6. Calvin

CALVIN

I 'm awake before the sun rises over the lagoon in the distance, and with a mug of steaming coffee in hand, I head straight up to the rooftop to bring my Shrinkatron out of the storage closet. My landlord was kind enough to let me use the old shed for storage, so long as I remembered to water her tomato plants every week. More than a fair trade, I'd say.

Scotch Bonnet weaves between my legs as I make adjustments on the scope itself, then wipe down the glass with a cloth for the third time. Bonnet meows up at me, no doubt annoyed that I'm ignoring her while I work.

"Go play," I say, nudging her away with my foot. Bonnet trills as she hops off to chase a leaf blowing across the concrete.

Red and yellow wires stick out of the Shrinkatron wildly, and I grab some of the wire I recently bought to tie them into place. I chug my coffee, set it down on the ledge, and move in front of the ray again to adjust the nozzle. Again. "Something's not right," I mutter to myself, and remove my glasses to wipe them off with the cloth.

I started this project last autumn when I overheard my landlady complaining about her bad back. She couldn't lift most objects in her apartment anymore. They were too big and cumbersome. And … well, that got me thinking. Maybe there was a consumer need for the Shrinkatron? When I'm at work I always feel like I'm spinning my wheels. I wake up, feed Bonnet, head into the office, and work on other people's projects. Which is fine when you're only concerned about money…

… But I'm not. I want to put something good into the world. Something that matters. When I die, I want to leave the planet a better place. Sounds idealistic, I know, but it's a dream of mine. To matter. Even if only temporarily, I guess.

The wind changes direction, blowing the leaves back toward me and my shrink ray. Bonnet jumps up onto the table where the beehive sits, and I sigh. "Bonnet, stop. You're going to knock something over or get hurt," I scold her, but she isn't listening. No cat in the world has ever listened when their human told them to stop.

I put my glasses back on and move to grab Bonnet before she can cause any damage to the hive or herself, but a butterfly flits into her line of vision, distracting her. In a moment that feels like I'm in a dream where I'm running through water, watching everything around me move in slow motion, Bonnet leaps into the air. Straight onto the back of my Shrinkatron.

"Bonnet, no! Bad girl! Down!" I yell. But it's too late. In her panic, Bonnet falls from the shrink ray and dangles over the bright red buttons—and hits one with her paw on the way to the ground.

A beam of white bursts from the nozzle and hits me in the chest. For a moment, it feels like I'm about to pass out, vomit, and get the shakes all at once. It's overwhelming. But then the feeling passes as quickly as it came on. Huh. Weird. Bonnet lets out a screech as she bolts to the other side of the rooftop to hide in the storage closet.

At first, I'm too stunned to realize what's just happened. I was just hit in the chest with a laser. And I'm still standing. Reaching a hand to my chest, I look myself up and down.

"Huh. I'm … fine?" I say out loud. And then a warm, tingling sensation blooms in my ribcage and starts to spread through my arms and legs. My fingers and toes burn, and my head throbs like someone just took a sledgehammer to it. "Oh, fuck. What?—"

Realization hits me like a tractor trailer. I've never tested the ray on anything before. Oh. Oh, no.

Next, nausea roils in my belly, threatening to make me spill my guts all over the ground. I put a hand to my clammy forehead as my heart races. "I don't … I don't feel so good," I murmur.

Then the world around me shifts. The tomato plants in their terracotta pots race toward the clouds. Or maybe it's that I'm … sinking? It's too difficult to tell.

"H-Help?!" I scream as my legs give out and I fall to the ground. A leaf blows past me again, only this time, it's the size of an elephant. A scream dies on my lips, and I make a run for it to hide behind one of the Shrinkaton's legs.

The realization of what's happened finally starts to sink in.

I'm fucked. Royally fucked.

With no way to reach the controls of my Shrinkatron—because I'm now the size of an ant—getting back to my original size is literally out of reach. Panic grips me, and I'm too paralyzed to put one foot in front of the other, even though I know I need to find cover before … before … before I end up something's lunch. Oh, god.

I run my sweaty palms down my face and look around. Bonnet's left the cover of the storage closet and is now scratching at the rooftop door, no doubt convinced I've left without her. My poor little sweetheart.

The thought of her being trapped out here feels worse than the possibility of being stuck like this forever.

Morning turns into the late afternoon, and no one, not a single soul, has been up on the roof today. Not even Kyle. After a few failed attempts at climbing up the Shrinkatron's legs, I finally resign myself to plopping down on the ground to recover. I'm parched, my stomach is growling, and Bonnet is napping in the corner while her dumbass owner is too powerless to help her.

As the stars overhead begin to twinkle in the night sky, the soft song of crickets fills the air. I smooth the creases on my shirt and look around for anything else to climb. As a connoisseur of video games, I'd like to think that my platforming skills are relatively decent. But all I see in the near vicinity are potted plants and table legs. Perched on that now-enormous table is the beehive, of course. But underneath it … spider webs.

Wait a sec. I have an idea. It's risky, of course, but it's not like I have much of a choice. I make a run for the spider webs and place one of my feet on the silken thread. My pulse spikes as my cheeks burn. I only ran for what was probably thirty seconds, and I'm already out of breath. Pathetic. If I ever get back to my original size, I vow to hit the gym at least three times a week, because being this out-of-breath from doing so little is embarrassing. I steady my hands on the trembling thread and pull myself up along the web like it's a rope net on a playground. I used to love playing on those as a kid, until I realized that when you fall and hit the ground, it hurts. A lot.

I let out a grunt. The muscles in my arms strain each time I pull myself up inch by agonizing inch.

"Come on, Calvin," I huff. "Let's go. Just a little … further…"

When I look back down at the ground, I cringe. Haven't exactly made much progress, but I'm doing better than I thought I would. Once I'm on another level of the web, I shuffle across until I see the leaf of one of the tomato plants. Huh, I guess I could jump on to it and hope I don't splatter on the concrete. I try not to think about that as I climb up to the leaf.

I'm almost to the leaf tip when something dark skitters in the corner of my eye. I turn my head so sharply I lose my balance and stumble forward. But instead of falling to the ground, I find myself stuck in the sticky web. The dark body skitters forward with alarming speed, and it's then that I notice the mandibles and the pale gray, womanly torso glowing in the darkness.

The spider moves into a sliver of moonbeam, illuminating her ghastly features. Dozens of glossy black eyes peer at me, and her jet-black hair falls over her bare, globe-like breasts. The spider-woman monster has no arms to speak of, only eight legs. She brings one up to her ruby red lips and grins.

"Oh, my, my. What a delicious little morsel! What are you, I wonder? Not a fly. Not a bee. Not a butterfly, either. A shame. I do so love the sound of their shrieks as I snap off their wings…" she coos as she skitters closer, closing the distance between us.

"H-Help! Help me!" I scream in vain. I'm done for. My muscles strain against their bonds as pure, undiluted terror pumps through my veins. "Help!" I manage to croak out before the spider-woman descends on me and grabs my body like a rag doll. But before she can wrap me up in her paralyzing web, the sound of buzzing distracts her.

She jerks her head up and blinks. "What? Who dares disturb my meal?"

I strain against the web to look, but I'm forced to stare straight ahead.

"Save the Caretaker!" someone cries in the distance. And then the buzzing grows louder, louder, until dozens of honeybees launch themselves at the spider, brandishing swords that look suspiciously like stingers in their fuzzy hands.

I watch in bewilderment as the honeybees cry out, striking the spider repeatedly with their swords. At first, the spider-woman tries to mount a counterattack and defend herself against the bees by grabbing them with her legs, but it's no use. There are way too many of them.

One of the honeybees, covered head to toe in silver armor, pierces the spider-woman's abdomen as she tries to flee. She lets out a dying wail and collapses to the ground below, curling up into a ball.

I gulp. Great. Is it my turn next? I flex my arms and try to yank them free of the sticky web again, but it's no use.

My heart thunders in my ears as the blood in my pathetically small body courses through it like liquid nitrogen. I may not be getting eaten by a spider-woman today after all, thank fuck, but I'm not out of the woods yet. The bees cut through the spider web easily with their stinger blades, which is great until I'm suddenly in free-fall, hurtling toward the concrete.

My stomach drops as the ground rises to meet me, but right before I'm turned into goo, I'm caught in a pair of fuzzy arms. The bee, with its oval black eyes and friendly smile, looks down at me.

"You are safe, Caretaker. Fear not. We will take you back to our hive!" My bee savior swoops through the air with me in her arms, and my stomach flies up into my throat. Don't puke, don't puke, don't puke.

Okay, so I've never been a big fan of roller coasters; I'm prone to motion sickness, and it turns out honeybee flight is very much the same deal. My stomach once again threatens to upend itself on my new friend, but before things can get truly dire, we land at the entrance to the hive and she places me down on my feet. "We have arrived," she announces.

I dust off my shirt and readjust my glasses, which have somehow survived the entire ordeal and remained on my face. The wooden box I've inherited is now the size of a palace and is just as intimidating. Only instead of it appearing like a beige box, it… No, it can't be.

I rub my eyes. Maybe the trauma from the spider-woman jostled a few brain cells loose? Because when I gape up at the hive, it now takes on the appearance of a golden castle that gleams in the moonlight. Its sharp spires reach for the stars, and on closer inspection, I notice that the windows are all hexagonal.

"Like honeycombs," I mutter.

The bee who rescued me arches an eyebrow and moves to my side. "I beg your pardon, Caretaker?"

I have no idea why she's calling me that, and I shake my head. "It's … it's nothing. Wasn't this a box just a minute ago? Am I going out of my mind?"

I've gone temporarily insane. That's it. Must be.

"Ah," the honeybee says, following my line of sight up to the golden steeples. "Our hive is an impressive sight, is it not? You are basking in the beauty of the Sugardove City colony." She flashes a smirk. "And no, you are not losing your mind. We are fae, and the box you saw before was merely a glamour. We have wards in place so as not to draw attention from your people or potential predators."

I blink. "O-Oh. Okay." Sure. Glamour magic. Makes perfect sense.

But my face falls when I realize there's no drawbridge or even a door to go through. "Wait, how do we get inside, then?"

"I will carry you up, Caretaker. Do not fear. This will only take a moment," she says, and then she launches us both up, up into the air again. Oh, god. Not this again. I let out a cry as she soars high into the air and swoops down on the other side of the golden wall.

On the other side of the wall, we land in the plush mound of grass surrounded by thorny bushes with white flowers. She releases me, and I brush some of the flower petals from my shirt and hair.

"That was unorthodox, but we arrived in one piece, so … could be worse," I say.

"Why wouldn't we?" the honeybee says, tilting her head at me. When I look up at her, I notice that she isn't actually wearing a helmet at all; no, it's silver a mask, the kind found at a masquerade ball, with flower etchings carved into the corners. And what I thought were fancy decorations jutting from the top of her helmet are actually her antennae clad in silver clasps.

When I turn to look around, the sweet, pungent scent of honey fills my nostrils. The hexagonal windows glow with a pulsating amber hue, and within them, dark shapes stir to life.

"Our young," she answers. The other bees who aided in my rescue land beside us and sheath their stinger blades at their sides. Their enormous abdomens swing back and forth as they walk toward the large doorway. It, too, is hexagonal, but there is no obvious way of opening it.

When one of the bees approaches the doorway, she knocks on it four times in a strange pattern. Quick, quick, pause. Quick, quick. The door rumbles to life as it shifts and groans open, and a cacophony of buzzing thrums from the other side. The armor-clad bees quickly form two lines on both sides of the cobblestone walkway. A moment later, a much larger honeybee strides through the doorway, flanked by a taciturn-looking guard and a thinner woman in a tight-fitting red dress.

The large honeybee wears a thin, golden tiara atop her head, and her gauzy, golden dress trails across the floor like something out of a fairy tale. Her dark brown curls bounce with every step, along with her prominent breasts. Look at her face, Calvin, look at her face . Her own mask takes up the majority of her face and is covered in tiny, multi-colored jewels that glimmer in the moonlight. This must be … their queen? I swallow thickly and tug at my collar.

They stop a few feet in front of us, and I can't help but sweep into a low bow. It only seems appropriate in this situation. "U-Um, hello, Your … Your Majesty?" I ask, my voice cracking on the last syllable. I die a little inside. One time, years ago, when Elvis got too curious for his own good and went to a BDSM sex club somewhere in the city, he said he was "scaroused" by the women there.

"Scaroused" is really the only appropriate word, here. This woman is smoking hot in a way I never thought humanly possible, which makes sense considering she's not human. But she's also intimidating as hell, too.

"Caretaker! Welcome to our kingdom," the queen says loudly enough for everyone to hear. "This is the first time a human has entered our realm and?—"

The woman next to the queen coughs into her gloved hand. "Your Highness," she says. "Forgive the interruption, but perhaps we could escort the Caretaker indoors first?"

Silence descends upon the garden, save for the odd chirp of a cricket. The queen slowly turns to the woman beside her, heat flaring in her eyes. She opens her mouth, then snaps it shut again before turning back to me.

"Yes. Of course. You've suffered a terrible ordeal," she says, her voice velvety smooth. "Please, come inside and have some refreshments. You must be exhausted."