Chapter 4 Wells
WELLS
I leave Juneberry with a too-full cup of black tea and an even fuller urge to throw it at something. Preferably, the stubborn woman who thinks she can sell a living house like it’s nothing but shingles and plaster.
The wind cuts sharply as I take the path out of town. Wick’s Ridge rises behind me, the inn tucked up there nice and cozy. From this distance, Blue Willow looks the way it always has: orderly, lovely in a lived-in way, and quiet. But beneath all that, there’s history pressing in.
The Harts, the Winslows, the Marlowes, the Ashbys, and the Langfords. Five families who carried the town’s bones onto this soil and rooted themselves deep. Each one left something strange behind, though no one agrees whether it was deliberate or just the way magic settles.
An inn that breathes. An apiary with healing honey. An orchard in perennial bloom. A co-owned bog that keeps, and steals, the best of our memories. That’s the land we’re standing on, and no matter how Elsie tries to deny it, she’s tied to it as much as I am now.
I push down the road, boots slipping where snow’s hardened to ice, hunched against the cold. My shoulder’s been giving me hell again—a dull burn that grinds down into the joint and flares if I breathe too deeply.
Every step shakes the ache loose, so by the time Honeywild comes into view, it’s humming steady, sharp enough to make me clench my jaw.
The farm looks half-wild even in winter. Lavender stalks have gone brittle in their beds, and the hives stand stacked like sleeping sentries. The place carries a quiet warmth in spite of the frost—the kind you feel more in your chest than on your skin.
Home of the Marlowes, flower growers turned beekeepers. Winnie, steady as summer, grew up here. With the bees. With the fields. With this patch of inherited magic. She knows it better than anyone.
Which is how she must’ve already known I was on my way. I open the gate, and she waves from the porch of her cottage, cheeks pink from the cold, hair frizzing loose from her braid. The brim of her sun hat hangs on a hook beside the door, out of season but waiting.
“Hey, Wells! There’s still plenty of achehoney to spare,” she calls, holding up a jar wrapped in twine. “This is a full-moon batch from last season. You look like you need it.”
“Very much so.”
She gives me a sympathetic once-over. “You limping again?”
“Only slightly.”
“You need to soak your wrist, too.”
“Already on the list.”
“Good,” she says, and then the screen door bangs behind her as a small voice calls, “Mama!”
A blur of curls and fleece pajamas barrels onto the porch. Winnie scoops her up with practiced ease.
“Morning, Goldie,” I say. Marigold Marlowe. Three years old and already the sunniest thing on this side of the ridge.
She hides her face against her mom’s shoulder, peeking out with one wary eye.
“Shy today,” Winnie murmurs, smoothing Goldie’s hair.
I smile and shift my weight against the gate.
Funny how fast it all changed for her. One summer, Winnie was just the girl who knew bees better than anyone, running the flower stand with her parents.
Then came the out-of-towner—a whirlwind few months that left her with a baby and a lot of unanswered questions.
He didn’t stick, but she did. Continued to build on Honeywild with her own hands. Raised Goldie with the same grit she’s always had. No one in town blames her. If anything, they circle tighter around her and the little one, like hives around their queen.
She nudges the jar into my hands. “Heard Elspeth’s granddaughter’s back. How’s that going?”
“Word’s spread already?”
Winnie’s grin is quick, amused. “This is Blue Willow, Wells. Bees travel faster than cell towers.”
Back home—real home, the one I left behind in Boston—neighbors kept to themselves unless they needed something. People didn’t ask questions, and they sure as hell didn’t offer help unless there was something in it for them.
Here, everyone knows everything. They’ll leave a casserole on your porch if they think you’re hungry and show up with a wrench if your pipes make a strange noise. It’s comforting, most of the time.
It also means nothing stays quiet for long. Not grief. Not pain. Not even a girl returning to a house in the dead of winter, when the sun had already gone down and the rest of the town seemed to lean in, listening.
“It’s going how it’s going,” I say, tucking the jar under my arm. “Thanks for the honey. I’ll be seein’ ya, Winnie.” I nod to Goldie, still curled against her mom’s shoulder. “You behave for your mama, sunshine.”
Goldie blinks at me solemnly, then pops her lips to make a strange sound. Winnie laughs under her breath.
“Let me know if you need help with anything sticky,” she says. “We both know how tough a Hart can be.”
I half-ass a two-finger salute and start back down the path, the ache in my shoulder pulsing with every step. By the time I reach the inn, the sun’s cresting pale and low over Wick’s Ridge. Midmorning now.
I wonder if Elsie made it back to the house to change or if she’s still stomping through town trying to strong-arm a miracle out of Bobby, coffee stain and all.
Once I’m back inside the kitchen, snow boots scraped outside the door, I finally unscrew the jar of achehoney and take a long, slow spoonful. Let it coat my throat, settle beneath my ribs.
“Is that from Honeywild?”
I jolt, wince a little at the sound of Elsie’s voice. “Obviously.”
She peers over. “Can I try some?”
“Why?”
“Haven’t tasted it in years. Grandma always used to give me some when I got banged up. Swore it could perform miracles.”
I blink. “You say that like you don’t believe in it.”
“Sure, I do.” She waves a flippant hand. “And I wouldn’t mind a miracle right about now.”
With a sigh, I grab her little fox mug off the drying rack and rinse it out slowly. The kettle clicks on. She pushes herself up onto the counter beside the stove, legs swinging.
I don’t want to talk to her. Don’t even want to look at her, really.
“Do you think you could give me a list of all needed repairs by the end of the week?” she asks, and I wince again. “That way, the house can be ready when the paperwork clears.”
She wants to enrage me, I’m sure of it. Press every last button I’ve got.
“I don’t know what kind of arrangement you had with my grandma. Of course, I’d pay you once the sale goes through. Or were you working for accommodation?”
My jaw tightens. I turn toward the cupboard instead of answering and blow out a harsh breath. Maybe if I pretend she’s not here, she’ll vanish. Come on, house. Grant me this single reprieve.
“It’s not a judgment,” she says, softer now. “I just don’t know what you were—what this was.”
The kettle sings, shrill and sharp.
I pull it off the burner, pour water into the mug, and stir in the achehoney. My hand brushes hers as I pass it over. Our fingers hold for a beat. Her skin is soft, warmer than I expected. She doesn’t look at me, but something in her stillness shifts.
“It was both,” I say as I pull away. “Work and accommodation. Elspeth was fair to me that way.”
“Of course she was.” She glances down at the mug, then up at me. “Thanks.”
“For the honeyed tea?”
She tilts her head. “For not spitting in it, I suppose.”
I huff, dry. “Don’t give me any ideas, Elsie.”
She laughs, and I catch myself almost smiling.
“Look,” she says, “if you don’t want to make the list, could you at least do a walk-through with me? The whole place. I want to take notes. See what’s actually needed.”
I grit my teeth. “So you can throw me a few bucks, then hire some out-of-town contractor to finish the work?”
“As if I had the disposable income to hire anyone else.”
I blink and size her up. She’s wearing tailored jeans tucked into expensive-looking boots, a soft gray sweater that probably cost more than my truck’s last tune-up, her curls pinned up neat.
Minimal makeup. Perfect skin. She certainly looks expensive. But maybe our ideas of wealth are different.
“Is that why you’re so desperate to sell?” I ask, bitterness creeping in. “Because you’re hard up for cash?”
I’ve never had much, but I’ve always made enough. Repairs, carpentry, odd jobs around town. Elspeth insisted on paying me properly while she was alive, and after she passed, she left a yearly stipend in the will to make sure I could stay on and keep the place running.
Elsie’s situation is different. At least, I assumed as much. The Harts had old money, even if Elspeth lived modestly. I figured Elsie must’ve inherited a small fortune on top of the inn. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe it’s tied up like the house is.
Either way, I never pictured a Hart having to tighten the belt.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes,” she says through pursed lips. “Things have been tight.”
“Tight enough to sell a magical inn that’s been in your family for generations?”
Her nostrils flare. “Do you think this is easy for me? I grew up here.”
“Then you should know better than anyone it’s not the kind of place that wants to be gutted and flipped.”
“Trust me,” she says, her voice sharpening, “I don’t have the energy or the funds to gut anything. Even if the historical designation would allow that. I just want it clean and functional enough for someone else to deal with.”
“Charming sales pitch.”
“I’m not a Realtor.”
We stare at each other. I wonder if she even sees this place anymore—if she remembers the chiming of the chandelier or the way the parlor smells after rain. If she feels the house dimming, the magic slipping, and wants to revive it as badly as I do.
Or if she’s really convinced herself she doesn’t care.
Her face gives me nothing.
“So, will you do it or not?”
I drag a hand through my hair and lean against the counter. I could refuse outright, but another idea takes hold: show her the worst of it. Every crooked floorboard, every swollen window frame, every stubborn hinge. Let her think it’s too broken, too costly, too unsellable.
If I bury the good parts—if I keep its quiet soul hidden—maybe she’ll walk away before she realizes what’s still here. Maybe she’ll leave her name on the deed and let me stay on to patch the roof, mend the windows, keep the lights warm.
No one else will want it if they can’t gut it and rebuild. That’s the truth I can sell her on.
“Let’s start now. Before you change your mind and call in someone from Hartford.”
“Ready when you are,” she says.
I force a grin and nod once. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”