I sigh, a little disappointed. So the first magic is just a little bit of pageantry, after all that. At least I’m well trained in pageantry.
“Please honor us today by making a home for yourself here,” I say, into the empty fireplace. My voice echoes faintly. “And I will honor you by keeping you lit and well-fed.”
“Also check that the flue is open,” Honey adds.
“What’s a flue?”
She leans forward and lifts my hand up, into the dark chimney itself. I feel no resistance. “Feel against the side of the chimney nearest us,” she says, releasing my hand. I feel around, not sure what I’m searching for.
“There’s something like a handle,” I say, as my hand wraps around a metal grip.
“Pull it forward.”
I do, and feel something like a kind of lid fall heavily into place, blocking the chimney stack.
“Now push it back,” she says, and I do. The lid, I can feel, lifts on hinges to leave the chimney stack open.
“You can close it when you’re not using the fireplace,” she says.“And it can keep the wind from howling too wildly when it’s windy out. But don’t close it if you have a fire going, or you’ll smoke yourself out.”
It makes perfect sense that there’d be some way to open and close a fireplace when not in use. I can’t believe I’ve never even thought about it before.
“Right,” Honey says. “Pick up your flint and steel and give it a go.”
I lean forward and strike the flint against the steel. A few little sparks burst from my hands, and I squeak and drop both. None of the sparks catch in the tinder, naturally.
“Try again,” Honey says.
Annoyed with myself, I pick up the flint and steel and strike for a second time. I manage to hang on to both when the sparks fly out, though again, nothing happens.
“Hold it closer to the tinder,” Honey says. “And when you see a spark in the tinder, lean forward and blow, very gently. Fire needs air to live.”
At my third strike, a tiny spark of red flares in the little nest of tinder, and I waste time shouting, “Look, there it is!” rather than breathing on it, so it goes out.
I get another spark going on my sixth attempt, and this time both Honey and I lean forward and blow gently on it. The spark flares, and a curl of smoke twists up and away from it.
“Keep blowing,” Honey murmurs, and I do. The tinder glows red and then, as if from nowhere, a twist of yellow flame appears and catches.
I shriek with joy, and Honey pats me on the shoulder. She shows me how to lay thicker twigs over the smaller ones we’ve already built over the little nest of tinder, and then larger sticks again, and a medium-sized log over the whole thing.
“You want to make sure there’s plenty of air flowing around the wood,” she explains, using a fire iron to shift the sticks and logs a little. “And try not to let the fire go out entirely; it’s hard to light on your own. The first magic was an act of love between two people, and re-creating it is easiest with two.”
She explains how to bank a fire, to keep embers warm even when I don’t want an open flame going, and how to use the embers to relight the fire when I do.
“It’ll get colder soon,” she says, looking at the fire rather than me as she speaks. “There’s a woodpile out back. I’d knock the logs off outside before you use them, just to make sure there aren’t any spiders or slugs living in them.”
“No roasted spiders,” I agree.
“I’d suggest that you keep the wood under a tarp,” she continues. “It’ll be hard to burn if it gets wet.”
“And smoky,” I add, recalling several tragic romances I read where a poet and his shepherdess ladylove have to take refuge in a broken-down crofter’s cottage and have only wet logs for the fire while they weep about their perilous situation.
“Well, yes,” Honey says, giving me a funny look. “Wet wood does smoke.”
We empty out the one trunk I’ve asked for, and move Mrs. Gooch’s personal effects into it, what few there are, before stowing it in a corner. I promise myself I’ll go through her things more carefully if we’re not able to find any next of kin. We move my clothing into the empty drawers, and I lay a few more little lavender sachets over them.
It takes hardly any time at all to unpack and lay my things away. I suddenly have so little, when I’ve been traveling around the country with enough clothing to change twice a day at a minimum. I find I don’t mind.
I sleep soundly—my first night sleeping under the imprimatur of a massive curse—with the faint blue light of the bluecap nest to keep me company. The box bed is dark and comfortable and cozy and, despite everything—perhaps even because of everything—my sleep is dreamless.
