There’s something in me that insists it is summer, but that something has yet to convince the weather. The drizzle that welcomed my last visitor, hasn’t stopped for more than half an hour (at most) since then, and I believe that to have been a week ago, although it’s hard to keep track. I feel as if the whole world is soaked through with soft, grey, wet.

I’m surprised when my door opens, although I shouldn’t be. A person’s final journey – in this world at least – pays no attention to the weather, or anything else.

It’s a man this time, bent with age, although I see the upright younger version of himself trying to assert its identity. The soul and its memory of the body it was in plays funny tricks sometimes.

He’s dressed for the weather, this one, a practical soul then, though as weary as the last one who sat by my fire. As he settles into the chair with a sigh, a few bees, five at most, appear from somewhere and buzz around him, circling and bobbing. It seems like they’re checking on him, fussing like small, concerned mothers.

I decide on my Comforting Brew, with a drop of honey, and hope it will soothe my visitor’s companions as much as him.

As I fuss around my tea pot and kettle, looking much like those bees, I’m sure, I ask. “What is weighing on you?”

The man raised a hand for one of his bees to land on, and watched it wander across his skin. “I’m worried about my bees.”

He went on. “I’ve kept bees all my life. Supplied town and castle with the finest wax and honey, but I don’t know what’s going to happen to my hives now. My daughter’s never had an affinity for bees, and she doesn’t like that her daughter does.

“I’ve left the cottage, and the garden to my granddaughter, as guardian of the bees, but I’ve gone too early. Tansy is only twelve and I worry her parents will make decisions for her that cannot be reversed.”

I poured the tea and stirred in the honey, handing it to him, saying. “I don’t know which bees my supply has come from, but I hope it’s a decent substitute for yours.”

He sipped, and sighed, relaxing back into the chair like something in him had softened. “This is from my bees. Their best early summer harvest, all blossom and new growth.”

“And the sage.” He pondered the taste. “It smells like the bunches our baker used to hang in her kitchen. She passed a week ago.”

I described my last visitor and the beekeeper smiled. “Yes, that’s her. I hope she has a good long rest and a comfortable time, wherever she is now.”

“What do you hope for?” It seemed like a good question to ask.

The man looked fondly at the bees resting on his arms and legs. There were more of them than there had been, I was sure…I think…

I was so bemused by the bees, I nearly missed his response.

“I want to find a place where my little friends and I can enjoy soft rain, warm sunshine, and the most glorious, nectar-filled flowers any world can conjure.”

He stood, straighter now than when he’d arrived, and opened the door. He didn’t leave immediately though, waiting as his bees disappeared into the drizzly dark, then returned – more of them again – each bearing a water droplet. They dropped their gifts into a clean mug on my counter until it was full of fresh cloud dew.

A final smile, a nod, and the man and his bees were gone.