“Sure thing,” Wonder Woman said. Bumblebee didn’t like fibbing to her friends, but she wasn’t staying behind to visit. No, she was going to follow the directions in the note and bring her parents back safely.
The note was written in childlike scrawl and hard to decipher. There was a map attached, but it didn’t appear to be to scale and the coordinates were jumbled with arrows pointing this way and that. As Bumblebee took off, the sky began to get overcast. She worried about her solar panels, and kept trying to pierce through the clouds to get to the sunlight.
Because the map was so confusing, Bumblebee had trouble staying on course. It didn’t help that a storm was threatening—she felt heavy with dread as the clouds turned dark and the air thickened and cooled. Finally, Bumblebee recognized a mountain range in the distance. Just past it was the final destination—the X on the map. She took a deep breath. Her battery pack began to flicker. She had 23 percent power left.
Once she cleared the top of the jagged gray mountain range, the clouds parted enough to reveal a huge castle below. Bumblebee slowed. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Can this even be real? she wondered. Bumblebee circled a few times, enough to get the lay of the land, then finally landed inside the massive dark and dreary estate.
The run-down castle looked like it might have been beautiful in another time, in another place. All around the crumbling palace was a blighted and desolate landscape. Bare trees, dried and hunched over, leaned against each other like weary skeletons. Flowers, brittle to the touch, gathered in clumps in what had most likely been a lavish flower bed in another life. Instead of green, all was gray. And the air. The air was so heavy she had to push through it, like wading through the water in a murky pond.
Bumblebee sneezed.
As she walked down the dirt path leading to the castle, the crunch of dead leaves announced her. Bumblebee turned off her battery to save energy. Above the heavy wooden door was a crest for “Honeycomb Hall.” Bumblebee thought of calling Batgirl for backup, then remembered the ominous warning.
If you ever want to see your parents again, do not tell anyone where you are going.
Bumblebee wondered if her parents were inside. Who would do this, and why? Her heart raced.
The door creaked when she pushed it open. Bumblebee sneezed again. Apprehension took hold of her as she entered the cold and dark castle. It was cavernous, with a maze of rooms. Worn tapestries depicting staid royal families lined the walls. Everyone looked sad, even the dogs who sat at their masters’ feet. White sheets over furniture looked like odd-shaped ghosts, and stained-glass windows were covered with a layer of dust.
At the far end of a narrow hallway lined with ancient medieval weapons, Bumblebee thought she saw a flicker of light from underneath a heavy velvet curtain. A familiar sound drew her toward it. It sounded like—could it be? The buzz of bees?
The closer Bumblebee got, the louder the sound. Only, this buzzing wasn’t the usual happy sound of bees visiting flowers and humming around their hives. No, this was a menacing, angry sound unlike anything she had ever heard before.
Bumblebee turned on her batteries, just in case. Then she took a deep breath and pulled back the curtain.