Chapter Twenty-Three
The wasps arrived in force the next day. An invading army that materialized out of nowhere and overran the bees’ puny defenses.
Andrew, out for the mail, ducked back into the house in a sweat. “They’re all over the place. I had to run!”
Cassie abandoned the tuna sandwich she’d been making for her dad. “Bees?”
“Wasps, I think.” He winced as he felt his neck. “One got me.”
Cassie pushed back his hair for a look. Sure enough the tender skin behind his ear was already going puffy and red.
“How can you tell if it was a wasp or a bee?” Shelly said.
“Must have been a wasp the way they came after me. Grandpa says they’re way more aggressive than bees.”
“Don’t rub it.” Cassie wrapped a couple of ice cubes in a dish towel.
How on earth did you get rid of wasps? She didn’t know the first thing about them, except they were bad news.
Andrew getting stung was bad enough, but her dad was just coming off a heart attack.
A wasp sting could be downright dangerous for him.
She handed Andrew the ice. “Hold it there, sweetie. It’ll keep it from swelling. ”
“It’s already swelling,” he grumbled but sat in a kitchen chair and applied the ice to his neck.
Her father, who’d settled at the table for lunch, looked agitated. “We never had wasps before. Where did you say they were?”
Cassie sent Andrew a warning look but he didn’t notice. “Down by the hives, but this one got me at the mailbox.”
“I need to get down there and take a look.”
Cassie exchanged a worried glance with Shelly. The last thing they needed was their dad over-exerting himself with a last-ditch effort to save his hives. “Dad, maybe we should just leave them. What can you possibly do?”
But he was up and moving, nosing the chair out of the way with his cane.
“Wait Grandpa!” Andrew said. “You don’t have your veil on. You can’t go down there like that.”
“Dad.” Shelly tried to steer him back to the table. “How about we call the bee guy.”
Cassie’s stomach took an unhappy dip. She’d heard a big fat nothing from Glenn; he hadn’t returned any of her messages.
She’d had her phone with her constantly, her heart taking off every time she got some stupid alert.
She’d tried texting him too but not a word.
Whatever scrap of hope she’d had that they could find a way back to each other had been shredded. He’d made his feelings perfectly clear.
“We’re not calling Glenn,” she said.
Andrew gave her a puzzled look. “Why not?”
“He’s not available.”
“He’d probably come for this,” Shelly said quietly.
“No.”
“Andrew.” Her father was chafing by the door. He’d cast off the walker and gone back to the cane. “Where’s that veil?”
Andrew looked helplessly between his mother and his aunt. “It’s um…coming. I’ll go get it.”
“Cassie,” Shelly whispered, “maybe you should just call him. Tell him it’s an emergency.”
“It’s not an emergency, it’s just a few wasps.
” But her skin prickled at the thought of what might be going on out there.
Still, no way was she calling Glenn. He would think she was pathetic, inventing an excuse.
Even if he agreed to come out of some sort of professional duty, it would be unbearable.
Him all stiff and formal. She knew exactly how he’d be. They would deal with it on their own.
“More than a few, Mom,” Andrew put in. “Look. There’s some right here by the house.”
They all peered out the narrow window next to the front door.
Outside, a pair of yellowjackets cruised lazily like they owned the place.
A few months ago, Cassie wouldn’t have been able to tell them from bees, just another stinging insect.
But now she recognized the pinched waist and vivid yellow stripes.
Yellowjackets were a kind of wasp, a sleeker, more lethal cousin to the homely honeybee.
Bees wore themselves out traipsing from flower to flower in search of nectar and pollen.
But wasps were opportunists. They hounded you at picnics, they’d eat your hamburger or dive bomb your soda.
Instead of turning pollen into honey like the industrious bees, they invaded weak hives, stole their honey and sucked the life out of the brood while they were at it.
Her dad paced by the window. In another minute there would be no stopping him.
“I’ll go take a look,” Cassie said reluctantly.
“Andrew, can you get the smoker?” Smoke might get rid of them.
It seemed to calm the bees, maybe it would drive off the wasps.
At least enough to give the bees a chance to regroup.
Her heart knocked around her chest thinking of all those stingers, but she couldn’t just abandon the bees to their fate.
They were her dad’s last connection to her mom, the one constant in his life.
“You’re going out there?” Shelly said. “You’re crazy.”
“What else can I do? If I don’t go, Dad will.” But inwardly, she wilted at the thought of wading into a firestorm of wasps with only a tin can full of smoke.
Andrew appeared with the bee suit and Cassie stepped in, zipping up the jacket tight, snapping on gloves.
Andrew ventured onto the porch with her, both of them glancing around apprehensively, but the outliers had flown off.
“Grandpa’s still looking out the window,” Andrew said as they lit newspaper in the smoker to get it going.
“Maybe you can get him to work on a puzzle, keep him occupied for a few minutes.”
“Are you kidding? He’s not going to budge.”
Cassie had to smile at her father with his nose pressed against the glass. “At least don’t let him out here.”
After Andrew went in, she trudged alone down the driveway, checking again to make sure her pants were tucked all the way into her boots.
Not even knee-high beekeeping boots, just old mud boots she’d found in the closet.
But her veil was tightly zipped. Sleeves tucked into gloves.
Pants tucked into boots. She could do this.
She thought of her dad waiting by the window. She had to.
She waded through the field, riotous with wildflowers.
The ancient stone wall, bits of it crumbling, but still intact.
And the house, presiding over it all like an elegant dowager.
How had she failed to appreciate this all these years?
The closer she got to inking the deal with Weber the more reservations she had.
It wasn’t just Glenn, although he’d made her think.
Until now, the development had been theoretical, but seeing the Kingsley property ripped up had excavated a hole inside her too.
Rubble where trees had been, the woods leveled to make way for fancy homes.
She’d run the numbers half a dozen times but still didn’t see any other way.
She approached the hives cautiously, puffing the smoker to make sure it was still lit, her heart in overdrive like she’d downed a whole pot of coffee.
And ooh shit.
The wasps! The air churned with them. Dozens, no hundreds of wasps swarming the hives. Zeroing right into the boxes!
A pitched battle was underway. Honeybees boiled from the narrow entrances in an effort to repel the attacking wasps.
The bees surged out, trying valiantly to smother the yellowjackets and keep them from getting in but the wasps came on.
There was no end to them! The air seethed with yellowjackets.
They were easy to spot—more streamlined than the bees, with those devilish stripes.
And wicked fast. Launching themselves past the defending bees into the belly of the hives.
Cassie yelped when one tested her veil. Wait! What was that terrible tingling inside her suit! What if one was crawling up her leg? Didn’t Glenn say they could sting repeatedly? She shook one leg, then the other in a crazy dance.
Oh, why had she come out here?
She forced herself to breathe. Deep breath in. Long breath out. She calmed slightly.
Okay. Nothing had found a way inside her suit.
She crept closer, puffing smoke furiously, but the wasps didn’t seem bothered. They dove through the entrances at the bottom of the boxes, overwhelming the bees.
Then an awful thought. The smoke was supposed to relax the bees, that was how you opened up the hive. But if she knocked out the bees, it was all over. They couldn’t fight if they were comatose.
She stepped back, coughing from the smoke, trying to think.
The bees were fighting their little hearts out.
Three of them had a wasp on the ropes, the yellowjacket on its back, moving feebly.
But a dozen more had taken its place. The bees couldn’t keep up.
There must be thousands of wasps, unending reinforcements.
Cassie felt a gust of despair. Moving was going to be hard enough on her dad but to have to tell him his beloved bees had been wiped out by wasps would break his heart. It would be more than he could bear.
She turned away, unable to watch the carnage any longer. The bees would fight to the end, she had no doubt. But the wasps were a superior force. They outnumbered the bees and they were vicious.
She put a safe distance between herself and the hives, checking to make sure nobody was following, then shook off the veil and fished out her phone. Glenn could be here in half an hour. Maybe less. He was done with her, but he might come for her dad.
She wavered, heartsick about everything.
The bees, the property, the way life had almost offered up something wonderful.
Her marriage had failed. Her memory might fail.
Her relationship with Glenn had definitely failed.
If she went running to him about the bees, it would be one more thing she couldn’t get right.
Maybe he could save them and maybe he couldn’t.
She opened up her internet browser. You could find anything online; she’d found a beekeeper that way. If you could slow down mites with powdered sugar, there had to be a remedy for wasps. It was just a matter of finding it.