She sat motionless on the flower, listening with rapt attention.“You humans are a danger to yourselves even more so than us.”
I sighed.“That is sadly quite true.”
“I can offer no help, other than to tell you much has changed during my reign. These gardens were once the envy of all, but more and more, their glory has been compromised. Not from neglect, but from willful destruction.”
“Someone is bringing in the bad plants,” I summarized.
“And removing the good ones. Over-harvesting our honey and causing a great famine.”
I clucked my tongue at this.“I’m sorry. That’s awful.”
“We are not the paragon of hard work without reason. Starting today, my workers will be constructing a new hive, and together we will usher in a new era of prosperity. Until then I will endure and put on a strong face for my colony.”
“You are a good leader,” I assured her.
“As all queens should be.”
“Be, ha! Get it,bees shouldbe?” I couldn’t help it. The unexpected pun brightened my mood once more. Hopefully Bey saw the humor in it too.
“You are a strange human, but a kind one. Good luck with your problems.”
“Good luck to you with yours. I’ll talk with the owner of this house and see if she can offer any help.”
“I do not hold out much hope but appreciate your efforts all the same. Farewell, Angie.” Queen Bey kept her place on the dark flower center, telling me I had been dismissed from her audience.
Now to find my husband and our temporarily adopted kitten to tell them what little I had learned from our talk—and to see if Charles had any ideas for helping the colony while we were still here at the old stone mansion that held many mysteries within its walls and gardens.
15
We let Charlene prowl around the garden on her own four feet for the next hour, hoping it might encourage mama cat to make contact. We kept close watch to ensure she remained safe and undiscovered by Madame Blue and the other guests.
While she explored, I showed Charles the patch of skunk cabbage and told him how the bees were moving from the apiary to a new self-made hive as a result.“It doesn’t smell as bad today, but I’m sure it’s still terrible for the bees.”
“Let me see here.” Charles bent down to examine one of the thick leaves. “Someone trampled it fairly recently. That’s probably why it smelled so bad last night but is getting better today.”
Shame flooded my chest.“Oh, I hope I wasn’t the one to run into it. I’d feel awful for causing all that trouble for Bey and her colony.”
“I don’t think it was you. Look here.” Charles shook his head, then pointed to another section of the cabbage patch. “It’s only been flattened in a few spots around the edges. Someone who accidentally ran over it would have left a much more obvious trail.”
“So you think someone stomped on it on purpose?” I summarized.
“Well, someone planted it here on purpose,” he argued, rising to his feet and then brushing off his palms.
“True. We should probably look around and see if we find anything else that seems out of sorts.”
“We can take pictures and reverse image search to figure out the identity of each flower and plant,” Charles suggested, pulling out his phone, ready to jump deep down the research rabbit hole. “Perhaps that will be more telling than looking for visual cues.”
“Oh, great idea!” I pulled out my phone, too. He and I both loved intellectual challenges, and this was a doozy. “I think there’s an app that helps identify flowers too. Let me download it real fast.”
For the next hour or so, we took photos of each plant we found on the lot, trying our best not to attract attention as we catalogued the garden.
“This is tough,” I ground out once we’d snapped the last one. “There are so many different sub-species. Like how do we know if this little guy is a Shasta daisy or an ox-eye?” I ran my fingertip over the delicate white flower and sighed.
Charles, however, was still in high spirits. With a focused expression, he tapped on his phone and flipped through a couple articles.“My money’s on ox-eye.”
“Why?” I leaned over to see what he’d pulled up on his screen.
He handed me the phone while he explained.“It’s an invasive species. It looks like a flower, but it’s really a weed, famous for destroying the work of inexperienced gardeners in many climates, including this one.”
“But Madame Blue isn’t inexperienced,” I argued. “When my parents honeymooned here, the garden was perfect, and that was decades ago. Presumably she was the owner then, too.”
“My guess is someone swapped the plants out on purpose so that they could destroy the garden from within.”
“But who would do that and why?”
Charles shrugged, then joined me in a sigh.“Who would lock me in our room or sabotage the potato salad?”
“I really don’t like this.” I hung my head, feeling more confused than ever as the clues continued to stack up.
“Me, neither. But I have an idea that should make you feel better.”
I looked up, waiting for him to reveal his latest grand idea.
My new husband met me with a loving smile.“Let’s call home. I know you’ve got to be missing everyone there. Talking to them will make you feel better.”
“But this week is supposed to be about just us,” I argued, shaking my head and grabbing his hand.
He squeezed my hand and then let it go.“I know better than to keep you from your nan. Besides, we’ll have the rest of our lives to spend time together just the two of us.”
“I like the sound of that,” I admitted, biting my lower lip as I thought. “Okay, let’s call.”
“I’ll go find Charlene,” he offered, blowing me a kiss as he trounced away.
I wasted no time pulling my phone right back out and placing the call. I really missed my grandmother. She’d been my best friend as long as I could remember, and it was weird to even go a couple days without seeing her shining face.
She answered my FaceTime call after a few short rings. I couldn’t see much of her, but she appeared to be lounging in bed while wearing hot pink silk pajamas and an enormous grin.
“Angie, darling!” she exclaimed, her smile widening even further. “How’s married life treating you?”
“Married life is great. I’m not so sure about the rest of it, though,” I confessed, trying to keep my expression bright for her benefit.
“I’ll be right back, Grant,” my grandmother whispered offscreen before returning to me.
“Tell me all about it,” she said, moving through the house until she landed in the kitchen. “I’ll just put on some tea.”
And so I told her everything, concluding with,“But please don’t share any of this with Mom or Dad. They were really excited to give us this gift, and I’d hate for them to hear how much trouble this place has been giving us, especially when they both have such fond memories from its heyday.
“Oh, dear. That’s terrible,” Nan said, steeping a tea bag in a mug of hot water.
“Yeah. I hope your honeymoon is going better than ours?” My words lilted up at the end, seeing as I was almost afraid to ask.
“Well, our honeymoon is next week after you get back. Grant booked a surprise cruise in Alaska!” she gushed, fluffing her hair with one hand like a fancy lady.
I laughed at her show of enthusiasm. You could take the actress off Broadway, but that dramatic persona remained even decades after retirement.“What? Why do you want to go somewhere so cold?” I insisted, now with a genuine smile. Talking to her always made me feel so much better, no matter what else was going on in our lives.
“Oh,pffft.” She blew a raspberry, making me giggle.“Grant says they have harsh winters but the most lovely summers in the whole world. We’re having a good time here too, though. I never thought I’d remarry after losing your grandfather, but I’m so glad I have Grant now that you’re all grown up and starting a family of your own.”