Once he breaks his curse, he’s not bound to you any longer. Look how excited he is to be rid of this shop, and you.
You’re falling for a man who can’t wait to leave you.
Midsummer Festival Best Garden competition – entries open now
Maisie Collins, Argleton Gazette
Are you ready to put the petal to the metal? Are you down for a blooming good time? I hope so because it’s almost that thyme of year again – the annual Argleton Best Garden competition is open for entries. Winners will be announced at the annual Midsummer Festival next month!
The rules are simple: Gardeners can enter in one of the main categories: container garden, small garden, cottage garden, best of British, Blooming Heck! and organic gardening. Prizes for the most colourful garden, top vegetable patch, and best overall garden will be chosen.
All plants, flowers, vegetables, and borders must be the sole work of the entrant – if you’re posh enough to hire a gardener, this is not the competition for you. Gardeners who have assistance from commercial growers or other unfair advantages are also excluded, at the judge’s discretion. Exhibits must have been in the entrant’s garden for at least two months before the judging day. Displays are judged based on their state on judging day – it doesn’t matter if everything was gloriously in bloom a month ago if it’s a drag when the judges look.
This year is bound to be a wild competition – will acertain bee-keeper’s cottage down Badgers Lane win for the ninth year in a row, or is she too busy with her new meadery and that missing husband of hers that another keen gardener might get a chance?
Get out there and prune, prune, prune!
XVI
Celeste: My friend Maisie is a reporter for the Argleton Gazette, and she put a notice in yesterday’s paper about your mead samples. I think you’re going to have a crowd today!
“There’s a line outside,” Rafe calls through the closed door. “People love a free treat, even if it’s alcohol at 9 AM on a Saturday morning.”
“I’m nearly finished,” I call back as I tighten the laces on my corset. I do a little twirl in the narrow back room we use as a prep and storage area, admiring my distorted reflection on the stainless steel fridge.
I stayed up last night converting an old set of sheets and a linen dress into a suitably appropriate ‘mead wench’ outfit – a white underdress and peasant shirt with a beautiful forest green layered overdress, a leather corset, and a chain belt where I attached a few fun tools – a bottle opener shaped like a medieval mace, a honey dipper, a leather pouch for money, and a tiny sword. Years ago, I made a leather corset with hand-tooled vines and bees for a local medieval faire. I was so surprised that it still fit. The whole outfit has come together exactly how I imagined it – I feel like a hobbit, minus the hairy feet.
A handful of bees fly around my face, buzzing their approval. They tug down the hem of the skirt, making sure it’s straight. I pick up the tray where I’ve measured lavender and strawberry meads into tiny plastic thimbles, and cautiously open the door into the meadery.
It’salmostready. Rafe knocked up some decent tables, and I won that online auction for a bunch of mismatched chairs, and got stools and sofas cheap from estate sales. Mina’s husband Quoth gave ussome artwork of drunk medieval knights with silly Gen Z phrases, like “Good sir, thou art delulu if thou thinkest thou canst defeat me,” “This quest is low-key cooked,” and “I hath rizzed the Queen with mine lute.” (The bard looks an awful lot like Rafe.)
Rafe stands at the window in human form, peering at the growing crowd outside. There are alotof people. I swallow down the nervous buzzing in my stomach. Warrick’s voice creeps along the edges of my mind, but I shove it down.I guess I’m doing this.
I tug at the leather corset. “What do you think?”
Rafe turns to me. “I think that we?—”
His mouth freezes open. His tail pops free of his trousers and shoots straight into the air.
“Rafe?” Now the wings in my stomach are more like a hummingbird, flapping so fast that I’m afraid I might take flight. “Is everything okay? You can’t be nervous. I’m nervous enough for both of us.”
“I…”
Why can’t he speak? Do I look that awful?
Oh, goddess, I look completely ridiculous. This is a bad idea.
“I’m making it too gimmicky, aren’t I?” I set down the tray and pull on the laces as I back into the kitchen. “I’ll change back into my normal clothes. It’s fine. No big deal. It’ll only take a few minutes and?—”
A strong hand swipes out, closing over mine, stopping my fingers from moving.
Rafe isright there, pushing me back into the tiny room until I’m against the fridge, his eyes darker than I’ve ever seen them, like the ocean before a storm.
“Don’t youdarechange,” Rafe growls. He has one hand clasped over my fingers, the other one wrapped around my waist, where the corset cinches. “If you alter anything about this outfit, it’s that it needs a warning bell so unsuspecting males know when a goddess approaches.”
I’m aware of how close he is, of all the places where our bodies brush together.
I can’t think about what he’s just said or that dark look in his eyes,because I’ll do something stupid. I try to tug the laces. “Look at me! I look like an extra in The Last Kingdom.”
