Honeycomb by Joanne Harris (book series for 12 year olds .txt) 📕

arrival at her gate had not quite been an accident; he had heard tell of her powers and longed to know more about them.

Over three days he had noticed that, although she often changed her clothes, the Spider Queen never took off her coronet of a thousand eyes. It gleamed upon her ice-white hair; blinking in all directions. This was the source of her magic, he knew. This was how she had seen him approach; how she had watched him from afar. A plan began to form in his mind. It was a very wicked plan, as well as being cruel and dangerous; which, of course, to the Lacewing King, made it all the more amusing.

And so on the night of the third day, the young King asked for the Spider Queen’s hand. The Queen accepted graciously, but warned him to be cautious.

“You are still young, Your Majesty,” she said with a look of tender concern. “Your Chancellor will try to advise you against making a rash decision.”

The Lacewing King took her hand. “We can marry in secret,” he said. “Then no one will interfere.”

The Spider Queen was very pleased. She stood in front of her mirror and combed her long white hair and smiled, and thought of how much more power she would have when she devoured the young King on the night of their wedding. She decided that the ceremony would take place in nine days and nine nights. That would give her time to prepare herself and her folk for the happy event.

Over those nine days, the King went back to his underground citadel. He told no one of his plans, but read his books and rode his horse and went about his duties in such a good, obedient way that the Glow-Worm Chancellor was moved to comment that His young Majesty should be away from home more often, and that his travels had sobered him.

Meanwhile, the Lacewing King had no intention of marrying. His plan was to steal the Spider Queen’s crown, which gave her the power to know and see everything in the kingdom. All he needed to do was wait until the Queen took off the crown—and then to hide his crime until he had managed to make his escape.

First, he went to his mother, the Honeycomb Queen, who lived among her beehives in the heart of the forest. He asked her for a swarm of bees, which she granted him willingly. The Honeycomb Queen knew her son and suspected he was up to some mischief; but she knew the bees would keep him safe and allow her to watch over him. And so the King went back to his court wearing a coat of golden bees; bees that would do his bidding and were sworn to his protection.

Eight days had passed since his return. On the eve of the ninth day, which was the eve of his wedding, the young King returned to the Spider Queen, wearing his coat of living bees. The Spider Queen welcomed him with delight, already tasting his flesh with her eyes.

That night, he said to the bees, “Tonight, fly to the lair of the Spider Queen and find her crown of a thousand eyes. When she is sleeping, take out those eyes and quickly bring them here to me. But for every eye you have stolen, take care to leave a bee in its place, so that the Queen does not notice that her crown has been plundered. Now, be careful—and be quick—the Queen only sleeps a few hours a night, and even then, not deeply.”

And so the bees flew out to do the bidding of the Lacewing King. They flew to the Spider Queen’s chamber, where she slept under a canopy of silk. Swarming over her coronet, they brought a hundred eyes to the King, and left a hundred bees in their place, winking, silent and alert.

The Spider Queen shifted in her sleep. She opened twelve eyes and looked around. But the missing eyes in her coronet had been filled with winking bees, and she did not notice the trickery. Meanwhile, the bees in her coronet began to hum a little song:

“Long ago, and far away,

Far away and long ago.

The Worlds are honeycomb, you know;

The Worlds are honeycomb.”

The song of the bees was so comforting that the Spider Queen fell asleep again. While she was sleeping, the bees returned, and took another hundred eyes, leaving a hundred bees in their place. Once more, the Queen stirred in her sleep; once more, the bees sang her to sleep.

“Long ago, and far away,

Far away and long ago.

The Worlds are honeycomb, you know;

The Worlds are honeycomb.”

Throughout the night, the swarm of bees worked to plunder the Spider Queen’s crown, and the Lacewing King stayed watchful as they stitched the eyes into his coat with skeins of silk and beeswax. By dawn, he had nine hundred eyes winking from his coat of bees, and only a hundred eyes remained before the King could make his escape.

In the Spider Queen’s chamber, a hundred bees prepared to take flight with the last of their plunder. In the ransacked coronet, a thousand honeybees nestled and winked. But, just at that moment, the Spider Queen stirred. One eye fluttered open, and she saw a bee crawling over her pillow. Once more, the bees began their song:

“Long ago, and far away,

Far away and long ago—”

But it was too late. The Queen was awake. She reached for her coronet of eyes and saw that it was filled with bees. “What is this?” said the Spider Queen. “Treachery, treason, thievery, theft!”

The bees in the coronet winked at her, then started to rise into the air. The sound of their wings was a murmur at first, then a hissing, then a roar. The Queen put on her coronet and tried to see beyond her lair. But her vision was darkened and blurred, and she knew that she was blind.

Seizing the delicate threads of her web, she sought the thief