Day 6 of National Novel Writing Month! Now that we’re starting a new story, I’ll need to explore a bit here, so be forewarned: this may be more setting establishment than story, per say.
Day 6, Story 3: The Bee Trainer’s Revenge
From the very start, Pips Row has been known as a farmer’s kind of town. The entry gates from the farmlands are as numerous as the spokes on the typical wagon wheel. The small but bustling Town Square has all the essentials a farmer does not grow or conjure. And every resident has their own connection to the land, be it through their work out on the farms, the forges for tools to use on the farms, or their own little gardens planted about their homes. This mandatory “down to earth” kind of life does well to ward off those without love of dirt or hard work.
Nevertheless, there will always be a bad apple or two, even in the most prosperous of seasons. You used to find one such apple down Third Southeast Way, also known as Honey Street. Quite a few folks tend fruit trees and wildflowers in this neighborhood, and you can bet your Saturday sugar-bread that they count on the bees of Barab Oowi to pollinate their plants in the warm months. Only there was one year, not too far back, when the bees were led astray, and a street of sweet crops lost to poor taste and ambition.
We’ll begin with Barab Oowi, known as Bee Trainer about the town. Small, strong, and stout, Barab rarely spoke above a hum, her gestures speaking volumes for her instead. Barab never shied from the tough jobs Nature and Neighbors brought to her door, you see. One day she’s carrying barrels of apples and oranges one day for Fruit Seller, the next hexing a wasp’s nest out of a child’s treehouse. In return, her Neighbors often shared meals and tools, and children gave her floral wreaths to wear. Parents of Honey Street were particularly thankful, for there was no better place to send a bored child to than Bee Trainer’s home. There was always a new honey blend to taste, pots to paint, candles to trim, or bees to serenade.
That is, until Nacle Themormo moved in.
How to describe Nacle…well, he was from the capital. That should tell you a lot right there. A banker, apparently, so one who never bothered with the hard work, only the profits earned by it. Fruit Seller had heard he made enough coin to retire to the country, but that didn’t make any sense, for it costs far more to live workless in the country than the city. This mystery added to the distrust of Ex-Banker Nacle, but what could any of us do? The Green Trenches don’t arrest ex-bankers, let alone lazy people.
Of which Nacle most certainly was. A bulbous fellow, rather like a potato, he would plant himself in a folding chair at the edge of his porch and watch everyone and everything on Honey Street, especially when it came to his next-door Neighbor, the Bee Trainer. Within the first few weeks, the folks of Honey Street learned why: Nacle Themormo’s magic lay in the power of his words in the ears of other men.
Hmmm. I think we’ll just stop here for now. I want to keep brewing some ideas of how Nacle and Barab are going to interact so we can see how a simple fence and a hive of bees can throw the rhythm of an entire neighborhood asunder.
Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!
