Chapter One
Lewis
I grew up in the country. With all the good and bad that implied.
Unlike most bears, my fathers chose not to be connected to a sleuth, preferring the independence that some called rogue. But nobody could know them and call them that. Unlike me, they were as sweet as the honey my bees created in the hives on our farm.
My fascination with the creatures began quite young when I found a hive in an old log while ambling around the woods. As my bear. The bees had made their home there, and the sweet essence of honey seeped out, catching the bear’s attention. I’d only been shifting for a year or so and was still learning how to communicate with and control my bear. My dads said it was critical to establish a working relationship with the beast who shared my mind and a transformed version of my body. I’d been feeling pretty good about it, too, until we stumbled upon the hive. In the late summer, it was filled with honey, and my bear was not about to walk past it.
Not of his own free will.
I’d called it a test and managed somehow to keep things under control. With great effort, I guided the bear to the apple orchard where he gorged himself on fallen fruit that my fathers would have used in the cider press. But there was plenty, and I had no intention of telling them what we did. They probably would be okay with it but maybe not.
The next day, I’d returned to the hive in my human form and found a spot a distance away and upwind from the buzzing activity where I could watch them. They were so busy andorganized and the amount of golden honey that they’d managed to make this early in summer was inspiring.
Some farmers had more formal wooden hives or hired a beekeeper to place their hives in their orchards or wherever they were wanting pollination to take place. But when I approached my fathers about this, they said we did fine with the wild bees helping out and there was no need to take on another set of chores. Years later, I understood how much work the farm had been for them, but as a preteen, all I saw was a cool way to get to spend time watching the bees while making it a “chore” my dads would consider part of my workday.
But they’d been negative at my first suggestions, saying I’d just get stung all the time and that it was unnecessary extra work, so I went around them. The Oliver Creek library had a book on beekeeping, which I checked out and read cover to cover. It even had plans on how to build a hive at home. On our farm, there were all kinds of odds and ends in the sheds and other outbuildings, and I was able to find enough old boards and nails and things to build a somewhat legit hive. It wasn’t pretty—at all. But it was functional, and I put it in the donkey cart and wheeled it out to a place at the edge of the farm near the orchards.
My dads didn’t notice until nearly a year later, by which time I had come up with a plan to sell honey at a small roadside stand—which I had also built.
Since that time, my dads had passed on, I’d inherited the farm, and instead of the bees supporting the orchards, the orchards supported my honey business. The crude stand—essentially a table with sign behind it—had been replaced by a small shop where I sold just about every honey product I thought of or read about. Honey straws and spoons. Honey-infused soaps. Whipped honey, honey syrup, plain honey. Evena little merch with the name of the farm on it. Also, I shipped online orders and supplied some local merchants.
Honey was my living and the thing I took whenever I felt at all off. It was my joy and my medicine. The flavor of life. It seemed magical to me when the first queen took up residence in my homemade hive.
I’d built a lot of them since then, choosing to create them myself even when I had control of the farm and enough money to buy premade structures. It was my pleasure to try out different styles from all over the world, and the bees thrived and seemed to appreciate my efforts.
Most days, I woke up excited to get started on everything I had laid out on the farm. With only seasonal help, I had to keep on my toes. I’d simplified with no livestock beyond some chickens for eggs and of course my donkey, Monty, but there was still plenty to do. The fields of corn my dads grew were now baby orchards, and I had an extensive flower garden featuring every local blossom beloved by the bees. Lots to do. But on this particular day, when I sat up in bed, I lay back down with a groan. My head was pounding and my stomach roiling. Forcing myself to try again, I headed for the shower, sure the hot water and steam would help as they had in the past when I wasn’t feeling great. It didn’t work, but I had my secret weapon, so I put on the kettle and made a cup of hot tea with lemon juice and honey.
It tasted good, but didn’t touch the headache. I had too much to accomplish to allow my body to betray me like this. And the cough coming behind the headache had that harsh bark I dreaded.
Chapter Two
Wilder
Oliver Creek lived up to the online hype. Above and beyond the standard, actually.
When I moved here, I was drawn in by the modern amenities built into a small-town vibe that fit what I wanted out of life. Slow living but with the twists of the city.
When my mom died a few years back, she didn’t leave me a trust fund or any monetary inheritance. Instead, she’d taught me a lifetime of knowledge of herbal remedies and folk medicine that couldn’t be contained in a book. I tried. I had journal after journal that began when I was ten and came to her crying about a stinging caterpillar who had defended himself against my palm in the dead of summer.
That was the first day of my schooling in herbology and healing.
Now that she was gone, I didn’t want to keep that knowledge hoarded in a tiny town. I wanted to share it with the world.
Oliver Creek had been on my bucket list for a couple of months. What better way to experience such a town than to move there.
Open a business. Put down roots.
“Good morning,” I announced to the shop as I walked down the stairs connecting the apartment upstairs to my new place of business. It had taken me a long time to move everything over, redecorate the shop, get the things I needed. Plus, I had to curate remedies. Some took months. Other things, like teas, could be whipped up in a minute.
The shop didn’t answer my sunrise greeting, of course, but it was something my mother always did. Greet the house when she got up in the morning or when she came back from helpingothers. She also said good night to it each night. If you were kind and good to the place you lived and worked in, then it would be good to you.
My ex thought it was silly, but I didn’t care. He was silly. And had the emotional depth of a dollar-store kiddie pool.
“Everything is going to go so well today. We are going to help people the best we can and contribute to the people around us.”
There. I’d set the intention for the day. Another thing she taught me.
