I know what will cover those up.
In the attic, I find the quilt folded up in a trunk of my mother’s things that Warrick didn’t want around the house. At the bottom are two grimoires – our large family book, and a smaller one my mother and I were filling in together, mostly with gardening tips and honey spells. I carry the quilt and books downstairs and smooth the quilt over the wall. I step back to admire it, a tiny smile daring at the corners of my lips.
What are you doing? You shouldn’t be smiling. Your husband is missing. You shouldn’t be taking down his pictures.
I tear down the quilt and throw it into a corner behind the sofa. I hung all the pictures back up again, exactly the way they were. I wipe a tear from the corner of my eye as I flee into the kitchen to make a cup of tea.
I drink my tea with shaking hands as I mix up a pot of sugar syrup, and suit up to give it to the bees.
They buzz happily as I approach, rising from the flowers winding around me in their dance. Because of the temperate climate in England, beekeepers usually only get one harvest per season, but those beekeepers aren’t honey witches. I can usually get three harvests. I time each harvest for a specific nectar flow, and my first early summer flow is coming up shortly – the sycamore, for endurance, hawthorn for fertility, bramble for protection, and lavender for calming.
“I opened a shop!” I tell them happily, because you should always tell the bees about the important things in your life, and this definitely counts. “I’m going to open a meadery, and I’ll need your help to keep the shelves stocked. I also have to help a thief break the curse the Widow Hardcastle put on him, but in exchange, he’s going to help me lift heavy things and paint the walls and such.”
Today, when I check the frames, they’re nearly ready, but not quite. Seven of the ten frames in the uppermost box are now being filled, so I add another super on top so the bees have enough room. I check all the hives for signs of disease and offer a simple enchantmentto protect against mites. After thanking the bees for their hard work, I head to the potting shed to check on my supplies.
I step around the dark stain on the floor and shuffle a stack of gardening tools out of the way to get to my barrels. I have seven different brews stacked on shelves on the back wall, and four more in glass carboys on the floor. The potting shed would normally be too warm for aging mead, but an enchantment keeps the temperature cool even on the hottest summer days. I do the primary fermentation in the laundry room on a heat pad, and move my must out here for secondary fermentation and aging.
I check the apple and amaranth barrel that got broken a few days ago, and it’s already refilled. Being a honey witch has its benefits. If the meadery is as successful as I hope, we’ll go through my entire store in a week. Luckily, my barrels magically refill and age much quicker than normal.
I won’t be selling that particular brew in the meadery, but it’s useful to have around as part of stronger healing potions.
I started making mead because in all the “silly fantasy books” (Warrick’s words) I read and the video games I no longer play, the weary adventurers roll up to a tavern, and a fresh-faced barmaid serves them a pint of mead. I always wanted to know the barmaid’s story, and I’m good with flowers and gardens and bees, and after leaving university, I needed something to do that connected me with my love of history. Mead is the oldest alcoholic drink in the world, and it was popular during the Viking age and medieval periods, which are my favourite historical periods (everyone has a favourite historical period, right?right?).
Warrick bought me my first beehive for my birthday. After a couple of false starts, I managed to prevent my bees from swarming, protect them from robber bees, and extract my first honey harvest. I batched up the honey and sold it at the local market, and that was fun, until it wasn’t. So I started making meads. Warrick loved the drink, and he was fascinated with how I could enchant it with nectar from different flowers (he’s always been fascinated by my magic – it’s part of what drew me to him as a lonely teenager.) I made a mugwort meadjust for him (it sounds terrible, but it’s delicious when infused with rosemary and thyme, and increases strength and endurance) that gave him several personal bests at the gym.
“You’re on to something here, babe. Performance-enhancing mead.” Warrick had a friend who was in the alcohol business, and he thought he might be interested in bringing out a product line.
I’ve been ridiculously excited about it and prepared a whole PowerPoint presentation, which I gave to Warrick with a crate of different meads to try. But a few weeks ago, Warrick came home after delivering the case and said the friend was no longer interested.
“He thinks mead is too feminine and won’t appeal to blokes. But don’t worry, babe, you didn’t want to run an alcohol business anyway. So much paperwork. You know how overwhelmed you get, and I’m so busy at my job that I wouldn’t have time to help you.”
“Did he give the meads back then?”
“I said he could keep them. There’s plenty more where they came from, right?”
Warrick’s words ring in my ears as I rinse out a cup under the kitchen sink and taste each of my meads, all except the apple and amaranth.
I wonder if I can get Rafe to help me move the barrels to the shop. It’s going to be useful to have help.
A couple of bees circle lazily around the shed, hopping from barrel to barrel, wondering if I have more sugar syrup.
I step over the dark stain as I leave. I should probably get to the shop before Rafe destroys it.
WhatamI going to do about Rafe?
When I arrive at the shop that morning, Rafe greets me at the door in his cat form. The pie container from yesterday is strewn in pieces across the floor, and he’s added a couple of stolen fruit buns with the icing licked off and a large, fat, rat carcass to the mess.
He scratches the door and howls pitifully.
Abandoned! I’ve never known such neglect! I’ve been awake all night shivering in this cold room!
“I can see a Rafe-shaped dent in the jumper I left behind on the counter, and you clearly procured yourself breakfast, so stop this performance. I brought you some clothes.” I step over the former rat and drop the stack of Warrick’s clothes down on the counter. Rafe gives them a poke with his paw, then hops on top of the pile and curls his tail around himself. He starts kneading the sweater. “No, they’re not for sitting on. These’re so you can be in your human form without me having to look at your winkle. They belong to my husband, so no clawing them up. I think you’re both a similar size?—”
Rafe leaps off the pile and, with a look of utter disgust, swipes it off the counter. Neatly-folded shirts and creased jeans bounce on the paint-splattered drop cloths.
A second later, human Rafe is sitting naked on the counter, shaking his head as he runs his fingers through his hair in an attempt to flatten down the two tufts that stick up like cat ears. “I refuse to wear your husband’s hand-me-down clothes.”
“You can’t work naked.”
