Sect Year 8 · third month · night of day 3 · the silent life: the hive yard, his twenty-third year, the first warm day
The first warm day came up the valley on a wind that smelled of thaw and, under the thaw, of thyme from the lower terraces. He had come down the steps that morning with his coat open and the rope rail warm under his palm for the first time since the autumn. The moss on the terrace walls had gone a bright, wet green, and the plum tree above the wall had put out a fringe of pale leaves. Somewhere along the lower terraces a man was singing to a donkey and losing the tune. Ossel heard the hives before he reached the yard. The three that had survived the winter were loud in their boxes, a steady pulse that rose when the sun touched the wood and sank again when a cloud crossed the ridge. The six empty boxes stood beside them with their lids off and their insides scraped clean.
He had scraped them himself in the cold months, with a bone knife and a stiff brush, on the days when the frost was too thick for the ledges. The dead bees came out of the corners in dry, light drifts that rattled against the board like husks. He had swept them into a basket and carried the basket to the bottom of the terrace and tipped it out for the wind. Then…
