Page 38 of Make Me Bee-lieve

“Po? What is it?” He brushes his fingers across my elbow.

“We need to get off the ground,” I say as my heart skips. “Now.”

All four of my arms latch around Calvin’s torso again, and I launch us up into the air just as an enormous, feathery predator bursts through the poppies. With its ferocious beak and soulless eyes, it lunges forward, snapping at us as we narrowly escape being devoured whole in its maw.

“Shit!” Calvin screams. “Chicken!”

The creature called a chicken leaps into the air, its wings beating at its sides.

“Sun’s scorching rays! Can it fly?!” I cry out.

“Not well!” Calvin yells back. “But it seems pretty damn determined!”

The chicken lets loose a terrible, warbling shriek that reverberates in my skull. The adrenaline from earlier barely had time to wear off, and now we’re being thrown into more chaos. My wings, still sore, carry us up, up, up … but we’re slow, and the chicken is fast. Too fast.

Its beak catches Calvin’s foot, and he lets out a blood-curdling cry. My soul momentarily leaves my body at the sound.

Then I shriek as his foot is yanked clean off.

The chicken, now distracted by Calvin’s foot, pecks at the ground where it fell. Tears prick my eyes as Calvin screams his head off, no doubt in terrible pain from having one of his limbs eaten. I find a sturdy poppy nearby and lower us down into it.

Immediately, I’m on top of Calvin and inspecting his feet only to find that, rather than losing the whole foot, instead the skin has been torn clean off. Nausea roils in my gut from the sight, but I force myself not to look away.

Cal blinks as he wiggles the pink, fleshy nubs in the air and starts to laugh. He’s gone mad from his injury, no doubt. I press my hand to his leg and shake my head in deep sadness.

“Oh, Cal. I’m so, so sorry. That horrible creature,” I say as tears streams down my cheeks.

Calvin continues to laugh like a crazy person. I glare at him.

“What is so funny about this? Your foot is gone. Do you realize what’s happened to you? Or are you perhaps in shock?”

He sits up and rubs the tears from his own face, then holds up his foot. The awful sight of the wrinkly pink thing left behind makes me want to throw up, but I steel myself against the discomfort for his sake. “Please. I am not used to seeing such things, Cal. I’m squeamish.”

“Po. No, look,” he insists, and then to my alarm, he pulls off his other foot and sets it aside. Then he removes the thin piece fabric covering the nub. “I’m fine. These are my feet. They were just inside my shoes before. The chicken ate my shoe.”

“Shoe?” I blink at him. “Wait, those hard brown things with the laces weren’t your feet? I could have sworn…”

Calvin shakes his head. “No, Sunshine. They’re just clothes, like the rest of my outfit. They protect my feet. See? These are my toes.” He wiggles the nubs again, and I blink.

This is … a lot to take in. We bee fae have never had any necessity to cover our feet, so the concept is foreign to me. But this is much, much better than the alternative. Relief washes over me at the realization that Calvin isn’t maimed after all.

“Oh, praise the sun!” I chirp, then release the longest sigh of my life. “I was so sure that chicken just devoured your foot!” But then I remember his glasses coming off earlier. I’m not sure if those were for decorative purposes or something else, so I ask, “What about your glasses?”

Calvin runs a palm down his bare face and groans. “Yeah. That’s going to be a pain. I can’t see as well without them, but at least my vision isn’t … terrible. I can still make out your facial features from this distance. Sort of. Still, it would be great if we could go back and look for them.”

“I’ll fly down to search once that feathery monster is gone,” I say.

We both laugh, hug, and kiss. Then he puts his remaining shoe back onto his foot and sighs. “This feels weird, only wearing one shoe.”

“I’m sure. It would be like only wearing a single glove,” I agree.

“Some pop stars would disagree with that,” Calvin mutters. I have no idea who or what he’s talking about, and I don’t ask him to explain this time. I’m just so happy he’s unharmed.

The wind has at least died down, so we aren’t at risk of being tossed out of the poppy again. In the distance, the human house’s door swings open, and a muscular, shirtless man steps outside. His chest and arms are covered in paintings, and my throat hitches at the sight.

Calvin rolls his eyes and nudges me in the ribs. “I know that look,” he says.

Looking at him askance, I smirk. “You do? What look is it, then?”

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