Page 9 of Prospect’s Curvy Beekeeper

She stops a few feet away, her eyes scanning the property, lingering on the new windbreak down by the meadow. A faint, knowing smile touches the corners of her mouth.

"Early is the only time the kids are quiet," she says, her voice steady. She holds out the thermos. "Christie sent this up from the Cozy Cup. Black coffee, heavy on the cinnamon."

I take the thermos. The heat bleeds through the metal into my cold palms. "You didn't have to drive all the way out here."

Carol drops the canvas bag at my feet. "Clean work clothes. Denim. Flannel. Valerie washed them at the compound."

My jaw tightens. My instinct to reject the charity flares up, sharp and defensive. "I have a washing machine, Carol. I wash my own clothes."

She doesn't flinch. She just looks at me, her gaze steady with a shared, unspoken understanding.

"I know you do, Susan." She crosses her arms over her chest. "A month ago, I was where you are. Fighting everyone off. Refusing to take a single inch of help because I thought it meant I was failing my daughter. I thought if I let someone carry the bag for even a second, I would forget how to stand up."

She nods toward the windbreak. "They don't ask, do they? The men from that club. They don't ask for permission to tear your walls down. They just do it. And it pisses you off."

I swallow hard, my grip tightening on the thermos. "He built it overnight. I didn't ask him to."

"River paid off my brother's fifty-thousand-dollar debt to the Syndicate and told him never to come back," Carol says, her tone matter-of-fact. "I screamed at him for an hour. Then I slept through the night for the first time in four years."

She steps closer, her eyes locking onto mine.

"Alas is on your south trail right now," she says quietly. "He built that windbreak in the pitch dark before dawn, hauled every board down to the hive line by hand, and then walked straight into the tree line to hold the boundary against the Crimson Hollow scouts."

My chest caves in. He hasn't slept. He stood guard, built the windbreak, and went straight to the perimeter.

"You've been fighting a war by yourself, Susan," Carol continues, her voice softening. "You don't have to put the sword down. But you have to let him stand beside you. We watch out for each other now. That includes you."

She doesn't wait for me to argue. She gives me a curt nod, turns on her heel, and walks back to her sedan.

I stand in the damp grass, clutching the thermos of cinnamon coffee, listening to the crunch of her tires as she drives away.

We watch out for each other now.

The words echo in the quiet morning.

I look down at the canvas bag of clean clothes. I look at the towering windbreak.

I’m losing my isolation. The armor is being dismantled, piece by piece, by a man who refuses to speak and refuses to leave.

I grab the canvas bag and the thermos, walking back to the honey shed to toss them inside. Then I pick up my smoker, give the bellows a few hard pumps, and march down to the hive line.

The girls are already awake. A low, continuous hum vibrates through the air, a sound that’s lived in my bones since I was ten years old following Grandpa through the clover.

Without the northern wind battering the boxes, the bees are flying clean, straight lines out of the bottom entrances, heading out to forage the late-season asters and goldenrod.

I stop at Colony D. The Russian hybrids. The most aggressive, stubborn, unforgiving box of insects on the ridge. Most beekeepers would have requeened them or split them just to dilute the aggression. I kept them because they are tough enough to survive the winters without dying off. They match my disposition perfectly.

I blow a few puffs of cool, white smoke across the entrance. The guard bees retreat, the smoke masking their alarm pheromones. I pry the wooden lid off with my hive tool, the propolis cracking with a sharp snap.

I pull the first frame.

The bees boil over the top bars, agitated, but they don't strike. I hold the frame up to the morning sun, scanning the golden, capped brood cells.

My mind immediately flashes to yesterday. Alas standing where I’m standing. Bare arms. Bare knuckles. The bees landing on him like he was a part of the environment, reading his terrifying stillness as safety.

I spent years learning how to move around them. How to control my breathing, how to mask my anxiety, how to project calm. I have to work at it.

Alas just exists.