The Potion Gardener

-APRIL-

Flora woke up in someone’s garden shed with only the vaguest memory as to how she’d got there. There had been drinking involved, she was very sure, and maybe a few other substances stronger and less predictable than alcohol, as well. She’d been out carousing with her friends; that much, she remembered clearly.

Sitting up, she found her feet, testing both her head and her balance and finding them less than ideal, but serviceable. Her balance was a little unsteady, though that was perhaps due more to her empty stomach than any alcohol left in her system, and her head was a throbbing nightmare, pushing her firmly into the territory of the hungover rather than the drunk. Patting herself down, she unearthed a few bits and bobs in her trouser pockets, but not nearly enough to pay for a cab back home from wherever she was: a stub of a pencil, a loose button she’d lost from her shirt collar, and a few garden pebbles that hadn’t been there when she’d begun her night. Otherwise, she had nothing but the clothes on her back, the shoes on her feet, and the ring on her finger.

The ring was the only jewellery she wore, a plain gold band with a single rosehead engraved in place of a stone. It wasn’t an heirloom, nor was it particularly expensive. In fact, as far as she was aware, there was nothing special about it whatsoever. She had picked it up for a few pence at a pawnshop just for the sake of owning something unvaluable and unburdened by family history. What the ring had was magic, but that was her own doing.

Sunlight filtered shyly through the dingy windows, putting the time somewhere in the very early morning. It was cold and damp, which she hadn’t noticed in her earlier drunkenness, but which now chilled her unpleasantly to the bone. If she hadn’t crawled her way into the shed, she shuddered to think what state she’d have woken in, if she’d been lucky enough to wake at all. The days were getting longer and milder, but it wasn’t yet summertime, and the spring rain, which fell often, was still shiver-inducing and much too cold to spend a night outdoors.

Though a far cry from her soft bed with its goose-down pillows, the shed seemed a decent enough place to sleep. A workbench ran the length of the long wall under the window, with shelves along the wall opposite, stacked with a great many terracotta pots stained every shade of green from their years of service. The shortest wall at the end near the door hosted all manner of garden tools, shovels and rakes standing in the corner, with shears and spades and blades of assorted sizes hanging from pegs. Along the last wall were stacked boxes, few of which were labelled, and none of which Flora felt the need to investigate.

As tempting as it was, in her hungover state of mind, to entrench herself and make the shed her home for the foreseeable future, there were likely several parties who would object to that course of action. The owner of the property, for one, to say nothing of her parents. Her friends would likely have an opinion on the matter, as well, though that thought made her want to dig in her heels all the deeper.

Like an ornamental hermit, she mused, brushing the soil from her clothes as she made her way to the door. Not that ornamental hermits had been much in demand for the last century or so, and not that she thought the owner of this particular shed was the sort of wealthy eccentric who might go in for one anyway. But she’d read enough philosophy and enough of the literary canon that she could probably do a pretty good job of it, given the chance.

Pushing open the shed door, Flora barely had time to see where she was before a scruffy black terrier caught sight of her and raised the alarm. For such a small thing, he carried a tremendous bark, and Flora froze on the threshold between shed and garden. Thankfully, the dog seemed likewise disinclined to approach, standing with his stocky legs braced and his head thrown back to shout for help, the whites of his eyes showing in obvious panic.

“Oh, no,” Flora groaned, when the barking continued. Leaning forward, she propped one arm against the door and pressed her other hand to her forehead, trying to keep her skull from cracking and leaking her brains out her ears, as it felt wont to do. “It’s alright,” she told the dog weakly, flapping one ineffectual hand in his direction. “I’m sorry. Please stop barking. I’m leaving, I promise.”

“Grim!” a woman’s voice called, and Flora straightened, trying to sort out her clothes and make herself presentable. “What the devil is this racket?”

The dog went jetting off in the direction of his owner’s voice, and Flora debated making her escape in the opposite direction. But she didn’t trust her legs to run fast enough or her head to stay attached to her shoulders if she tried it, so she was still standing in the doorway like a garden statue when the dog returned, woman in tow.

“Right,” said the woman, slowing to a halt some yards away, the dog an anxious bundle at her heels. “What’s all this, then?”

She was somewhere in her thirties, or maybe her early forties, and Irish, based off her accent and the pretty red tones in her hair. From where in Ireland she hailed specifically, Flora had no idea, as she was as useless at guessing dialects as she was at age. In any case, the woman looked as wary of Flora as the dog did, though she was more put together about it.

The reason for her wariness, Flora realised with a lurch of her poor stomach, was that Flora was still disguised as a boy. Finding a young lady camped out in one’s garden might be cause for concern, but rarely alarm. Finding a young man in the same situation called for a little more prudence in the handling of it.

Yet, Flora found that the last thing she wanted to do was remove the disguise. Her friends had all seen right through it, of course, having known her beforehand, and the clothes and glamours that changed her voice and hid her body had been nothing more than a silly game done for a laugh and a night’s entertainment. She hadn’t been fooling anyone. But now, faced with someone who didn’t know her as anything other than a nameless youth with grass stains on his elbows and garden soil on his shoes, Flora didn’t feel anything like laughing. Instead, underneath the nausea of her hangover, she felt a trembling little thrill. There was a world of possibilities open to her, previously denied.

“Hello,” said Flora.

Her voice came out deeper than it would without the glamour, which would remain in place until she removed the bespelled ring from her finger. It wasn’t a very sturdy spell, as the ring hadn’t been crafted specifically for that purpose. If left long enough, the glamour would eventually fail on its own, which hadn’t been a concern when she’d whipped it up for the party. Now, the thought made her uncomfortable, and she regretted not taking more care in its creation.

She cleared her throat. “I’m awfully sorry, but I seem to have stumbled into your garden and spent the night in your potting shed. It’s a very nice shed, by the way. And I didn’t mean to upset your dog. Now that he’s caught me, I’ll get out of your hair and let you get on with your morning.”

“Out drinking with the lads, were you?” The woman’s expression was impassive, her arms folded over her chest. Whether she was annoyed, suspicious, bored, or merely making small talk, Flora hadn’t the foggiest.

“Lots of drinking,” she confirmed, and dared to edge out of the doorway, one hand on the shed for balance as she inched sideways like a bipedal crab, keeping her distance from the dog.

The beast had stopped barking, but was still eyeing her like he had a mind to start up again, and she didn’t want to do anything that might provoke another volley of head-splitting noise.

“Where am I, by the way?” Flora asked with a hopeful wince.

“Hertfordshire,” came the short reply.

Flora wracked her brain for any recollection as to how she’d got as far out of London as to hit Hertfordshire — rural Hertfordshire, from the look of it — and came up blank. That was a good eight or even ten-hour walk from the city; she must have got a lift from someone, or several someones, and left by midnight. Baffling life choices.

“Right! Well, I’ve got a long walk ahead of me, so I’ll be off. Sorry for the bother.”

She set out on wobbling legs, determinedly clinging to the side of the shed as she pointed herself in a random direction, assuming that eventually she would make her way out of the garden and find a road. From there, it would only be a matter of flagging down a passing motorist either for directions or, preferably, a ride back to London. Neither should prove much of a challenge for a well-dressed young gentleman, even if he looked a little worse for wear.

Flora made it a few yards past the end of the shed before the woman said, “You won’t find the road that way.”

“No?”

With burgeoning amusement, the woman shook her head and raised one hand to beckon Flora over. “Come on, lad. You want something for that hangover?”

Confusingly giddy at being called lad, Flora pivoted and made her way to the woman. “Have you got a hangover cure?” she asked hopefully. “Because my head is killing me. I’m really not at my best. I’m Florian,” she added. It was the name she’d chosen the night before as a joke, an obvious masculinisation of her given name, and close enough that she could answer to it without wondering who the name belonged to, no matter how drunk she got.

“Call me Kells. And yeah, I can fix your hangover. Come on inside, out of this damp.”

Having been deemed harmless, Florian bobbed along in Kells’ footsteps as the woman made her way through the gardens to the cottage. It was a tiny place compared to the London houses Florian knew, and charmingly rustic, with flower boxes under the windows, and a red thatched roof. A cherry tree was just beginning to open pale pink buds, surrounded by drowsy-headed snowdrops, beyond which tender crocuses in purple, yellow, and white showed through the soil. But by and large, the gardens had yet to hit their spring growth spurt.

Regardless, Kells stayed on the paths between the beds, and Florian took care to step exactly where she did, not wanting to accidentally trample any young growth and wear out her welcome when Kells had so generously offered to fix her head. The dog followed close behind Kells, shooting Florian suspicious glares along the way as if she might suddenly swoop at him like a hawk and carry him away. He was small enough that hawks seemed a valid concern, she supposed.

Inside, the cottage was considerably warmer and dryer than the gardens, which Florian appreciated immensely. It was stocked up like an old-fashioned apothecary, with a tall, broad cabinet in the kitchen brimming over with shelves of little glass jars, bottles, and vials, interspersed with glazed ceramic pots. Dried plants hung in bundles from the rafters, done up in twine, held just high enough to avoid grazing the top of one’s head. The whole place smelled of dried herbs and spices, and Florian was charmed from head to toe.

“You make potions,” she declared, more an observation than a question.

“I’ve got a mundane hangover cure, if you prefer,” said Kells, shutting the cottage door behind the dog to keep the chill at bay. “The potion’s not as effective now as it would be if I made it from fresh ingredients anyway. Wrong season for it.”

“I’d like to try it anyway. I’m a bit naff at potions, you know. I never had the patience for all those measurements. It’s like baking; I never had the knack for that, either.”

“You’re more for the arts than the sciences, are you?” Kells asked as she collected leaves of dried herbs and pinches of different coloured powders from the jars. She mixed them together in a mug of some unknown base liquid to create an elixir that smelled strong enough to knock a horse off its feet.

“The arts, yes,” Florian confirmed with a brilliant smile. “I’m something of a painter, actually. I’m terribly interested in the sciences in as much as I can interact with them through an artistic lens, but nothing very technical or mathematical has ever treated me well, I’m afraid.”

Kells thrust the mug at her. “Sit down first,” she advised, “then drink.”

Florian obeyed and immediately blacked out.

◆◆◆

He came to a few seconds later, slumped over the kitchen table. Bolting upright with tingles zipping up and down his spine, he stared straight through the cottage wall until his brain slammed back into his skull, all his senses slotted back into place, and he shuddered all over like a dog shedding water. He’d never felt more awake or clear-minded.

And he remembered the previous evening’s revelation that had caused him such a panic as to bolt off mid-party, abandon his friends, and hole up in Hertfordshire.

“Incredible,” he breathed. “Bloody hell, it would have taken me hours to shake that on my own. Is that your specialty? Remedial potions for what ails you?”

“Among other things,” said Kells, setting the kettle to boil on the stove. “You got a lift back to wherever you came from?”

“No, and, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I want to go back. Not that I mean to get in your way,” Florian added quickly. “I’ll find somewhere else to go. A hotel, perhaps, where I can lay low for a few days until I’m up to facing the horde of friends and family again.”

“You in trouble or something?” Kells turned from the stove to look Florian up and down, as if trying to imagine what sort of trouble such a youth could get into.

She was good-looking, Florian determined, now that his headache was no longer clouding his vision. Not the sort of woman to be called beautiful, but rather, handsome: tall and sturdy, with freckles painting her face that surely came from time spent gardening, and which would only grow more prominent now that the days were lengthening again. She had a nose that looked to have been broken at least once, and a figure like a brick wall, though she moved light on her feet.

Her hair, though, was pretty by anyone’s standards: tied up in a messy bun, with a few loose curls escaping to frame her face, gleaming red and gold where she stood in the patch of sunlight from the window.

“Boy,” Kells said warningly, and Florian jumped out of his daydream and back into the conversation.

“I’m not in any trouble,” he said quickly. “Not legally, personally, or in any other way that could inconvenience you. I just don’t particularly want to see my friends right now.”

“The ones you were out drinking with last night?”

“Right, yes, them. Last night was a bit of a blur, and I’m still not entirely sure how I ended up in your shed — I started off in London, you see — but my friends didn’t actually do anything wrong. But I believe I’m on the brink of something quite momentous, and I’d like to get that sorted before returning to real life. I’m afraid the routine of it all might deter me from self-actualising, you see.”

Kells looked at him like he was speaking in tongues. “Well. Best of luck with all that. A cup of tea before you’re out the door to reinvent yourself?”

“Please,” Florian said gratefully.

The offer of tea apparently came with eggs and toast, all of which Florian scarfed down sitting across from Kells at the kitchen table, with the dog underfoot. Grim had accepted Florian in short order now the he was a guest rather than an intruder, and was more interested in loudly sniffing his shoes than barking at him. Kells watched Florian like she was studying a wild animal: a fox, perhaps, that had stolen into her garden only to start walking around on its hind legs and striking up a conversation.

Florian didn’t mind the attention; in general, he lapped up attention of any sort. He couldn’t exactly use his table manners to make up for his poor first impression, as Kells clearly ran her home in a devastatingly casual manner, but Florian did his best, sitting up straight and cutting his egg-on-toast into bite-sized squares instead of picking the whole thing up to eat with his hands, as Kells was doing.

Florian was very good at charming people at dinner parties, where he could show off his manners by correctly identifying all the myriad utensils, and his intellect and education via his sparkling wit and conversation. He’d never before tried to charm a reluctant, taciturn hostess over breakfast with naught but a single knife and fork.

“Say,” said Florian, after clearing his plate. “You don’t have need of an ornamental hermit, do you?”

Kells gave him a long, assessing look from over the top of her mug. Finishing her drink, she set it down before saying, “Come again?”

“Someone well-read and a bit eccentric to live in your garden and serve as a conversation piece for your guests,” Florian explained. “I woke up this morning thinking I might be suited to that particular vocation. Have you got need of one?”

“Can’t say I’ve given it a minute’s thought before now,” Kells said slowly.

“That’s a shame. I don’t suppose you know anyone who might be interested?”

“If you’re looking for work, I expect most folks around here have more need of a gardener or a general labourer than a hermit, ornamental or otherwise.”

“Hm. That’s fair.”

“I don’t suppose you’re interested in actual work, though, are you?”

“I don’t know,” Florian said honestly, not taking offense at the question. “I’ve never really considered it.”

With something like a laugh, Kells stood to collect the dishes for the sink. “Come on, lad. I’ll give you a lift partway to London, if that’s where you’re headed. Get yourself set up in a nice hotel until you’re done worrying your pretty head about whatever it is that drove you out here in the first place.”

It was a perfectly sensible suggestion, and the offer of a lift on top of breakfast was more than generous, but the thought of returning to London so soon made Florian shrivel. It was as if setting foot in London, even anonymously in a hotel, would immediately return him to girlhood. He wasn’t ready to let go of his newfound masculinity just yet.

“Wait,” Florian blurted, rocking to his feet. “What if I did want to do actual work? You have things to plant, don’t you? It’s getting warmer; there must be plenty to do.”

“There’s always plenty to do,” Kells agreed, glancing at him from the sink.

“I can pull weeds or dig holes or—”

Florian’s hands were a little bigger and more squared-off under the glamour than they were naturally, but no amount of glamour-magic could make them look hardy or better suited for manual labour. Florian might be disguised as a boy, but he was a very soft, rich boy.

“Well,” he continued gamely, “I can do something. I’m clever, and I’m a quick learner. There must be some way I can make myself useful for a few days.”

“The time and effort it would take to teach you what needs doing and supervise you while you do it would set me further behind than if I had no help at all,” said Kells. “I’m sympathetic to your plight, but Christ alive, boy. You’ll be better suited to literally anything in a good-sized city if you want to lay low and avoid your friends for a bit than anything you’ll find out here.”

“But I’m already out here,” Florian pointed out reasonably. “And your dog likes me, now.”

Reaching down to where Grim was scrounging for toast crumbs, Florian attempted to pat the terrier’s scruffy neck, only for Grim to scramble away in a panic. Sheepishly, Florian withdrew his hand.

Kells cast the dog a disparaging look. “You’re an embarrassment, boyo,” she told Grim.

“What if,” Florian suggested, approaching Kells at the sink, “whether or not you’ve got any work for me to do, you rent me a room for a few days, or your perfectly comfortable shed. I’ll either make myself indispensable, or you won’t even notice I’m here. Whichever you prefer.”

“Hang on, now. You want to pay me to let you work here?”

Florian paused, remembering the state of his pockets. “When I next visit my parents or my bank, yes. It’s not as if I need the money.”

Kells responded with a groan, reaching for a towel to dry the plates. “Don’t tell me that. Word of advice? Don’t say that sort of shite to anyone around here.” In the face of Florian’s winning smile, she relented. “I’ll give you a shot. You can stay in the guest room.”

“Not the potting shed?”

“The guest room’s for when my brother stays over; he’s busy these days. And Grim would like you fine by now if you hadn’t scared him during his morning patrol.”

“I scared him?”

“He’s not a guard dog. He’s a rat terrier convinced he’s a prey animal.”

“And his name is Grim?”

“On account of his grim outlook. Now, if you stay here, are your people going to come looking for you?”

“Oh, unlikely. They’ll just assume I wandered off after the party, following some flight of fancy. I’ve done that before, time and again.” Florian gave a careless shrug. “They won’t start worrying until after the forty-eight-hour mark, and I can get in touch with them before that. Ring them up and throw them off my trail.” Glancing around the kitchen and seeing no evidence of a telephone, he amended, “Or, rather, I can write them.”

“Assuming you survive that long.”

“You plan to work me to death in your garden?” Florian leaned in, one hand on the countertop, to give Kells a charmingly rakish smile, just to see if she was receptive to a bit of flirting. “I can think of worse ways to go.” He winked.

Kells rolled her eyes, but she didn’t throw him out.

That evening, as the rain fell in steady showers, plinking against the window panes, Kells broke out a cheap bottle of Irish whiskey. Absently rubbing one knee like it was sore, she poured them each a glass as they sat side by side in armchairs before the fireplace. Grim lay stretched out on the rug before the hearth, panting happily in the crackling heat.

“You want to tell me about this personal revelation that’s got you hiding from your friends?” Kells asked, watching the flames flicker low in the hearth.

The firelight made her hair shine auburn, and Florian would much rather ruminate on that, imagining his hostess done up like a fantasy queen stepped out from some classical painting, than think about his or her own life, much less discuss it.

“I have this fiancé,” Florian began between sips of his drink. “And I just don’t think I’m all that keen on marrying her after all.” He barely caught himself before saying him instead of her, stumbling over the H before catching himself and course-correcting at the last second.

“Been engaged long?”

“A few months, now. We haven’t set a date or anything, but she’s been making noises about maybe having the wedding in the fall.”

“Best break it off cleanly and get it over with,” Kells advised. “Especially if she’s got stronger feelings for you than you have for her.”

Florian wrinkled his nose. “I don’t want you to think I’ve been stringing her along or anything. I really did think I’d marry her — Charlie’s her name — until just last night.”

“What changed?”

“Me, I suppose.” Florian took another swig of whiskey, larger this time, and winced as it burned on the way down. “There’s someone else, too.” At Kells’ judgemental grumble, Florian hastened to explain, nearly spilling his drink in the process. “Not like that! Or, well, maybe like that. Anna knows I’m engaged to Charlie, and Charlie knows Anna and I are … close. But it’s like I just realised last night that I’m not truly happy in either relationship, and I’m not sure how happy they are, either. I’m only just starting to get an inkling of what would make me happy, and it doesn’t involve either of them — who are my best friends, by the way — but I don’t know how to break things off without burning bridges that I’d really much rather leave standing.”

“Young love,” Kells said dryly. “Don’t know how you sustain the energy for all the bloody melodrama of it.”

“I’m sure my love life is the least of dramatic out of all my friends,” Florian replied, though that may not have been true. “Anyway, that’s why I’m here. To get away from the drama and do some good, honest work in the countryside to clear my mind.”

Kells hmphed into her drink. “Sure, by all means, use my garden to clear your head. It’s not like the work would need doing otherwise.”

“I said I’d help, and I will! As long as it gets done, it shouldn’t matter the motivation behind it.”

“True enough,” Kells allowed.

Overnight, the rain turned heavy, accompanied by thrashing winds. Florian lay in bed in Kells’ cosy little guest room, staring up at the darkened ceiling, listening to the beating music of the spring storm. He counted himself lucky that it hadn’t hit the previous night to catch him outdoors. He counted himself lucky in many ways, because really, he was. Now he only needed to channel that luck into keeping his disguise in place long enough for him to figure out what to do next.

◆◆◆

In the morning light, Florian studied her reflection in the mirror hanging on the guest room wall. She’d removed her ring at bedtime to sleep as a girl, and idly rolled it between her thumb and forefinger as she studied the face that had taken her from childhood to her current adult shape, uncomfortable as it was. Holding eye contact with herself in the mirror, she slipped the ring on and became a boy once more.

The changes were subtle. His jaw was a little squarer, his brow barely more pronounced. His eyes were the same, as well as his nose. Leaning closer, he determined that his lips too were much the same, but then, his lips had never been especially plump or shapely. Flora wore lipstick habitually, the same way she painted her cheeks and eyes, but she had always applied her makeup with the same dutiful detachment as putting on socks or a bra; it was just what was done to look presentable. With masculine features and without any makeup at all, Florian rather loved his face. Certainly, he loved it more than he had ever liked that dolled-up femininity.

For the rest of his body—

As the bedroom door didn’t have a lock, he weighed the risk of being interrupted against the power of his own curiosity. Curiosity won out, as it always did, strengthened by the assumption that Kells would knock first rather than barge in on him unannounced. Stripping out of his borrowed pyjamas, Florian stood naked, heart thudding loudly against his ribs.

The mirror was too small to catch his full reflection, so he had to gather his courage to cast his gaze downward. He looked like a man: the flat chest and narrow hips, the planes and angles where the previous day he’d had curves. But, the ring was quick to remind him, it was only looks.

Male genitals, he had a passing familiarity with, having handled a few in his time as a girl. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted all that hanging between his legs; it seemed more inconvenient than anything. But that wasn’t to say he wouldn’t give it a try. However, when he dropped his hand, there was nothing to grasp. His exploratory touch slipped straight through the illusion. Conversely, when he raised his hands to his chest, though he appeared as flat as any boy, he could feel his tits when he cupped them.

“Disappointing,” he told his reflection, “but good enough for now, I think. More than good enough for a party trick whipped up on a whim, anyway.”

Donning his daytime clothes once more, he made sure the ring was secure on his finger before venturing out.

In the kitchen, Kells surveyed the back garden with a frown, a mug of tea warming her hands. Florian poured himself a cup, heaping it with milk and sugar, and joined her by the window. Grim trotted over to give Florian a suspicious good morning, poking his ankles with a sharp little nose. In the garden, the winds had brought down a tangle of dead branches, flinging them haphazardly through the hedges and shrubs that bordered the property.

“Good morning. That looks a right mess, doesn’t it?” Florian said cheerfully, sipping his sugar-and-milk concoction.

Kells grumbled into her more sensible black tea. She was wearing an old terrycloth dressing gown that looked incredibly soft, and thick socks in her slippers, but otherwise, she was dressed for the day, hair tied up in another loose, messy bun.

“You still offering to help?” she asked, glancing at him through the curling steam of their collective teas. “Or have you come to your senses in the cold light of morning?”

“I can help clear up the garden, absolutely,” Florian confirmed.

Kells grunted in response. “Right, then. Breakfast first.”

It turned out that Florian’s male body was no better suited to the hardship of manual labour than her female form. Wrestling those tree branches, dead as they were, from shrubs bigger than he was and a hedgerow that was practically a forest in its own right, all sharp and thickety, put him to the test and found him wanting in short order. A mere twenty minutes of work left him panting, his underarms plastered with the specifically unpleasant sort of sweat that only struck in damp, chilly weather.

Still, he didn’t let up, going everywhere Kells instructed and doing everything she asked with minimal complaint. There were some complaints — he was only human — but he kept them brief. He needed to prove his worth so she wouldn’t send him back to his friends and family so soon, but also, on a less practical level, he rather wanted to impress her.

He had a thing for stern, no-nonsense women, or rather, she, Flora, did. Ever since her first year at boarding school when she’d tripped headlong into hopeless infatuation with one of the senior girls — mouth-wateringly athletic, stone-faced, and uninterested in giving her so much as the time of day — Flora had been helpless against hard-edged, physically competent women, especially if they were a bit older than she was. She had plenty of girlfriends her own age who didn’t inspire the same reaction, but anyone who made her try to earn her keep or win their praise left her all flushed and dizzy.

Kells was no exception.

She was a vision, stomping through the mud in her boots, hefting branches with an ease that spoke to a lifetime of using her body to get things done, picking loose twigs out of tangled living branches with a delicacy that belied her obvious strength. Her hair gleamed dully as the clouds parted to let the April sun shine through, a thin and wavering light. She moved through the gardens like she had every inch of land memorised, not having to think about where to put her feet to avoid crushing the daffodils or tulips poking their first leaves above ground.

Besides the sprouts, she also seemed to have a preternatural sense for Grim’s location at all times. Though, to be fair, with the ground as wet as it was and the sky threatening another shower, he seemed reluctant to leave the doorway. Grim, as it turned out, didn’t like going out in the rain, or getting his paws wet in muddy, waterlogged ground.

He ventured out just once that morning to do his business under the scant shelter of the cherry blossom buds, and then hurried himself back indoors, watching them with a reproachful air as if judging them for staying out longer than they had to. Kells, for all her exasperation, indulged his idiosyncrasies, leaving him to nap by the doorway where he could watch her work without leaving the comfort of his bed. Florian, however, was not offered the same grace. If Kells had to work in the rain, Florian was expected to join her.

By the time the garden had been cleaned up, with the tidying of blown-down branches somehow leading to a dozen other tasks that needed doing, in the way that Florian suspected most tasks evolved, the sun was high overhead and the threat of rain had moved further on. Over the course of the morning, Kells had developed a slight limp; as she didn’t draw attention to it, Florian chose not to mention it, either. Inside, she put together a plate of sandwiches for them to share, sitting on either side of the kitchen table.

“Well?” Florian prompted, taking a bite of a sturdy ham-and-cheese. “Did I pass muster?”

“You did,” Kells allowed, “though you’re looking worse for wear. You really want to keep on with this?”

“I really, sincerely want to avoid my friends and family a while longer. If that means sweating out my own body weight in physical labour, it’s a price I’m more than happy to pay.”

Kells stared him down. Awaiting her verdict, Florian held his breath.

“Tell me,” said Kells. “If you’d woken up in some cow shed, would you be begging that farmer to let you muck out his stalls? Would you be offering to shepherd goats or pull weeds or scrub toilets, whatever you could think of, for whatever random unfortunate whose garden you woke up in? Or am I special, for some godforsaken reason?”

Florian couldn’t very well admit to his crush on the woman without being thrown out on his ear. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to start off with a bald-faced lie, either.

“I wouldn’t be begging just anyone,” he admitted. “You see, yours was the fifth shed I tried. The first two, they ran me off with torches and pitchforks. The third one threw me to their pigs, the fourth tried to marry me off to their unwanted daughter, and the fifth never even noticed I was there. So, you’re special in that you let me get this far, I suppose.”

“I see. You didn’t want to marry the daughter on account of your own fiancée, was it?”

“Well, I might have considered it, but she was a bit ghastly, to be honest. Her parents told me she couldn’t find a husband because she kept trying to eat her suitors, like a fairytale troll. All the men in the county found it off-putting, but they thought they could foist her on me.”

Kells nodded sagely. “Right, I know the family. Unfortunate girl. Terrible appetites. Simply enormous teeth.”

Florian snorted.

After taking another bite of her sandwich, Kells said, “I hope this isn’t the sort of nonsense you’ll be offering visitors if I let you set up as a hermit. You promised me philosophical intellectualism, but I think you’re a bit full of shite, aren’t you?”

“Just a bit,” Florian agreed. “Do you like it?”

“Shut your face,” Kells said amicably, and still, she didn’t throw him out.

◆◆◆

Dear mother and father,

Florian wrote, and Charlie, and also Anna, copying the same letter out thrice, one addressed to each of the three houses most likely to wonder at his sudden absence:

I’m awfully sorry for disappearing on you short notice like that, but I’ve decided to stay with a friend in the country for the summer. All’s well, and I’ll check in with you in a bit.

Love, Flore

It explained absolutely nothing, and would have left his friends and family with more questions than answers had Florian not been gifted with a history of such whims and rash decisions. To reassure them that he really was well, in his right mind, and hadn’t been kidnapped and bullied into writing a note, he included a quick sketch in the margins of each letter: a sweet summer cottage for his parents, an apple tree for Charlie, and an ivy vine for Anna. They were innocuous enough, and, without drawing flowers for either of his lovers, couldn’t be construed as anything romantic.

He and Charlie hadn’t actually set a date for their wedding, though both families seemed to assume it would be sooner than later. Hopefully, the letter would make clear that it wouldn’t be that summer, in any case. Slipping each note into its own envelope taken from Kells’ kitchen drawer, Florian deliberately left off any return address, not that he knew exactly where he was in Hertfordshire anyway.

◆◆◆

“Take me on a tour of all your potions,” Florian requested the next day, with enough enthusiasm that it sounded more like a demand. Either way, Kells obliged him.

“Most of them are about what you’d expect,” she said, joining Florian by the broad, walnut cabinet. “I’m not doing anything wildly experimental or ground-breaking, you know.”

“So, they’re mostly sex potions?” Florian guessed.

Not denying it, Kells gestured to the middle shelf, which was the most accessible. Moving from left to right, she identified each line of jars, all of which were labelled with a list of ingredients, though none of the potions themselves were named. What Florian assumed were Kells’ best sellers were represented in duplicate, with as many as ten identically-marked vials clustered together in each spot.

“Sex potions,” she agreed. “These ones are to bolster a flagging libido in either men or women, in varying strengths; to calm down an overenthusiastic libido, for anyone who wants to live as a monk; to improve a man’s fertility; and the same for women, though I had to dial that one down after a woman came up with triplets. I thought that was a bit much to have all at once. I use a lot of the rabbit-moon plant in the women’s potions, and a lot of the Priapus genus for the men’s.”

The Priapus family was full of very silly-looking flowers, in Florian’s artistic opinion. Despite their ridiculous appearance, or perhaps because of it, they did live up to their name when it came to interacting with male hormones.

“And the one at the very end?”

“Women’s health,” Kells said dismissively.

“Such as?” Florian prompted.

Kells cut him a glance, sizing him up. “A contraceptive to stop menstruation, for those who want fewer children instead of more.”

Florian studied the list of ingredients with a sudden, gnawing hunger. ‘Purissima Rose’ was listed first and foremost, a variety of Rosaceae Florian had never heard of. “How does that work?”

“You take it once monthly, every twenty-eight days, and that’ll stop the cycle.”

“Isn’t there an option to take a potion once, and be done with it forever?”

“Not that I’ve ever seen done successfully. Most women like the option of going on and off it.”

“It’s alright for some,” Florian said, her nose scrunched up in distaste. “But I shouldn’t want to deal with it whatsoever. I’m sure there must be women who feel the same.”

“Sure, but I don’t think potions are the answer. I’ve heard of spells that can stop it permanently, or curses, more like. They can be finicky, though, and curses generally come with no small number of side effects. Surgery would be the most permanent solution, but few will risk that in light of safer options. A monthly potion’s really not much fuss in comparison.”

“I suppose,” Florian allowed begrudgingly.

“Bottom shelf is beauty,” Kells continued, moving on. “I’ve got stuff for regrowing hair loss, smoothing over blemishes, evening the complexion, strengthening hair or nails. A lot of it’s medicine-adjacent, but with more immediate effects. Then there’s the makeup-adjacent stuff. Potions to change hair or eye colour are popular, especially among the youth.”

“Are they glamour-based?” Florian asked, stooping to poke at the shelf. “Because I know my way around a little glamour magic, but that’s mostly spellwork, not potions.”

“My potions literally change the body, no illusions about it. Now, the top shelf is more for mental effects, plus common health complaints. I’ve got your hangover cure, as well as sleeping draughts, potions to get into dreamwalking, stuff for focus, calm, bravery, a handful of specific moods…”

“And they really work?”

“I wouldn’t be able to keep selling the stuff if people weren’t recommending me to their friends and family. I sell at the local market every week in the summer, and I take special orders in between. My potions do as well as my tea leaves. People like to keep coming back to a quality product.”

“You sell teas, as well?”

“Sure. And honey and preserves, and wine and cider in the fall. I’ve got a tea garden, a potion garden, and a vegetable garden out back beyond the shed.”

“That seems an awful lot for one person to manage,” Florian observed.

“I get by.”

“Well, and I suppose Grim helps.”

Kells shrugged. “Two hands and a neurotic little dog. What more does anyone need?”

That night, after Kells and Grim had gone to bed, Florian crept back to the kitchen to take one of the little vials of contraceptive potion down from the cabinet shelf. Unstopping the top, she took a sniff and then downed the whole thing without hesitation. It tasted better than she expected, not bitter at all, but the aftertaste was just the slightest bit chalky on the back of her tongue.

Twenty-eight days, she told herself, and made a mental note of the date. Either her disguise would have fallen apart by May, and she would have to come clean and buy the next potion for herself. Or, if her glamour somehow stayed intact for so long, she would simply buy a number more on behalf of some invented friend.

After returning to London, her purse, and her bank, she would come back and sneak a few pounds into Kells’ purse to pay her for the stolen one, with interest; hopefully she wouldn’t notice a single vial missing when there were still plenty left on the shelf. Florian wasn’t sure what excuse she could invent if Kells accused her directly, but hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Ironically, she never felt less like a girl than during that time of the month. It never made her feel adult or empowered or connected to any divine femininity, or whatever else women peddled to each other to make the experience feel greater than the sum of its unpleasant parts. Florian’s mother had taken a practical approach to explaining the situation, giving her the bare minimum of information needed to look after herself. It was a natural state of womanhood, her mother explained, a blessing and a sign of health, but she acknowledged that that didn’t make it any less tedious. Florian was to keep track of her cycles, and try not to complain. No one wanted to hear about it.

Perhaps if Florian had been allowed to complain, she would have been a little less resentful. It was true that no one wanted to acknowledge it, herself included, which resulted in her continually forgetting to keep an accurate count of the days. When she wasn’t actively bleeding, she had the remarkable ability to forget that it would shortly happen again. Three and a half weeks of the month, she was as she was meant to be, chipper and active and bright. The last few days turned her lethargic and bad-tempered, not so much because of any physical discomfort, but because of the overwhelming sense that she shouldn’t have to put up with it. It was more than just an inconvenience, but a sense that something was incorrect, and that she wasn’t meant to bleed any more than the blissfully ignorant boys.

With the aftertaste of Kells’ potion coating her tongue and the sizzle of magic in her stomach as the potion began to do its work, for the first time, Florian felt a spark of hope regarding her future in that particular department. Perhaps she wouldn’t be doomed to another twenty-odd years of monthly cycles. Perhaps she could simply potion away the entire ordeal.