Chap­ter 5 of All the Col­ors of the Dark begins by intro­duc­ing the par­al­lel morn­ing rou­tines of two cen­tral char­ac­ters, Saint and Patch. As the first light of dawn stretch­es across the sky, Saint qui­et­ly awak­ens in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing, eager to begin her day. She slips out of her room and makes her way to the rear porch, hop­ing to enjoy a moment of peace before the world ful­ly stirs. The soft sound of birds chirp­ing in the dis­tance is the only noise that fills the air as she stands in soli­tude, observ­ing the tran­quil sur­round­ings. Sev­er­al streets away, Patch begins her day in a sim­i­lar man­ner. She watch­es the sun rise over the hori­zon, cast­ing gold­en hues across the misty grass. The mist appears almost ethe­re­al, ris­ing from the ground like smoke, adding an air of mys­tery to the scene. As she con­tem­plates the beau­ty around her, a strange, unset­tling silence fills the air, which catch­es her atten­tion. Uncer­tain of its source, she feels com­pelled to ven­ture bare­foot across the damp yard to inves­ti­gate. Her jour­ney leads her to the bee­hive, only to dis­cov­er that the bees, which she has cared for with great atten­tion, have inex­plic­a­bly van­ished.

Mean­while, Saint, hav­ing already ven­tured out­side, is gripped with an increas­ing sense of urgency. She rush­es up the stairs to her grand­moth­er, Nor­ma, to inform her about the mys­te­ri­ous dis­ap­pear­ance of the bees. Saint, clear­ly out of breath, insists that some­one must have stolen them, and her words tum­ble out in a rush. Nor­ma, who seems less alarmed, calm­ly observes that Saint is not wear­ing her glass­es, sug­gest­ing that per­haps the bees are still in the hive, hid­den from view. Saint, refus­ing to con­sid­er that pos­si­bil­i­ty, dash­es back to her attic bed­room to retrieve her glass­es. While there, she hur­ried­ly brush­es her teeth with her fin­ger, a con­se­quence of a mishap involv­ing a dog fos­sil ear­li­er that morn­ing. Despite the incon­ve­nience, she hur­ries back out­side to find Nor­ma inspect­ing the emp­ty hive, fur­ther con­firm­ing that the bees are indeed miss­ing. Saint feels the weight of the sit­u­a­tion press­ing on her chest, her con­cern deep­en­ing as she tries to make sense of what hap­pened.

Nor­ma, ever the calm and prac­ti­cal fig­ure, offers log­i­cal expla­na­tions for the absence of the bees. Per­haps ants had attacked the hive, or a skunk had dis­turbed the bees dur­ing the night. But Saint’s mount­ing anx­i­ety refus­es to be quelled by such sim­ple answers. She believes that after four years of tend­ing to the bees, they must have devel­oped some kind of bond with her. The idea that the bees could sim­ply van­ish with­out any clear rea­son does not sit well with her. As they con­tin­ue to pon­der the sit­u­a­tion, Nor­ma casu­al­ly men­tions a recent news sto­ry about a bee­keep­er from Wayne Coun­ty who was arrest­ed for steal­ing hives. This men­tion strikes a chord in Saint, and her sus­pi­cion quick­ly shifts to a local man, Mr. Lewis. She accus­es him out­right, recall­ing his past behav­ior when he was caught tak­ing sam­ples from stores with­out pay­ing for them. The mem­o­ry of his past actions makes her increas­ing­ly cer­tain that he is the one respon­si­ble for steal­ing the bees.

Saint’s anger inten­si­fies as she con­sid­ers the impli­ca­tions of what she believes to be a theft. She can­not under­stand why Mr. Lewis would take the bees, but her frus­tra­tion grows as she recalls his his­to­ry of pet­ty theft. Despite Norma’s calm attempts to dif­fuse the sit­u­a­tion, Saint’s emo­tions spill over. She demands that they do some­thing, that they take action. In her mind, the only log­i­cal step is to report Mr. Lewis to Chief Nix, believ­ing that he will take her seri­ous­ly and inves­ti­gate the mat­ter. How­ev­er, Nor­ma strong­ly objects to this idea, urg­ing Saint to stop and think before tak­ing such dras­tic steps. She warns her that going to the police with­out prop­er evi­dence could cause unnec­es­sary trou­ble and esca­late the sit­u­a­tion fur­ther.

In the heat of the argu­ment, Saint, unable to con­trol her emo­tions, storms off, leav­ing Nor­ma stand­ing behind with a mix of wor­ry and dis­ap­point­ment. The exchange between them leaves a mark on both of their hearts. Saint is filled with a sense of injus­tice and anger, while Nor­ma is left with the sink­ing feel­ing that her granddaughter’s impul­sive behav­ior could lead to seri­ous con­se­quences. The ten­sion between them is pal­pa­ble, and it’s clear that Saint’s frus­tra­tion with the sit­u­a­tion is more than just about the miss­ing bees. It rep­re­sents her deep­er feel­ings of help­less­ness and the strug­gle to make sense of the world around her, espe­cial­ly when it feels like peo­ple she knows and trusts could be involved in some­thing wrong.

The chap­ter con­cludes with a sense of unre­solved ten­sion, set­ting the stage for the emo­tion­al jour­ney Saint must now nav­i­gate. As she walks away from her grand­moth­er, the uncer­tain­ty of what has hap­pened with the bees weighs heav­i­ly on her mind. She can’t shake the feel­ing that some­thing is off about Mr. Lewis and that there is more to the sto­ry than meets the eye. The chap­ter leaves read­ers ques­tion­ing what will hap­pen next, as the dynam­ics between Saint, Nor­ma, and the rest of the com­mu­ni­ty become increas­ing­ly com­plex. What began as a seem­ing­ly sim­ple mystery—one about miss­ing bees—has opened a larg­er can of worms, reveal­ing deep­er con­flicts and emo­tions that will con­tin­ue to unfold in the chap­ters to come. Through this chap­ter, the read­er is drawn into a sto­ry filled with intrigue, fam­i­ly dynam­ics, and the emo­tion­al tur­moil of a young girl try­ing to find her place in a world that feels increas­ing­ly unpre­dictable and unfair.