chapter twenty-one

. My house had been attacked once today, and there was no guarantee it wouldn't happen again. Not to mention the creepiness factor of a grown man inviting a fourteen-year-old girl to spend the night. "With Doctor Shah. If anything happens, she'll be able to help."

By the time we reached the house, Jeneta had donned a cloak of pure confidence. I all but dragged her through the house to show her the headless ladybug and the other melted insects. "This is what we're dealing with."

"Cool," she said, studying the broken bug. She picked up the head and poked the mandibles with her fingertip. "Nasty, too."

"Can you get them out of Lena's tree?"

She tapped her reader on her palm. "I've got an Emily Dickinson poem I think should do the trick."

I stopped to grab a few more books from the library. "Whoa, what happened to your back door?"

"I'm remodeling." I stepped carefully through the broken doorframe, then crossed the yard to the garden. The roses muted the light from the back porch. Within the garden, we found Lena and Nidhi resting on a hammock made of interwoven grapevines. Smudge's portable cage hung from a higher loop of vine. Nidhi's hair was disheveled, and her clothes appeared rumpled. She was sweating, and her shoes and socks had been tossed in among the pumpkins. I stopped in the archway. Nidhi and Lena had been together for years, but I had

never walked in on them during or immediately after the act.

I knew Lena's nature. I knew she drew strength from her lovers. It made perfect sense for her to turn to Nidhi for comfort. It was a smart move. But it still felt like I'd been punched in the esophagus.

"When did you plant grapevines?" I asked, stammering slightly.

"Tuesday morning." Lena climbed out of the hammock and grabbed my free hand, pulling me in for a quick kiss. "I'm glad you're back."

"You're really a dryad?" Jeneta asked.

Lena smiled and picked up her bokken. At her touch, a single green bud sprouted from the wood. "The tree behind us is as much my body as this flesh. And right now, something's trying very hard to kill it."

"No problem." Jeneta sat cross-legged on the ground and switched on her ereader. "Do you have any clover growing around here? The flowers would be

perfect, but even if it's not in bloom, it will help."

"Give me a minute." Lena walked from the garden. Nidhi followed, leaving her shoes and socks behind.

Jeneta watched them go. "Were they just…?" "Focus on your magic," I said.

"But I thought you and Lena were—" "We are."

I waited for her to digest this, and wondered which reaction it would be. Jeff DeYoung's werewolf-style acceptance of whatever steams your sauna, or the confused condemnation I had received from Pete Malki. Pete lived down the street, and had stopped by a couple of weeks ago to tell me he thought my girlfriend might be making time with that new Indian doctor in town. I guess, "Yeah. Want a drink?" hadn't been the response he was expecting.

Jeneta landed somewhere in the middle. "That sounds really complicated." "It can be challenging," I admitted.

"Does that mean you and Doctor Shah are together, too?"

"No." How many times was I going to have to answer that question? I was half-tempted to make a brochure I could hand out.

"There's this kid at camp, Terry, who's always talking about sex. He's been hitting on me and the other girls from day one. Like if he's persistent enough, if he cracks enough jokes or gives me enough compliments about my hair, one of us will let him into our pants." She pushed her braids back, then shook her head in annoyance. "If he keeps it up, I'm gonna make him fall in love with a groundhog."

Lena and Nidhi returned before I could come up with a response to that.

Nidhi carried a handful of purple clover.

"Perfect," said Jeneta. "Clear a spot by the tree and spread them on the ground."

Lena examined her garden, no doubt studying both the plants on the surface and the roots of her oak below. She finally uprooted four cornstalks and moved them to the side of the garden. The roots immediately began to burrow back into the earth. Nidhi arranged the clover in a small mound.

Jeneta waved us back and began to read.

"There is a flower that Bees prefer— And Butterflies—desire—

To gain the Purple Democrat The Humming Bird—aspire."

It was as if she had transformed into another person. Her voice was slower, more confident, and the cockiness that normally infused her words disappeared. When I looked at the clover, the flowers seemed brighter. The scent was stronger, overpowering the roses until my eyes watered.

"And Whatsoever Insect pass— A Honey bear away

Proportioned to his several dearth And her—capacity."

"Whatever you're doing, they're reacting to it." Lena swallowed, and I could see her skin twitching. Smudge's cage turned into a miniature lantern as a ripple of flame spread across his back.

I double-checked my book, a novel by David Gerrold that featured a liquid nitrogen weapon. The gun itself was too large to pull through the pages, but I should be able to use the same trick I had tried with the microwave. I skimmed a scene which described the weapon in action. I didn't need the gun, just the stream of liquid nitrogen. Hopefully I could do this without freezing my fingers off.

The first insect emerged from the tree in a puff of sawdust, about ten feet up. Lena raised her bokken. I took a deep breath and readied my book. This appeared to be a bee or wasp of some sort. It crawled down the tree, glassy wings twitching, then flew toward the clover.

"Her face be rounder than the Moon And ruddier than the Gown."

Lena's own rounded features were tight with pain. A second bee flew out of the oak, following the first. Lena gripped her weapon by the blade and smashed the pommel down on the closest bee. She gave it a vicious twist, and when she pulled back, only broken scraps of metal remained.