I was eating ice cream when it happened, when she staggered into the mall. It was hard to see her
features, welted purple as she was. You heard before you saw it, the buzzing, all those bees cloud-
ing like a storm. People panicked, flapping arms as if to fly away. Mothers hugged their children. I
jumped into the penny fountain. Who knows why the woman—dripping honey, maybe venom—was
hugging that beehive, or why she’d woven flowers in her hair. The news said she’d pointed, screaming
for her bees to attack, that she was indigent. Kids later found her campsite, full of wax sculptures. She
finally lobbed the hive through the shoe store window before collapsing. No one ever mentioned the
craziest part: the bees were obeying. I swear, the droning seemed to come from her rictus, like a sigh of
triumph. They were finding bees for days after things re- turned to normal.

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