Cabin of Axes - Bea Paige Page 0,52

is just beginning to rise, pinks and oranges lighting the sky above the canopy of thick evergreen trees promising a day free from rain and filled with new beginnings, but it does nothing to appease the worry I feel. I head over to the Cabin of Axes first, but the door is locked and there’s no movement inside. Worry settles in my stomach, but I push it away. We were all stung by the bees. The venom brought back my memories and it would’ve brought back their memories too, but in the past they’ve reacted to the stings badly. It will also have acted as a hallucinogenic and that’s what concerns me the most. Right now they could be suffering beneath a debilitating past trauma and the only way to cure them of it is the honey. Running back inside the cabin, I grab the bottle of honey and a spoon from the kitchen island and shove them both into my jacket pocket. They’ll need to consume just enough to counteract the effects of the sting but not too much to forget. If I remember correctly, five tablespoonsful each should be enough. At least I hope so. Enough to stop any hallucinations in their tracks but not enough to overdose and make them forget again.

There are so many mysteries still surrounding the honey and what it can do. First and foremost it has a powerful healing property that far surpasses anything natural or manmade. In short, it’s a pharmaceuticals’ wet dream. In the right quantities it’s also a natural aphrodisiac, heightening pleasure, but depending on the person it can also bring out their deepest, darkest desires. Just like the man they had killed in this very forest. During my research before that day, the Torben brothers and I had experimented with the honey. It healed wounds quickly, and in regular small doses the honey had helped to heal the darkness within them. It had helped them to open up, to love and to trust. It gave us all immeasurable pleasure when taken as a sexual stimulant, but as we found out, an overdose will strip you of your memories, just like it had done to us that time we found out by accident and then later when we all took copious amounts to forget. Whilst I forgot everything, they only forgot me. Perhaps it was the quantities we consumed, perhaps it’s the difference in our genetics perhaps it was just sheer bad luck. Right now, there’s no way of knowing. Their fear of hurting me had forced them to make a rash decision. We’d taken an overdose in order to forget without understanding the lasting consequences. Only now I know it wears off eventually, I believe my memories would have returned completely with time. As it was the venom from the bee stings had reversed the effects with immediate effect. I have to be grateful for that, even if I’m not certain what state I’m going to find them in.

It takes me less than ten minutes to get to the hive, and when I do finally reach the spot Berrin is hunched over on the floor with tears streaming down his face. He’s sobbing with a pain so deep I can feel the physical effects of it from across the clearing.

“They’re dead,” he cries, grabbing at the mud and leaves covering the forest floor.

“Berrin?” I say gently, but he doesn’t look up.

“My brothers are dead; I was too late…” I watch as he brings his hands up to cover his face as he rocks his body back and forward, and I realise he’s in his own version of hell where Franklin and Berrin are dead in some war-torn country far away from here.

It’s no good telling him what he sees isn’t real. Instead I approach him with caution, the sooner I can get him to consume the honey the better.

“Berrin, let me look at you,” I say gently, but with a calm authority.

He raises his head, his pupils wide, practically swallowing up the beautiful green of his eyes. “They’re dead. I was too late…” he mumbles, but he isn’t really looking at me. He’s looking through me at someone that doesn’t exist. There’s no recognition in his eyes. Nothing to tell me that he knows who I am.

“Let me help you,” I say, kneeling before him, but it’s as though he can’t hear me. That he’s withdrawn to wherever the bee venom has taken him. Around us the bees fly