CHAPTER FOUR

  The Finger and the Stinger

  III

  Ez got to her feet carefully, so as not to brush any of the hornets, and followed their gaze to the center of the room, where Thoralf’s head protruded from the crowd. A short distance from him—Ez had to crane her neck to see it—the trapdoor lay open to a square of darkness, and this seemed to be the subject of the hornets’ rapt attention. To her dismay, Wilburn’s head floated up through it, followed by the rest of him, clad in his red pajamas. The boy wasn’t shaking anymore. The fit had passed, and he now looked remarkably at ease—in fact, uncannily so. He wore a placid, dreamy smile, and his eyes were closed, as if he were savoring some exquisite treat.

  Ez didn’t know what to do. A score of hornets stood between her and her son. Her only weapon was her hunting knife, which wasn’t made for killing, but for dressing game after she’d shot it with her bow. Did she dare make a move? What if by doing so she prompted the hornets to resume their attack? They would have Wilburn in their clutches long before she reached him... Ez hesitated.

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  One hornet at the front of the group crept forward from the rest. It approached Wilburn, who—“NO!” Ez cried—drifted complacently to meet it. The insect levered itself upright to balance on its rearmost legs, thrumming its folded wings for stability as its abdomen curled under and its stinger began to extend. The black lance tapered to an impossibly sharp needle tip, where a drop of violet venom clung, quivering. Ez made her move. But it was futile. One hornet smacked the knife out of her hand; another walloped her between the shoulder blades with a leg like a small tree. There was a strangely absentminded quality to their actions. She fell hard, and they could easily have killed her… but they didn’t. Their heads swiveled back to face the center of the room, as if they were captivated by the spectacle before them. They ignored Ez as she staggered to her feet.

  Wilburn was floating on a level with the hornet’s stinger. Still smiling, his eyes still closed, he reached out with his index finger. Ez screamed for him not to do it. But he did. Slowly and deliberately—and remarkably precisely given that he couldn’t see what he was doing—Wilburn pricked the very tip of his finger on the hornet’s stinger. His face went blank. His eyes blinked open. He looked at his hand. A shudder ran through his entire body. Then he crumpled to the floor.