The Honeydrop Tree: a novelette

By Matthew S. Rosin

The lost community of Apistown trades honey with the outside world to survive. But its children do not know where the honored honey comes from—nor about the guilt the town must bear.

One night, Amelia, Isaac, and Cassie dream of a great tree. Honey seeps through the tree’s fruit and falls to waiting vessels below.

Could this be Apistown’s lifeblood? Is such a tree possible?

The three friends set out to learn the truth. And their parents, guided by three mysterious matrons, must choose: protect their children or keep faith with the community.

The truth will transform them all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matthew S. Rosin
• Release date: Mar 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311098030

Matthew S. Rosin

Matthew S. Rosin (he/him/his) is a stay-at-home dad, author, and composer based in the Bay Area, California.Rosin is author of the memoir-in-essays Fatherhood Is Learning and publishes the Fatherhood Is Learning newsletter. His reflective essays on fatherhood as a learning process have appeared in STAND Magazine, On Being, and Fatherly Voices. Before staying home with my kids, he was a writer and researcher in the education non-profit sphere, and he holds a Ph.D. in Education from Stanford University.Rosin’s short fiction has appeared in KYSO Flash, The Luxembourg Review, r.kv.r.y. quarterly, and Shotgun Honey, and he is author of the novelette The Honeydrop Tree. He also composes and records music that blends popular and experimental genres.

Book preview

The Honeydrop Tree

a novelette

Matthew S. Rosin

Copyright 2015 Matthew S. Rosin.

Distributed by Smashwords.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Cover by Matthew S. Rosin.

www.matthewsrosin.com

For Eloise.

Table of Contents

Begin reading The Honeydrop Tree

Acknowledgments

About Matthew S. Rosin

Copyright Notice and Disclaimer

They just appear.

The honey hunter blinked. What do you mean, ‘appear’?

The distributor sipped his wine and leaned forward. I shouldn’t be telling you this, he said. Several nights a year, we put palettes stacked with supplies around a tree—fertilizer, metals, tools, you name it. Everything is off the books. In the morning, it’s all gone and the jars of honey are in a hole in the tree.

The distributor poured more wine into his glass. I learned the place from my old man, he said.

The honey hunter sat back in her chair, unsure what to think. She had bought jars of Apistown honey from this man’s secret cache for years, re-selling them to the agents of rich honey connoisseurs. More than any other, this distributor had always seemed like a tell-it-like-it-is kind of guy.

Come on, the honey hunter said finally. You know me. Tell me the truth.

No, it’s true, the distributor protested. It’s always been this way.

Well, who takes the fertilizer?

No idea, said the distributor. We never see them.

The honey hunter removed her glasses with one hand and rubbed her eyes with the other. Don’t you watch the spot? she asked.

Can’t—the exchange won’t happen. The distributor slumped back in his chair. Look, when I took over the business, I wanted to know the truth, too. I sat in the dark all night. I set up cameras. But nothing happened. Everything we piled up around the tree just sat there. No honey. His face darkened. I learned to follow the rules and do what my old man taught me.

The honey hunter pondered the strange story. She muttered, more to herself than to her companion, Fertilizer?

Yeah, the distributor said. There’s even an old story about a piano.

The honey hunter rubbed her eyes again. The unreason of it all carved a furrow in her brow.

The next day, the honey hunter visited her best customer, a longtime agent who bought Apistown honey for a select list of clients.

Please give your client my compliments on the wine, the honey hunter said. A government minister, is he?

Something like that, the agent said curtly. Did my client’s wine loosen any tongues?

You won’t believe this, the honey hunter said.

She told the strange story to the agent, who told it to his client, who told it to another honey connoisseur, and so on. In some tellings, the distributor with the loose lips never acquired Apistown honey again. In others, he died mysteriously.

No one in the black market for Apistown honey asked about its origin again. The thought of being banished from the cult was unbearable. The honey’s savory overtones and hint of spice justified all discretion, contra-flow of resources, and reverence.

Instead, honey connoisseurs took pleasure in imagining what nectar the bees regurgitated to yield such a flavor. They inspected each jar for clues. The proper angle of light, cast into a jar and swallowed by the amber substance within, revealed the word Apistown, etched above a hexagon that surrounded a tree.

The glow drew closer. A sweet smell and buzzing drone filled the air, and the dark tunnel opened to a vast forest clearing.

A great tree towered at the center of the clearing. Its trunk was rippled with contours and crevices, like strands of muscle ready to burst through the bark, streaked with dark sap. Roots radiated outward, arced into the air like bent knees, and plunged deep into the earth.

Thick, sap-stained branches reached for the edges of the clearing, high above the ground. Woody tendrils, covered with leaves, sprang up from the branches. They tangled in search of sunlight and wove a canopy that blocked out the sky.

But the clearing was not dark. Hundreds of giant, swollen fruit hung like ornaments from the branches. The fruit blushed with a rhythmic pulse, like cheeks embarrassed then redeemed, and bathed the clearing in shifting, amber light.

Beads of honey seeped like sweat through the tender skin of the fruit. One bead joined