Of Potions and Honey

Chapter 1

One

After a much too crowded train ride that spit her out into a cloudy, muggy afternoon in Heartfield, a carriage ride that rattled her teeth, and a short walk up a somewhat desolate street at her final destination, Mira finally arrived, huffing and puffing and carrying a bag that felt like it was filled with bricks, at the address the solicitor had unnecessarily given her.

She knew the house, even though she hadn’t been here in over fifteen years and the place had clearly seen better days.

The green paint had faded, the front garden was overgrown.

On her way here she’d seen far too many houses with the same kind of overgrowth, windows nailed shut, and sun-bleached ‘for sale’ signs hung on the fence.

She tried not to take it as an omen when she knocked on the front door.

Said door flew open almost immediately, and she was greeted by a spindly man with a bushy moustache and a very professional smile.

“Miss Gardener? Yes, you must be. I’m Albert Bowen, solicitor. We corresponded. Please, come inside.” He stepped aside so she could enter. “You look positively exhausted. Let’s find you a place to put down that dreadfully heavy bag.”

When Mira followed Mr. Bowen inside the house, into the kitchen and dining room, she narrowly avoided getting hit in the face by a large spider. When she yelped and dodged the irate critter, the solicitor smiled apologetically.

“Sorry about that. It’s been a few months since anybody was here, I’m afraid.”

“Mhm.” Mira kept a wary eye on the spider as it crawled back up into the safety of the corner under the ceiling, where it had made a most impressive web. “Uncle Lochlin’s barely been dead for three. Didn’t he have a partner living with him, too?”

“I was given to understand that Mr. Archer’s partner moved out fairly quickly,” Mr. Bowen said smoothly. “Don’t worry, the dust is superficial, the house has been assessed to be in very good condition.”

Mira thought of the peeling facade, the missing planks in the porch fence, and the shutter that had fallen off the kitchen window, and coughed discreetly as she put down her bag. “Of course. Thank you.”

“Very good condition,” the man repeated, which was the opposite of reassuring. “I trust you have reviewed all the paperwork?”

Right, that. Mira had… looked at it. For a bit. “I have.”

“Fantastic.” Mr. Bowen made a grand gesture encompassing the room. “Now, why don’t we get on with it, then! In here, you’ll find that the appliances are fully intact and all but ready to use…”

Mira trailed after the man from room to depressing room.

No, that wasn’t quite fair. The kitchen and the bathroom were still usable enough, the couch in the living room where she’d spent so many nights as a child was only a little bit moth-eaten, and there was even a dresser left in the bedroom.

Nothing except that dresser, mind, but at least she’d have a place to put her clothes.

Hopefully she’d be out again quickly enough that she wouldn’t need to unpack anything else – and with enough money for an apartment back home in Willow Harbour.

The shop that took up half of the ground floor was in somewhat better shape, though it was clear it had sat unused even longer, with grime on the windows and enough dust on the floor to leave visible footprints.

It couldn’t quite cover the smell though, and Mira felt an echo of memory as Mr. Bowen hurried her through the shop floor, the kitchen in the back, and the storage room with the large apothecary cabinets that had once held a vast array of ingredients.

Now it was all empty, but the faint scent of herbs remained, hanging in the air like petrichor long after a heavy rainfall.

They ended the – rather brief – tour in the kitchen again, where Mr. Bowen studied the single chair left at the table and decided that it was less awkward if they both stood.

“So, Miss Gardener.” He fanned out a small stack of papers on the scratched dark wood of the tabletop. “I’ll just need you to read and sign these, and then your inheritance will be fully yours.”

Your inheritance. A house she didn’t want to live in, a potion shop she couldn’t run, in a town she hadn’t visited since she’d been a child. Mira scanned the first page, barely parsing what it said. A copy of the will? She’d already seen that at the reading.

She peered up from the papers. “Were you the one who put Uncle Lochlin’s affairs in order?”

Mr. Bowen nodded. “I had the honour of helping him with that.”

“Did he ever mention why me? He has a sister left, and a few nieces and nephews scattered about the country. Why would he skip that whole generation?”

“If he had a reason for it, he never said. All I did was note what he wanted to be done with his estate.”

Mira held in a frustrated sound. Of course.

The notary who had read the will hadn’t known, her grandmother, aunts and uncles hadn’t known, and her cousins had been anywhere between annoyed and furious, depending on how much they could have used the money from selling a house like this.

Mira had stayed just long enough to be considered polite, then made a speedy exit trying to wrap her head around the news that she was now the proud owner of a house in the quaint little town of Emberglen.

Well. Almost.

She parsed what she could of the papers, but the day had been long, the journey here exhausting, and all she wanted to do was find some place to eat and then try and get some sleep.

She took the offered pen, signed several dotted lines, made sure she’d crossed all her Ts, and handed the stack back to Mr. Bowen, her own signed copies shoved off to the side.

“Thank you very much, and congratulations on the house, Miss Gardener!” He tucked the papers carefully into his suitcase and retrieved a large envelope from it. “Now that’s done, here’s the last bit.”

Bewildered, Mira took the envelope. “Do I have more stuff to sign?”

“No! No, this was entrusted to me by Mr. Archer. His instructions were not to give it to you unless and until you signed the papers. Which you have, so now it is yours.” He snapped his suitcase shut and picked up his hat.

“Now, if you don’t have any further questions, I must be going, or else I’ll miss the last carriage back to Heartfield. ”

“But… what’s in this?”

Another wide, professional smile, like the one she herself used so much at work back at the emporium. “I wouldn’t know, I didn’t open it.” He marched to the door. “Good evening, Miss Gardener!”

And out the door he was, leaving Mira holding a crinkled envelope and the keys to her brand new property. Above her, the upper floor creaked in appreciation.

With a sigh, Mira dragged the lonely chair out from under the table and sat down.

Uncle Lochlin had always had a sense for dramatics, though usually he’d put it to good use telling her and her siblings and the gaggle of cousins wild stories.

Most of the time, she’d been the only one to stay and listen until the end while he was spinning tales about giants living in the mountains, sprites from the Honeywood eating the strawberries out back, and ‘creakers’ rattling the windows at night.

What’s a creaker?

Ohh, a terrible beast. It’s made out of sticks and roots, that’s why it creaks so much. It comes looking for naughty little girls who sneak out of bed at night to read books instead of sleeping.

If this had been intended to stop her from doing that, it hadn’t worked.

Mira had simply begun to skirt around the windows on her way downstairs, where she could light a lamp without waking a sibling or cousin.

The books she’d used to read were gone now, the built-in shelves in the living room empty.

Someone had cleared out the house before the will had been read.

Mira didn’t know if that had been Uncle Lochlin’s partner’s doing or the solicitor’s, in preparation for the new owner.

She’d received the house ‘with all its contents as of the current date’, which didn’t amount to much.

At least it spared her the work of sorting through it all herself.

Though the books were a shame, she would’ve liked to keep some of those.

With not even a knife, let alone a letter opener at her disposal, Mira tore the envelope open with her fingernail.

Out came a small key, and a single worn page in Uncle Lochlin’s spindly handwriting that looked so strangely like her own.

He’d worried the edges a good deal, it seemed.

Maybe whatever message he’d left for her was bad news.

Mira’s stomach knotted as she started reading.

Darling Mira,

Can I still call you that? It’s been so long since you’ve visited, you’re all grown up now.

I know I haven’t been the uncle you’ve known for a long time.

I wish I could point to a single grand event that changed things, but there wasn’t.

Everything that’s changed changed so slowly I didn’t notice for the longest time, and then I didn’t know how to change it back.

You don’t know why you’re here now, I reckon. There are people who should’ve received all of this before you. Truth is, I don’t think any of them would do right by it. By the house and the shop and the town.

Emberglen’s a nice enough place. It’s a little rustic, but if you give it a chance, you’ll come to like it, I’m sure. And I would like for you to do that – give it a chance.

Out of the whole lot that call themselves my kin, you always seemed the most at home here.

In the woods and the fields and with the neighbours.

Maybe you remember them, some of them are still around.

Say hello to them at least while you’re here, will you?

Some kept asking me what the kids are up to these days, and I never knew what to say. Maybe you can tell them instead.

The key you’re holding is for the drawer under the till in the shop.

There’s something in there for you that I hope you’ll put to good use.

The shop has always been my pride and joy, even when it got hard to keep up with everything.

Grady has helped me a lot, but we’re just two old fools with more stubborn pride than sense, so we had to close eventually.

I can’t tell you what to do. If you’re reading this, everything is yours now, and you can do with it as you please.

All I ask is that you don’t do anything rash.

Sit with your decision for a few days. Poke around.

Talk to people. Remember all the times you helped me out as soon as you were old enough to stir a pot on the stove.

How much that time meant to both of us back then.

Choose with your heart, Mira. That’s all I’m asking.

Yours,

Lochlin

When she was done reading, Mira’s chest felt heavy.

Her cheeks hot. Oh, she hadn’t expected this to be a punch in the gut, yet here she was, missing Uncle Lochlin as fiercely as she hadn’t in years.

Regret mixed in with it, too – she could have visited, once she’d been old enough to go on her own.

She never had. Busy. Things to do. She’d write him a card for the winter solstice.

That, at least, she’d remembered. Sometimes he’d sent one back, with the same candy he’d sent her for her birthday when she’d been a child.

Everything that’s changed changed so slowly I didn’t notice for the longest time, and then I didn’t know how to change it back.

It had, hadn’t it. They’d spent so much time here when she’d been a child, all cosied up in the living room while the adults shared the two small bedrooms. Then it had only been some weeks in the summer. Then just a long weekend. Then nothing.

“I don’t think any of us noticed”, she murmured and put down the letter. And yet, Uncle Lochlin had not only remembered her, he’d decided to leave her… all of this. Not just the house. The shop – his pride and joy.

She did not like where this seemed to be going. She was a sales clerk. There was not a chance on this earth.

Yet she held the key in a trembling grip as she went out front and into the shop. Rounded the counter where the till sat covered in cobwebs, and found the drawer. The key went in with surprising ease, and the lock clicked open without resistance. Inside were a book and two ledgers.

Puzzled, Mira took it all out, blew the dust off the counter, and placed it down.

All three items were clean, not covered in dust like everything else.

Not even a moth had come out of the drawer, courtesy of a little sachet that smelled faintly of lavender, probably cut from the bushes that were growing wild out front.

The leather-bound ledgers were stamped with neat printed letters – Financials and Inventory, respectively.

The book on the other hand was a simple thing, without a title or author.

A book to be written in by the owner. Mira carefully opened it to the first page and found that same familiar handwriting.

‘Lochlin’s Tome of Potions’ it said with a flourish at the end.

Dramatics. Mira huffed, even as her heart sank. A folded page was tucked into the book, and she opened it with trepidation. The note was much shorter than the letter.

I’ve collected and refined these recipes over the years. Don’t worry, I’ve left you plenty of notes, and I’ve marked the easy ones. Consider it, will you?

“You can’t be serious!”

Mira stared at the note. No. Absolutely not. What had he been thinking? Had she gotten the inheritance because he wanted her to take over? To-

“I can’t run a potion shop!” Mira tugged at her hair, finally pulling the brown curls free of the flagging braid she’d worn all day. “This is a joke. Uncle Lochlin, I’m not laughing.”

Understandably, her dearly departed great-uncle did not respond.

Of course, he hadn’t outright said it. She could close this cursed book, pretend she’d never read the letter, and walk away with however much money she could sell the house for.

He’d been so cryptic, she had plausible deniability, didn’t she.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t asking. Asking her to consider, at least. Consider what? Between the letter, the note, and the book full of recipes, he could only mean one thing.

Not a chance on this earth.