The nail punctured the varnished paper with ease, but No? jerked at the sensation, and a two-inch vertical cut opened. Kay gasped at what she had done.
A pearl of amber liquid formed at the bottom of the wound and oozed in a long strand that dripped to Kay’s lap. No? groaned with relief as the buzzing grew louder, and from the slit emerged an orange and black honeybee, which perched on the fold of paper skin, tasting the air and testing its wings before flying away. A second bee followed quickly, likewise departing from her head, and then all at once, dozens of angry bees emerged, their buzz grinding louder and louder. Nix was the first to notice the swarm. Dropping a hoop, the clown shouted a warning, and the stalls were suddenly busy with flailing arms and shouts as the bees poured forth, swirling pell-mell around the puppets’ heads, alighting and taking flight again. Mr. Firkin rolled about, calling for order. The Sisters screamed with fright, and the Old Hag cradled the Dog against her chest as it yapped at the insects, desperate to bite and swallow these bizarre toys.
The honey flowed freely and pooled on the floor behind No?, who had crumpled to her knees and thrown back her head, and some of the bees raced to the spot to collect their spilled food. As soon as her head emptied, No? fainted, and a few bees crawled on her resting body, buzzing angrily as they looked for a way back inside. Squeezing the nail in her hand, Kay crouched next to her, wondering if she had killed her. When she tried to brush them away, she felt a bee land on her hand and plunge its stinger into the web of skin between her thumb and index finger. She watched in fascination as it took flight, ripping the weapon from its abdomen, and stumbled in the air and plunged to its death. They were dying all around her. Those that hadn’t sacrificed their stingers fell victim to Mr. Firkin’s ingenious trap. He had spaded the honey from the floor into a gunnysack and lured them to it, tying the end with twine when most of the hive had gathered. The few bees that had avoided either fate eventually found their way out of the room and flew off to parts unknown.
While the bees were herded away, the Good Fairy attended to No?. She cleaned her best as she could of the sticky honey, and taking the horseshoe nail from Kay and a length of twine, she sutured together the ragged ends of the paper wound. The whole time No? said not a word, the expression on her face as blank as a doll’s. Kay watched the operation, torn between guilt and hope, and when order was finally restored, she was held for an accounting. The puppets arranged themselves in two rows along the stalls, and the Queen paced back and forth between the troops, boiling her thoughts.
“And just whose brilliant idea was this? To plague us with this swarm?”
“Mine, Your Highness,” Kay volunteered. “Though I had no idea about the bees—”
“You don’t think. You hear a sound inside a head, so you cut a hole? What on earth gave you the idea that it was allowed?”
No? spoke for the first time. “I asked her to, Your Majesty. I was going mad and needed some relief.”
“And you thought that poking a hole in your brain would help? Did you not consider that if you open your mind, you will release everything it holds?”
Kay pondered the question and thought it most unfair. “She had bees in her brain.”
“And that gives you the right to let them out where they might attack the rest of us? Have you not heard of keeping your thoughts to yourself? Had Mr. Firkin here not been as clever, those nasty things might have flown up my nose or into your ear, and then where would we all be? Mad as hatters. Mad as March hares. Mad as your friend there, missy.”
“I beg your pardon, but I was only trying to help.”
No? stepped up to her own defense. “I feel much better now, I do. No more racket in my mind.”
“Have you stopped to consider,” the Queen asked, “that these bees were not the cause of her problems but a symptom of them? I didn’t think so. There will be no more poking of holes in anyone’s head, do you understand? No more fraternizing at all between the two of you plotters.”
The heartbreak showing in her eyes, No? could not bear to look at Kay. The Queen stepped before her and with a wave of her hand demanded that she bow down. “You are to no longer complain of bees in the brain. I command you to give up this nonsense of madness and the desire to escape. You are a puppet of the Quatre Mains, and it is high time you started behaving like one.”