The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows - Olivia Waite Page 0,16

Penelope lifted the wheelbarrow again, and together they walked the remaining three quarters of a mile to the print-works.

Penelope grabbed her smoker but left the rest of her tools in the wheelbarrow next to the fence, where it was immediately nosed at by a large sorrel horse, lured no doubt by the scent of honey. Penelope patted his neck by way of apology.

Mrs. Griffin waited by the door to the print-works, fidgeting. “If you’re quite ready, Mrs. Flood.”

Penelope squashed the tempting urge to dawdle, just to be contrary. It was coming on noon, and she likely had two hours’ work ahead of her. “Show me what we’re dealing with, Mrs. Griffin.”

Heads snapped to attention when Mrs. Griffin walked in, and gazes sharpened in recognition when the employees noticed Penelope. She nodded to Mr. Jarden and shook the hand of the grinning Reggie Downes. “I hear you’ve been colonized, Mr. Downes.”

“Indeed we have, ma’am.”

“This way, Mrs. Flood.” Mrs. Griffin was already waiting at the door to the back of the warehouse—goodness, she didn’t waste any time, did she?

Reggie Downes rolled his eyes in apology where his employer couldn’t see.

Penelope winked at him, then followed the printer into the maze of shelves.

It was a little like a library—but a vast, giant, monolithic kind of library, such as she imagined some race of titans might have built, to memorialize in solid metal the books that had told of their exploits. The plates were lined up in rows, one after another, with only a little space between. Her hands itched to pull one down from the shelf and read it, huge and heavy though they were.

From farther down the rows, Mrs. Griffin cleared her throat. She was standing near the back corner, arms folded, caught in a shaft of sunlight coming in through the nearby window. It gilded the gray hue of her dress and made the silver in her hair gleam like liquid fire. A few errant bees danced in the light around her, small sparks hovering over a larger, hotter flame.

Mrs. Griffin burned with impatience, alternately glaring at Penelope and at something else down the aisle to her right.

Presumably the swarm, judging from the unmistakable humming of hundreds of bees. Penelope wished she had the luxury of stopping and listening for a while. But even from half a warehouse away, there was no withstanding the force of Mrs. Griffin’s expectations.

Penelope walked forward, fighting the urge to kneel like a squire being knighted.

Then she reached the aisle and saw the bees.

Everything else fell away.

As she’d suspected, this colony of bees wasn’t a swarm proper: it had been once, but the bees had long since settled and made themselves a hive. A strong one, too, by the look of it—even from six feet away Penelope could make out the round domed cells of drone brood, and the smaller domes where baby workers were growing, and even a few rows of new honey capped off. Well-done of them, so early in the season.

They’d built fresh comb in between the leaden plates, fixed to the underside of the shelf above. Quite as if the bees had only wanted to memorialize their own work alongside Joanna Molesey’s. The shelf they’d settled on was chest-high, which was good, since if they’d colonized one of the higher areas it might have been more difficult to wrestle them out without damaging either the bees or the humans trying to help them.

Penelope stepped forward to get a closer look—and stopped as a hand seized her arm. She turned her head. “Is something the matter?”

“I thought . . .” Mrs. Griffin peered at her anxiously, then took a deep breath and dropped her hand from Penelope’s coat. The spot where she’d touched burned a little for a moment or two after, then cooled. “I’m sorry.”

Penelope tilted her head. “You were afraid I’d get stung?”

“Weren’t you?”

“Not particularly.” Penelope tilted her head. “But I’m used to bees, remember. I forgot that you weren’t.” She pulled out her smoker and her tinderbox. “Here’s what I’m going to do: I’ll start with a little smoke, to make the bees drowsy and willing to be handled.”

“You’re going to handle them?” Mrs. Griffin paled.

Penelope laughed softly. “How else did you plan for them to be moved?”

Mrs. Griffin huffed, but made no reply.

Penelope pulled out her tinderbox and lit the smoker. A few pumps of the bellows later and the funnel was puffing out clouds of sweet white smoke. Penelope brought it close to the colony and puffed at