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Summary

The Pirate and the Beekeeper: Chapters 1–18

The story begins in 1975, in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, and follows Joseph “Patch” Macauley, a thirteen-year-old boy born with only one eye and a penchant for stealing. He lives with his loving but scattered mother, Ivy; they are just barely scraping by, as Ivy is an alcoholic who struggles to find work. Ivy has encouraged her son’s obsession with pirates since an early age, sewing him ornate eyepatches to help him feel better about his having one eye. Scrappy and small, Patch tries to defend himself against Chuck Bradley, a bully who is dating Patch’s crush, Misty Meyer. One day in the woods, Patch sees Misty in the process of being abducted by a hooded man. He attacks the man with a knife, distracting him long enough so that Misty can run away. However, Patch is too small to fight, and the man stabs him in the stomach. 

Read more about the moment Patch decides to intervene in Misty’s abduction.

Patch’s best friend, Saint Brown, lives with her grandmother, Norma. Saint is a passionate beekeeper, but on the morning of Patch’s abduction finds that her bees have all gone. She goes to the police station only to come upon Misty Meyer telling Chief Nix about Patch saving her and being taken by the man. Saint is shocked and terrified; she goes by herself into the woodland and finds Patch’s t-shirt, covered in blood. 

The police begin gathering information on Patch’s disappearance, but have few leads except for the color of the van Patch was taken in. Saint attempts her own detective work, desperate to locate her friend. Chief Nix organizes a search party and Saint watches them go, only to be cornered by Chuck Bradley and his cronies. Before they can do anything worse than mock Patch’s disappearance, the kindly local Doctor, Dr. Tooms, sends them away from Saint. 

Saint recalls the day she started keeping bees. During her first year in Monta Clara, she researched beekeeping avidly, begging Norma to help her buy a hive, and eventually began selling her honey on the street. This is where she met Patch, who approached her under the guise of wanting to buy honey. He charmed her, and they became fast friends. Now, four days since Patch’s capture, Saint spends all of her time searching for him; she even goes to Daisy Creason from The Tribune and convinces her to run a profile on him alongside a reward for finding him. 

Saint goes with Norma to church, and afterwards sits with Misty Meyer, who tells Saint that she saw Dr. Tooms the day of the abduction, near the scene of the crime. Saint goes to the police station to tell Chief Nix, who tells her that Tooms had been looking for his dog that day in the woods. That afternoon, news breaks out that another girl, Callie Montrose, who lived in a town seventy miles from Monta Clare, has gone missing. Saint sneaks into the Macauley house that night and retrieves the one-shot flintlock replica pistol that she once gave to Patch as a gift.

Next section The Pirate and the Beekeeper, continued: Chapters 19–38

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