Queen Bee

Queenie hummed as she moved amongst the beehives, her voice mirroring the sound of her beloved bees. The sun was warm on her back, and the air rich with the scent of summer flowers. Life felt good, despite all the traumas of the past.

She paused as she touched her grey, bobbed hair; she looked very different from her earlier days. No-one here in this sleepy English village had any idea that the quiet, retiring woman who produced quality honey had, long ago, been a ‘gangster’s moll’. The authorities had given her a new identity, a new look, and a new home. Only a handful of people knew her secret: all of them on the side of law and order.

It had taken her a lot of courage to break free from the old way of life and turn ‘Queen’s Evidence’. As a result of her testimony, a vicious gang had been broken up and its leaders imprisoned, including her former lover. She shuddered now as she remembered how, as he was led down to the prison cells, he had turned to her, his thin scar clearly visible in a face full of hate.

“Just you wait, Queenie,” he threatened, “One day I’ll get you for this!”

The sound of a car pulling up interrupted her thoughts. She glanced over the hedge as a man, his cap pulled down low over his face, stepped out of a sleek vehicle. He paused to read the sign, ‘Honey for sale’, before pushing open the picket gate and striding up the path. ‘Another customer,’ she thought, ‘come for some honey.’

She moved towards him with a smile on her face. “Can I help you?”

The man slowly lifted his head; his thin scar clearly revealed as he pulled a gun from his coat pocket. Her eyes widened; she swallowed hard.

“You!" she exclaimed.

She wanted to turn and flee but her feet refused to move.

“Well, Queenie, you’ve led me a merry dance, haven’t you? It’s taken me a long time to track you down.”

He paused to swipe at the bees whose humming had now changed to an angry buzz as they swirled around his head.

“I warned you, didn’t I? Told you I would find you one day.”

The final reckoning! She had always feared that this day would arrive. She readied herself for the shot. It did not come.

“Ouch!” He dropped the gun as he clutched at his hand. An angry looking bee sting was clearly visible.

“Ouch!” This time, his hand went to his neck. Then, again, to his face. The bees were attacking him. Queenie watched as he fell to his knees clutching his throat. His lips turned blue. Wildly, he indicated his pocket.

“Quick! The epi-pen,” he croaked.

She stood impassively, watching as anaphylactic shock took its toll.

“Kill or be killed,” she murmured.

A few moments later he lay lifeless, the bees buzzing victoriously as they swarmed over his body. Their ‘Bee Queen’ was saved!

Bio.

Emmie Blake, B.A, had a peripatetic childhood, growing up in post-war Germany. On her return to England, she found herself an ‘outsider.’ That experience strongly influenced her life and led to her working with people on the fringes of society: people with addictions, ex-offenders, and disadvantaged communities. She has been writing for many years but only started writing short stories on her retirement from her full-time work as an ordained minister. She has won several regional competitions and has had stories published in an anthology as well as in ‘AWS e-zine, Issue I’. She currently lives in rural Wales with her husband where, alongside her recreational activities, she is involved in voluntary work in the local community and is Chair of the local Refugee Support Group.