But tha’s no’ the poin’ now is it?”

            “Wha’ makes yeh think Jimmy’s da’ll take yeh across? I’m sure he doesn’ need both yeh and Jimmy t’ help at the market.”

             Alasdair patted the box in his arms. “It’s no’ about the market. Almos’ everyone’s goin’ t’ the market. Yeh saw the paper down at the dock. I bet yeh I can even quote it.” He raised his eyebrows.

            Máire crossed her arms. “Well go on then.”

            “‘The first t’ bring me twelve bumblebees will geh’ free passage on me da’s boat t’ the mainland and back.’ And then it was signed ‘Jimmy.’  And I’ve got ten, as long as yeh haven’ stole any.”

             “I didn’!”

            Alasdair jutted his chin out at her. “Yeah well, mind tha’ yeh don’.”

            Ignoring his threat, she asked “Wha’ does Jimmy wan’ with bumblebees anyway? An’ why should his da’ care?”

            “Hey how should I know? Maybe he jus’ wanted t’ study them. ‘Sides, I’m jus’ filling orders!”

            “Well even if yeh do geh’ the twelve, I don’ think da’ll let yeh go,” she said, knowing very well that their father, and really every father on the Isles, was happy to let his son or daughter go across. Of course, she was the exception.

Even before he started talking again, Máire knew he was trying to cajole her. It was glinting there, behind his eyelashes. “Come on, I could geh’ him t’ take yeh too. When was the las’ time yeh wen’ anyway?”

            Máire half-smiled at her brother. He must have meant it conversationally. She studied his face. He didn’t seem like he was being malicious.

She remembered the last time Alasdair went. The sun was cold that morning, just for her, and the sheep quiet. Slowly she inched off the bed, letting herself down to the floor easy, anticipating the coldness of the stone under her toes. She knew there was no chance of her sneaking onto the boat with him, so she didn’t intend on trying, but she couldn’t help acting all secretive anyway. By the time she hobbled down to the dock, her cane occasionally slipping in the dew, the boat, Alasdair, and her father were gone.  Perhaps it was better that way. 

            She didn’t need to answer him. It was in the way the flush crept into his cheeks that signaled to her that he recognized his mistake. But she did anyway, her response heavy and awkward in the silence.

“Never,” she whispered.  She liked the sound of the word. It was the two ‘e’s that made the ‘v’ in the middle feel special. It was also her empathy for the meaning itself – it was something unchangeable, forbidden.

“Do – do yeh wan’ teh help me ketch ‘em?” He offered, his eyes focused away from her own.

Máire shook her head, twice. Somewhere between the pit of her stomach and the ventricles in her heart, Jealousy was awakening. If she spoke, it might slither out. She gritted her teeth, feeling it butt against her gums impatiently. It wasn’t his fault that polio got her when she was only four years and seven months old.  But every time he sailed across without her, stung. While he was gone she would will the wind to either rage or still completely; anything to prolong the moment when he would return ruby-cheeked and bursting with stories to tell.  

Still cradling the bee-box in his arms, her brother left. As he neared the door, Máire noticed a flicker of regret in the way he walked. She should have stolen the bee-box when she could. Or maybe mashed the bumblebees up – no, they were too beautiful to ruin; she also felt connected to them. She wanted to free them. Then maybe a little part of her could escape too. There was no hope for it now. Alasdair would guard those bumblebees even in his sleep. With or without sympathy for her, she could tell he was determined to win. She knew that it made no difference to him that their father would undoubtedly take him to the market only two weeks from now.

The smell of peat wafted in. She wondered if they burned peat on the mainland too. If they didn’t, surely the mainland mothers’ lamb stews would taste different than the one she enjoyed on Sundays. It would be a funny place that wasted wood like that. Maybe they made their furniture out of peat to make up for it.  

Using her cane, Máire edged to the door. Just beyond the doorframe, her mother leaned over the pot hanging above the hearth, the long wooden spoon stirring authoritatively in her hand. If her mother saw her, she would make her chop carrots or peel potatoes. The rattle of her cane as she snuck across the kitchen would certainly alert her mother; at once imprisoning her within the walls of the house, and more importantly, within her sight. Holding her cane with both hands across her chest, she slid forward a little, her shriveled leg wobbling. At the fire, her mother still stirred. She took another step, and then another, slowly shuffling across the floor. She reached the door just as her mother turned.

“Máire? Máire, just where do yeh think yer going?”

“Home fer dinner!” She called, trying on one of her brother’s favorite phrases as she scurried outside. She was lucky. It hadn’t rained that day and so no mud slowed her exit. Her mother would not chase her, anxious about leaving the fire unattended. She loped onward, placing the rounded tip of her cane onto the harder patches of dirt and avoiding the holes. She knew, with the same certainty that her mother would slap both her wrists when she returned home, that Alasdair would eventually sail away on Jimmy’s boat, leaving her behind once again. That and the market would move the count up to three trips this month. At this rate, Alasdair would be living off the island before he was sixteen.

She hadn’t told her brother that it was easy to find the bumblebees. She had discovered the hive just two days before, down in the dilapidated shed the children at school declared haunted. She knew that it was just the wind whistling through the cracks and the lowing of the cows reverberating in what was left of the walls. Now that she knew about the bumblebees, she wondered if they too contributed to the rumors of ghosts wailing within. She stumbled to a halt just outside the front doorway, and surveyed her surroundings. No one was about. A cow looked up at her from a few yards away, its dewy eyes blank. Máire wondered whether it knew about the hive and if its hide was too tough to feel a bee sting. Without any grunt of acknowledgement, it ducked its head back down to the grass at its feet. To the right, she could see the roof of her house poking up on the other side of an outcrop. She sidled up to the shed. The wind had ripped the door from its hinges, leaving an open space. Someone had taken an ax to the wood, slicing away useful scraps that splintered at odd angles.

Maybe once, she thought, a man swept ashore had taken refuge here, bewildered and friendless. She could almost see him, huddled in the far left corner of the shed. He was missing a boot on his left foot and wore a cloak – no a blanket – wrapped around his shoulders. He gripped a short knife and was furiously whittling away at a chunk of the door. He had already finished carving a small woman, her hands pressed together in prayer. Máire couldn’t decide whether he had turned the figure over onto the floor in despair or if she had just fallen forgotten from his lap. 

She imagined that she would’ve discovered him there on a lonely afternoon. It would’ve been one of the days Alasdair had gone to the mainland with their father. The man in the shed trembled as she approached him, and gripped the worn handle of his knife a little harder. When he spoke, his words jumbled together without much sense in them. She promised – no she swore – that she wouldn’t tell her parents or brother about him. That evening she returned, carrying her mother’s stew in a clay bowl. Then every night for three weeks she came back. Sometimes she brought turnips, or sheep’s milk, or once even a leg of lamb. And she listened to tales of the mainland that would rival her brother’s own as he reclaimed his strength. Until one evening he vanished, leaving her only a token – the carved woman propped up against the wall.

Máire craned her neck towards the gap, hoping to spot the little wooden figure, but the corner was empty. She hadn’t had the courage to actually venture inside since she found the hive, but her determination to have adventures of her own suddenly made it easy. She slipped through the doorway. The bumblebees were awake. She squinted towards the hive, her pulse rapidly rising. A mass of movement blocked her view.

The bumblebees’ ferocity erased all previous thought of those neatly arranged in her brother’s box or drawn in Ms. Malone’s diagram being more real than the whirring creatures before her. Perhaps it was the very life that coursed through their little bodies that made them at once imperfect and genuine. Instead of darting away in terror as the hoard rose around her, Máire froze. Peeling away from the hive, bumblebees alighted on her hair and clothes. She clamped her lips firmly together. More moved to join those already clambering over her body, steadily massing around her. Soon swathed from head to toe, Máire watched in horror as bumblebees crawled and flitted all about her. Panic began to travel up her esophagus. It spilled over into her mouth. The shriek was coming. She swallowed. Knowing that it was easier to go with the current than against it, Máire shoved her fear back down to her stomach and forced her body to relax. The bees pulled her a little to the side and back, making her sway with them. As she accustomed herself to their swooping rhythm, she discovered that they were going somewhere. Unsteady and self-conscious, she followed them out the way she came and onto the craggy rocks and underbrush that made the landscape.

She worried that if she fought them, they might sting her. Fumbling with her cane, she carouseled with them – twirling and dipping to a beat she didn’t know, but that felt familiar. Perhaps it was there in the way the waves crashed on the shore or in the whipping of the grass or the tangling of her long curls in the wind. She smiled, two bumblebees flying from her lips to join their cousins in a swarm about her. She watched the blur of their wings, trying to see if they were symmetrical, but as soon as she tried to make sense of them, she realized it didn’t matter.

The tiny creatures not only coated Máire’s clothes, face, and hands, but also now completely engulfed her in their cloud. They led her beyond the shed and farther down the island. She stopped fretting. Everything looked different from here. The hoard of bumblebees rendered familiar shapes into a confusion of whorls and noise that made them at once more exciting and more terrifying than she had ever noticed before. Even the thatch on the roofs didn’t seem common anymore. The bumblebees animated them with their fluttering in a way that made her question the tradition of using only heather and straw for covering a house. Behind her, the shed had disappeared.

She had never been this far down the island alone. For a minute and twenty-three seconds she imagined never going back. She and the bumblebees would dance on the circular ruins and she would eat the berries the birds loved in spring. In comparison, the mainland’s allure was nothing. But never was a long time. At that moment she realized she didn’t need to physically leave to find freedom; it was there in the stranded man in the shed and the little wooden figurine.

When the buzzing finally stopped and the bees no longer carried her with them and rode the gusts of wind farther up into the sky, she would go home. And when her mother would frown and scold her, she wouldn’t be ashamed or frightened. Instead she would imagine herself as the daughter of a wealthy family, captured by the Fair Folk. And when her twin finally hurried up to the house, without receiving chastisement or even a stern look from their mother, she would pretend that he was one of them, returning from an errand.