It turned out there was a chemical in the tree’s roots that stunted or poisoned everything around it. The petunias Katie once planted there shriveled to pale ribbons.
But Katie still loved the way they carpeted the lawn, had loved running and swinging little Devon’s feet through their velvet tendrils, the pollen staining their ankles. And Drew loved them too. Every fall, he’d take pictures of the silky webworm nests that hung from the branch ends. He said they looked like his favorite teacher’s hair.
Those catkins, they’re wonderful, Eric used to tease her. Wonderful tarantulas.
And then he’d mention how they used the wood to make gunstocks, and coffins.
That’s what Old Man Watts told me, he said. Makes me wonder what happened to Mrs. Watts.
“Mom,” Drew said now, pointing out the window. “Mrs. Teazer says those are bagworms.”
Rising, Katie followed his gaze to the odd, lumpy sacks dotting the branches.
“Zachary brought one into class,” Drew said. “The boy worms leave the bag when they want to mate. The girls never leave at all. They don’t have wings or legs or mouthparts. The girls die in there.”
“Always harder on the girls, huh?”
“But just one female can make a thousand babies.”
“That’s some mom,” she said, chin on the top of his head, peering out. “Supermom.”
“They eat the whole tree.”
“That’s not good.” She tried to smile, but the bags looked ominous, alive. Almost like something was kicking inside. “Not good at all.”
Drew looked at her, nodding.
“Mom?”
“Yes, Drew.” The bags were rocking, the wind kicking up. She imagined she could see the eggs inside, white as slugs.
“You better kill her now.”
And Katie found herself nodding too.
You had to stop them, just like the tent caterpillars in the crab-apple tree at one of the apartment buildings she’d lived in as a kid. The landlord had burned them with kerosene.
“Mom,” Drew was saying.
Rushing down the hall, she thought she heard a phone ringing somewhere. She was trying to think if they had any lighter fluid.
Then she remembered something. Grabbing for her purse in the hallway, she pulled something from it.
“Stay inside,” she shouted to Drew from the bottom of the stairs.
“Mom,” he said, leaning over the railing, “you look funny.”
It felt good in her hands, like a sword.
She hoisted the tiki torch from the sand bucket on the patio. The heat-splintered one she’d brought home from the tiki party a few months ago.
There was a feeling inside her that was tangled and wretched, and she peered up to Drew’s window while she poured the glugging fuel from the can in the garage.
Dirty sacs strung along the branches like miniature party lanterns, just inches from her son’s window, her stricken son—they were everywhere and she couldn’t fathom how she hadn’t seen them before.
One mass, nestled in the crotch of the tree, was so large it resembled a small animal spread-eagled under gauze, limbs splayed against branches, a horror show. Others hung in the joints like Christmas balls tinseled brown.
All this time—how long?—they’d been here in her backyard, her patio, where all the boosters had perched just a few days ago.
Once she saw one, she saw a hundred, and her chest felt full and large.
Waving the torch, the smell heavy and sweet, she swooped its embered end across the woolly pouches. Its husk skittered from the branch, sparking hot into her hair before she jumped away, cinders scattering.
Looking up, she could see Drew’s face in his bedroom window, eyes wide as the flaming pods dropped and as one of the branches caught fire.
“Stay inside!” she shouted. “Don’t you move, honey. It’s not safe out here!”
The torch in her hands, saber or bayonet, she kept going until she’d vanquished them all.
It was only then, standing behind the tree so Drew couldn’t possibly see, that she tossed the item looped around her arm into the fire.
That red and black leotard snatched from her purse, its spray of crystals popping like small firecrackers, the Lycra collapsing slowly into soft, black gum.
Looking up again, she caught sight of the tree itself, an enormous enflamed torch. The wind kicked up higher, and her panic was a feeling more expected than experienced. There wasn’t time, the flames striping up the dark bark.
“The tree’s on fire,” someone said.
In the same second, she heard a squeaking sound, then the splash of cool striking her arm, skating up the tree, sizzling a moment, then trampling the flames.
Mr. Watts, turning the wheel on his garden hose.
The smell was strong, and they both held their shirts up over nose and mouth.
Looking up, Mr. Watts waved at Drew, who was still watching closely from his window, his red face abraded by the screen.
The ground littered with blackening pouches, all hissing and popping, Katie began raking the tiki torch around, encircling them.