The morning air hummed with the buzz of bees as Bart came racing into Leon's yard, his face flushed with excitement. "Leon! Isabella! I found a beehive—huge! We have to get the honey before someone else does!"
Leon glanced at Gage, who was chasing a butterfly with unsteady steps. "Gage is too little," he said. "We can't take him—he'll slow us down, and bees don't care about small children." Isabella nodded, already grabbing her cloak; she'd been cooped up helping with the bakery and jumped at the chance for adventure.
Bart led them across the river and into the eastern forest, over a small hill, until they reached a cliff face. There, tucked under an overhanging rock ten meters above the ground, three large beehives clung to the stone, bees swarming busily in and out. "See?" Bart whispered, eyes wide. "I followed a honeyguide here yesterday—those birds guard hives like they own them!"
Isabella craned her neck. "We can't climb that," she said. "What if we use ropes to lower someone down?"
Leon shook his head. "The rock overhang looks unstable—one wrong move and it'll collapse, honey and all. And neither of us is strong enough to hold the rope steady." He scanned the area, his mind racing. "We need a long pole, tied to a sickle, to cut the hives down. And smoke—bees hate smoke; it'll make them fly away so we can collect the honey safely."
They hurried back to the village, gathering supplies: two long wooden poles bound tightly together with hemp rope, a rusted sickle, a bundle of dry grass and leaves, and a woven basket. Leon also grabbed a piece of clean linen—he remembered that squeezing honey through cloth would strain out the wax and debris.
Back at the cliff, they cleared a small patch of ground, ringed it with stones, and lit the dry grass. "Add fresh leaves," Leon told Isabella. "We want smoke, not fire—we don't want to burn the bees, just drive them off. We can come back for more honey later if we leave some hives intact." Bart held the pole steady while Leon tied the sickle crosswise at the top, then attached the basket just below it to catch the falling hives.
Isabella waved a branch to direct the smoke toward the cliff, and the bees began to swarm, confused and disoriented. "Now!" Leon shouted. He and Bart lifted the pole together, guiding the sickle to the first hive. It took a few careful sawing motions, but with a soft "thud," the hive fell into the basket. They repeated the process for the second and third, leaving one small hive untouched as promised.
As the bees settled, the three crowded around the basket, dipping their fingers into the golden honey oozing from the comb. "This is the best I've ever tasted," Bart mumbled, licking his fingers. A small chunk of comb fell to the ground; Leon picked it up, blew off the dirt, and popped it into his mouth—after three years in the village, he'd learned not to be fussy about a little dust.
"Wait," Isabella said, wandering toward the base of the cliff. She pulled aside a curtain of vines, revealing a cave mouth about two meters above the ground, with natural stone steps leading up. "Look! There's a cave here!"
Leon tensed. "Stay back," he said. He grabbed a handful of stones and tossed them into the cave—no growls, no rustles. "Light some pine branches," he told Bart. "Torches. We don't know what's inside—snakes, scorpions, even bears. Be careful."
The torches cast flickering light as they climbed the steps. Inside, the cave was dry and empty, no sign of animal dens or droppings. "Safe," Leon said, relieved—he'd always had a fear of snakes, thanks to old village tales of giant pythons. They ventured deeper, and Isabella's torch illuminated the far wall.
"Leon! Look at this!"
The rock wall was covered in crude paintings—red and black figures of people hunting deer with bows, groups dancing or celebrating, and abstract shapes that might be cattle. On the ground, half-buried in dust, were several stone axes, their wooden handles long rotted away.
"Treasure!" Bart exclaimed, digging at the dirt with his hands. "Do you think bandits hid gold here?"
Leon rolled his eyes. "Bandits don't draw pictures on walls," he said. "These are prehistoric—from thousands of years ago. People lived here before the village existed." He ran his fingers over the paintings, a faint sense of wonder rising—back on Earth, he'd seen images of similar cave art, but this was real, tangible. "It's not gold, but it's pretty cool."
Bart's disappointment faded as he examined the stone axes. "Can we take one? It'll make a great weapon!" Leon nodded, and they each picked up a small axe, then headed back out—their honey harvest forgotten for a moment, replaced by the thrill of discovery.
On the walk home, Bart couldn't resist boasting. "I come here all the time," he said. "I know every trail in the forest." Leon raised an eyebrow. "Then why did you get lost last month and have to be rescued by your dad?" Bart's face turned red, and Isabella laughed—some things never changed.