The Probable Future by Alice Hoffman

looked inside him then, as though searching for the truth. She was looking inside him now. Dr. Stewart was a tall man, and there were some children in town who were afraid of his height and his stern manner. But the ones who knew him well didn’t fear him at all. They asked him for lollipops; they told him about what mattered most to them, curses and bees and forgiveness.
    “You’re overlooking all the important things, Elly. Just listen.”
    They stared at each other over the garden gate. Elinor Sparrow could not believe this man had the nerve to call her Elly, but she let that pass. She listened carefully. White clouds moved across the sky and the light was especially clear, with the luminous, milky quality out-of-town visitors always noticed.
    “I don’t hear anything.” Elinor brushed the dirt from her hands and knees, annoyed.
    “Precisely. No bees.”
    “No bees.” Elinor felt like an idiot. Why hadn’t she noticed before? The silence was so obvious, the problem so apparent. “Who would have put a curse like that on me?”
    Dr. Stewart shrugged. After all these years of being the only doctor in a small town, he knew enough not to place blame, especially when it resided so close by.
    “Now that you know what’s wrong, you can fix it. Here’s how: Feed ’em cake.” Dr. Stewart made this suggestion matter-of-factly, much as he would recommend aspirin for headaches or ginger ale and licorice syrup for stomachaches. “Then ask them to come back. And be polite when you do it. Their feelings have been hurt. And they’re not the only ones, if you really want to know.”
    Elinor had gone directly to the kitchen once the doctor left. She searched the pantry until she found a week-old sponge cake, which she doused with brandy and cream. But before she could carry the platter outside, the doorbell rang. It was the delivery boy from the pharmacy, who dropped off Jenny’s antibiotics, then rushed back to his car, making a hasty U-turn before Elinor could approach and accuse him of trespassing.
    As Elinor Sparrow examined the vial of chalky penicillin, she realized something about her house. Cake House was even more silent than the garden was without bees. She had hurt their feelings, and she hadn’t even known it. She had been caught in some sort of web that spun days into months, months into years. She understood exactly where the curse had begun. It was the damage she’d done, it was the way she’d turned away, it was the child left to fend for herself.
    Jenny was half-asleep when Elinor came upstairs with her medicine.
    “Take this and hurry up,” Elinor said.
    Jenny was so surprised to have her mother ministering to her that she quickly did as she was told.
    “Now get out of bed and come with me.”
    Jenny threw on her bathrobe and followed, barefoot and confused. She thought of a dozen possibilities for her mother’s sudden interest: the lake had overflowed, the pipes in the house had burst, the wasps in the attic had broken through the plasterboard. Surely, it must be a true emergency for her mother to think of her.
    “I haven’t been paying attention to things.” They had stopped inthe pantry, so that Elinor could fetch the sticky cake. Ants had crawled onto the plate, and the smell of the brandy was overwhelming. “Now I have to give this to the bees. I have to ask for their forgiveness and invite them to come back.” She looked right at Jenny, her tangled hair, her wary expression. “I hope it’s not too late.”
    Elinor took the cake outside. Before she had taken two steps, a bee had appeared to hover above her in the air.
    “Was Dr. Stewart the one who told you about the bees?” Jenny was feverish, and being on her feet made her dizzy. She stayed on the porch and leaned against the railing. “I told him a secret, and he went and told you.”
    “Of course he did. Now let’s hope it works.”
    As for Elinor, she felt light-headed as well. Like a fool, she had thrown something away, and