Tiny Flying Therapists
REESE
By the time I get home from school, I have misplaced my phone twice—once on my own book cart, and once in the return bin— showed up late to a meeting simply because I forgot about it, and spent twelve full minutes looking for my super cute cardigan.
It looks like one of those old library cards where they stamp the date on the line and usually don’t actually get it in the right spot, and it’s one of my favorites.
So, really, an average day. Possibly even a successful one, if you count the fact that I got five things crossed off my to-do list. Less so if you consider that I added a significantly higher number of items to it.
I’ve gotten exactly one text from Miles today that came in about noon.
Miles: Still alive. Just got home from work, about to collapse in bed. If Mateo has put your mystery display on trial, I object to the prosecution’s tone.
When it came in, I leaned against the nearest stacks and read the message twice. Which is a completely normal thing to do when one’s best friend disappears into a business solutions emergency and then goes silent for most of the next day.
Reese: The prosecution was vicious but well-organized. I lost on three counts of improper genre clustering.
It’s been four hours, and there still isn’t a response from Miles.
I mean, yes, he’s making up for the sleep he didn’t get last night, and people tend to need more than four hours.
But unless he’s traveling for work and is either on a plane or in a set of meetings where he knows he won’t have cell service, I’m used to getting multiple texts from him a day.
The first is usually within the first thirty minutes I’m awake, and the last is right before I go to bed. Today has felt way too Miles-free, and I don’t like it.
I’m just setting my lunch bag on the counter to empty it out when I hear Charlie’s bedroom door open, and I look up way too fast.
She comes down the stairs and into the kitchen wearing leggings, an oversized tee, yesterday’s mascara, and an expression like she just returned from a short trip to the afterlife.
Even her hair looks like the last few hours have been rough—it’s gathered on top of her head in a knot that has lost its will to continue.
“Good morning,” I say.
Charlie squints at the light coming through the living room windows, then at the clock on the stove that says it’s almost four, before shuffling toward the kitchen. “I require water and food.”
“Was work okay?”
She pauses with her hand on the refrigerator door, just for a fraction of a second, before saying, “Work was work.”
“Ahh.” The non-answer. “I’m guessing your work-through-the-night-extravaganza was courtesy of a client who made everyone at Lancaster Business Solutions sign an NDA?”
“Yep.”
I finish emptying my lunch bag as Charlie pulls a container of leftover tortellini Alfredo from the fridge, grabs a fork, and starts eating it cold, like it's way too early to be concerned about things like microwaves.
After the first bite, she asks, “Are you still going over to check on your bees?”
“Yep. Want to tag along?”
She nods and lifts the container of pasta a bit. “As long as I can eat on the way. I think I need to be outside if I want my body to have any chance of figuring out what time of day it is.”
I nod. “The bees don’t care what you’re dressed like or what your hair is doing, but I do recommend you put on a second sock before we go.”
Charlie looks down at her feet like she had no idea until that moment that only one foot was all cozy and the other was exposed to the elements. “Give me five minutes to become a person who can stand upright near insects, then we can leave.”
“Take six,” I say. “I’m feeling generous.”
She points her fork at me. “That is why the bees respect you.”
Twenty minutes later, we are in my car with the windows down, driving through Cipher Springs toward my mom’s house.
The early September sun is still bright but lower in the sky, casting a bit of a golden glow on everything.
Charlie has sunglasses on, an iced water bottle pressed to the side of her face, and the brittle expression of someone running entirely on leftover pasta and a minuscule amount of sleep.
I, meanwhile, am not checking my phone.
Well, except for once at a stop sign.
And one other time when Charlie said, “Are you checking your phone for a text from Miles?” and I said, “No,” even though my phone was literally in my hand, which was not my strongest courtroom moment.
“Tell me library things,” Charlie says, leaning back against the seat. “I need stories involving people with smaller crises than what we just dealt with.”
I turn into my mom’s neighborhood. “My student aide, Violet, checked out three murder mysteries and asked whether cyanide has a smell.”
Charlie twists her head very slowly toward me.
“I told her yes, but also that the school library does not provide beginner-level poison consultation.”
“Responsible.”
“I try to be. Oh, and when I lost the stapler and the half a dozen people I enlisted to help me find it were coming up empty, my aide, Dylan, told me I’m cursed.
I told him I’m not cursed—I’m just creatively organized in ways the human eye cannot perceive.
And I’m enthusiastic about side quests. I’m not sure he believed me at first.”
“Did you ever find the stapler?”
“Yep! In the faculty lounge refrigerator, of all places. Right next to my yogurt. I used it as evidence with Dylan that I’m not cursed because cursed people don’t find things. They wander moors.”
Charlie laughs, then turns to look out the window. I know she is exhausted. I know something big happened last night, and I’m so curious about what. But I also know how seriously Charlie takes her clients’ privacy.
Miles does, too. I am a pro at getting him to tell me a lot of things, but when it comes to his business clients, it never works.
My mom’s house—the house I grew up in— sits on a tree-lined street at the edge of an older neighborhood, with a deep backyard that slopes toward a stand of maples and oaks.
When I first asked if I could keep bees in her backyard, she didn’t even blink.
She just said, “As long as they understand there is a sting-free yard-sharing treaty in place.”
So far, the bees have honored the treaty.
Mostly.
My mom is just pulling into the driveway after work as we pull up out front. It doesn’t look like Hammy, my new step-dad, is home yet. She gets out of her car, wearing a sky-blue business suit with a skirt, and as we get out of our car, she says, “There are my girls.”
As she hugs both Charlie and me, I say, “Hello, Mother Who Is Hosting My Tiny Winged Livestock.”
“Hello, Daughter Who Keeps Describing Them in Ways That Make Me Question My Homeowner’s Insurance.”
Charlie lifts one hand weakly. “I’m just here as emotional support and possible bee tribute.”
Mom’s gaze sweeps over Charlie’s tired face. “Long day?”
Charlie gives her a smile. “Long yesterday that spilled into too much of today. I think it’s supposed to be character building.”
“Was it?”
She nods. “Except now, I have too much character.”
When my mom disappears inside, Charlie and I head around to the backyard and the small shed at the back where I keep my bee suits, smoker, hive tool, bee brush, and other equipment in a level of organization that would shock anyone who has seen the inside of my closet.
Which is why very few people are allowed to see the inside of my closet.
In here, I’ve got labeled bins, hooks, and shelves, and everything is in its place. I have two full beekeeping suits, which we’ll need today.
I hand one to Charlie, and she takes it with the solemnity of someone receiving armor before battle. She has only joined me on bee duty once before, but she preferred to watch from a “safe distance” and never strayed from the deck attached to the house. “Do the bees know I’m on their side?”
“They’ll know if you’re calm.”
“I am the picture of calm.”
She’s more the picture of someone who is regretting her decision to join me, but I don’t point that out.
As I’m putting on my gear, Charlie is watching and doing the same with hers.
The familiar weight of my veil settles over my shoulders, along with the calm it brings.
Bees do not care if I forgot to send an email or if I put my cardigan in the nonfiction section.
They do not care if my brain is full of loose confetti and half-finished thoughts.
They care if I move too fast. Or if I ignore what they are telling me. Or take more than they can spare. That I can handle.
I fill the smoker with pine needles and a bit of burlap, light it, and pump the bellows until cool white smoke curls out in soft puffs.
Charlie eyes it. “What does that do?”
“If one guard bee thinks we’re a threat, she releases a warning scent, and that warning spreads like middle school gossip at lunch.
Smoke makes it harder for the rest of the hive to smell the drama.
Plus, it makes them think there’s a fire nearby, so they start eating honey in case they need to evacuate.
It’s like a surprise fire drill, except everyone panic-eats before leaving the building. ”
Charlie nods as she puts on her veil. “So, you’re jamming their comms while creating a credible evacuation threat, which causes the target population to prioritize resource loading over defensive engagement.”
I stare at her.
She looks back at me through her veil, seeming shocked at what just came out of her mouth. “Can I just blame that on my long day?”
“I think you should blame it on Mackenzie. Your spy-loving sister-in-law is rubbing off on you.”
We walk slowly toward the hives, the late-summer grass brushing against my boots. Bees move in and out of the entrance boards in steady traffic, some returning with pollen packed onto their legs in tiny golden bundles.