-MAY-
As soon as the last chance of frost had passed, England donned her spring garb in a flutter of greenery and birdsong. The change came so abruptly, it was as if winter had never happened. The last snowdrops and crocuses disappeared, replaced by cheery daffodils. Firm, wavy tulip leaves promised bright blooms in the coming weeks. The trees unfurled their tiny leaves one by one, yellow-green and tender, and the cherry blossoms and magnolias burst out their pink and white petals like girls in tulle ballet skirts.
Florian had never particularly enjoyed spring, tending to dismiss it as an even greyer and wetter season than the others. But, working outdoors on Kells’ property, where he could see the changes day by day, he marvelled at the rapidity of the gardens’ growth. He’d never before admired how quickly the first flowers grew, racing to meet the sun as if wanting to impress upon him that they were indeed living things, not just seasonal decor for him to study in carefully manicured city gardens or bouquets at summer’s height.
“I feel like Marie Antoinette, living on her little hobby farm,” Florian remarked.
“And that’s aspirational, is it?”
“Well, maybe not the ending. But she seemed to be having a marvellous time up until then.”
“We’re not hobby-farming, here,” Kells pointed out. “There’s actual work to do.”
“Oh, naturally, yes.”
As the days warmed and lengthened, it seemed every one introduced a new skill for Florian to learn. Kells wasn’t simply an amateur gardening enthusiast, but an industrious agriculturalist tending to her crops. She kept bees, and would be selling the honey at the upcoming local market alongside her myriad concoctions, both tea blends and potions. All the herbal and floral ingredients for those, she grew herself, testing the soil at regular intervals to be sure their growing conditions were optimal.
The potion garden was planted behind the shed, with a modest vegetable garden of equal size behind that, and the smaller tea garden nestled closer to the house. Those gardens, Kells had circled round with protective wards to keep the pests at bay.
“Grim can demolish a rabbit,” she explained, “but he’s as likely to get his head stomped in by a deer as he is to run it off, and of course, he’s useless against slugs or aphids. So, I keep the wards up against everything, to be safe.”
Beyond the vegetables stood the beehives, flanked by a crop of wildflowers. An apple tree grew at the front of the cottage whose blossoms Kells harvested in the spring, though the fruit, which she used in jams, jellies, preserves, and cider, as well as in her teas and potions, wouldn’t be ready until autumn. The cherry tree directly out back of the cottage was similarly harvested, albeit for wine instead of cider.
Every plant, tree, and flower in each and every garden bed, Kells knew. She knew when each would sprout, bloom, and be ready to harvest for her specific purpose. It was as if she kept a meticulous map of it all in her head, as much encyclopedia as farmer’s almanac. Florian knew his way around plants better than the average layperson, and he could recognise most everything Kells grew, but he couldn’t hold a candle to her expertise. It was as if the plants whispered their secrets to her when Florian wasn’t looking. He wouldn’t be surprised in the least if that were the case, except that it seemed to diminish Kells’ magnificent intuition.
Or, rather, her intuition for magic. As more leaves sprouted and more petals opened, the gardens grew awash in magic: a heady, glimmering aura that marked them as distinct from every commonplace, mundane garden Florian had ever seen. Kells’ collection boasted specimens of magic plants Florian had never before seen in real life, or outside Kew Gardens. There were plants that packed powerful hallucinogens, pollen that could send bystanders falling into dreamscapes, petals that changed one’s mood when eaten, and blossoms that emitted soft music in the breeze, like fairy bells.
Kells’ knowledge of her potion garden went beyond rote memorisation. She could sense the strength of any plant’s magical properties just by looking at it. If there was a dud in her mix, she could tell at a glance, just as she could tell with a single sniff which flowers could use further pollenating, and the exact hour of the day when each particular plant should be harvested. It was an incredibly specific skill, the likes of which Florian doubted he himself could cultivate if he spent a lifetime trying.
Regarding the work itself, Florian found that not only was he good at it — none of it required any particular talent except for following directions — but he actually enjoyed it, too. He felt productive and useful in a way that all his scholarly scribbling had never achieved, and once his body adjusted to the physical effort he was suddenly demanding, it began to feel good, as well.
She had always been fairly slim, what with her tendency to walk everywhere to burn off the energy of her thoughts, and her unfortunate habit of sometimes missing a meal when she was too caught up in whatever she was pursuing at a given moment. But with Kells making sure he ate three square meals a day, and not just walking but lifting, digging, hefting, and the like, he began to fill out nicely, his slender frame growing toned with muscle.
Initially, Florian had thought a few weeks would be more than enough time to get his head on straight, whether he decided to return to his old life in London or continue on as a boy. But as the days passed, Florian felt absolutely no inclination to go back to the way things were. Kells gave him free reign over her brother’s wardrobe, which mostly fit him, and his palms grew callused from the daily work. The spring sun felt heavenly on his skin, the rain more refreshing than it had ever been in London, and his lungs felt stronger, to say nothing of his muscles.
And Grim was warming to him, albeit incrementally. The dog still shied away when Florian went to pet him, but he made sure to say good morning and good night to Florian every day, and was happy to take treats from his hands as long as those hands otherwise kept to themselves.
That was all without getting into Kells’ company. The work was good, the fresh air and scenery better, but it was Kells who elevated the experience to something transcendental. Florian was a romantic in every sense of the word. He was also a flirt, and, perhaps, a gentleman, if those two traits weren’t deemed contradictory.
And Kells was very good to flirt with. The best part about flirting, in Florian’s opinion, was that the game was an end in and of itself. A good flirtation should never leave either party feeling obliged to follow through. Tempted, perhaps, but never like it was inevitable. Florian was generally all too willing to follow through; that was how he’d ended up with two lovers in the first place.
Kells flirted back, giving as good as she got with an air of quiet amusement like Florian was the best entertainment she’d had in a long time. But she never seemed to have any expectation that he should do more than flirt with her, and she never offered anything more herself.
Florian set himself challenges, first to see if he could make her laugh — yes, and when she did, it was with a warm, throaty chuckle that sounded the way good whiskey tasted — or blush — no; apparently impossible, though he imagined her Irish complexion would turn her a fetching rose red all the way down her chest.
“What do you actually do, in your real life?” Kells asked one evening, over a freshly-harvested chamomile tea at the kitchen table. “Are you a student? Or is it more a gentleman-of-leisure situation, where you spend your days socialising with anyone and everyone?”
“A little of both, I suppose. But I’ve got hobbies, if that’s what you mean. I’m a painter, first and foremost, and a sort of amateur naturalist second.”
“What do you paint?”
“Well, I started off with landscapes, plein air, and the like; you know, perfectly respectable, mediocre stuff. But these days, I’m positively consumed by botanical studies.”
“Do you want to be a biologist, then?”
“What I’d really like to be is a scientific illustrator,” Florian said optimistically. “I don’t know if I’ve got the rigour for it, though.”
“Are you any good?” Kells asked, taking the scepticism off her question with a nudge of her elbow against Florian’s, atop the table.
“I like to think so. In any case, I’ve got a ripping good party trick related to it. Do you want to see?”
“A painting trick?”
“Party trick,” Florian corrected. “But yes. Here, let me — Have you got any watercolours?”
“Not at all. I’ve got an ink pen and some paper,” Kells offered.
“I don’t know how well that will work for what I’ve got in mind, but let’s give it a shot.”
As Kells went to retrieve the pen and paper, Florian pushed their tea aside, clearing a space to work. Returning, Kells set the pen and paper down on the table in front of Florian, and when she reclaimed her seat, she dragged it closer so she could watch every line Florian drew.
“I don’t normally work in pen and ink for this sort of thing,” Florian explained as he got started. “I like it for taking notes, but I haven’t actually tried it for this before.”
“What is the trick? Or will telling me ruin it, like a magician sharing his secrets?”
“Just wait and see,” Florian promised, shooting her a grin before doubling over the paper, left hand spread flat against it with the pen in his right, touching down tentatively for a second before he bolstered his confidence and leapt right in.
It was an altogether different approach than painting with watercolour, but he didn’t let his uncertainty show, and he certainly didn’t let it mar the paper with strokes of hesitation. The trick to art, he found, was not letting the materials know if one was afraid of them. It was much the same as handling wild animals, he supposed, albeit with somewhat lower stakes.
Then again, trying to impress Kells didn’t feel like low stakes at all.
With bold strokes, a rose took shape. A long, winding stem took up two thirds of the paper’s length, complete with a few tapering thorns and a cluster of pointed leaves near the head. The bloom itself was plump, only partially open, with layers upon layers of tightly wound petals teasing a glimpse of the showstopping bloom that had yet to reveal itself.
“Beautiful work,” Kells murmured, her gaze fixed on the paper.
Florian preened at the compliment, sitting up straighter and setting his pen aside. “Thank you. But that’s not the fun part.”
Taking his right index finger, he pressed down directly on the very bottom of the stem, careful not to smudge the still-wet ink. With a whisper, the incantation being one he’d made up himself, he sent a single drop of magic through his fingertip and into the drawing. It shimmered through each and every line like a tiny, fast-flowing river of ink itself, silvery purple like mercury or molten glass. When the whole drawing glimmered, he withdrew, glancing at Kells to gauge her reaction so far.
“Still beautiful,” she confirmed, looking at him in return like she was trying to judge whether that was the entirety of it, or whether she should withhold her full reaction for something more.
“Watch,” Florian told her, unable to hold back his excitement.
Leaning forward, his toes tucked behind the rungs of his chair like a giddy schoolboy, he pinched the stem to lift it from the paper. At first, it peeled off in two dimensions, the lines flat in the air. But the longer he held them, the thicker and more robust they became, until he had pulled the entire rose from the paper and it existed as a fully-formed, three-dimensional object. Drawn in ink, it shone black from top to bottom, though the magic animating it gave it a shimmer that caught the light and showed off its contours.
Standing, one hand behind his back like a gentleman, Florian offered it to Kells with a flourish.
“What.” Kells shoved her chair back from the table to stand, hesitating for a second before accepting the rose, like she couldn’t believe it was real. “How did you do that?” she demanded through her smile.
“Oh, I don’t know enough about magical theory to have it all worked out,” Florian said, brushing Kells’ wonder aside like it didn’t warm him all the way through.
“You just did it?” Mindful of the thorns, Kells turned the rose to examine it from every angle. “You just invented your own incantation, and did it?”
“That about sums it up,” Florian agreed. “Do you like it?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Florian gave a full-body shimmy, unable to help himself. “You should see my watercolours. They’re not perfectly lifelike, of course, but there’s something to them, I think. I could paint you a whole garden.”
Kells raised the rose to her face to look for a scent, but there was nothing but the smell of ink and paper. “It’s beautiful, but I don’t know that I’ve got use for a whole garden of paper flowers.” She gave the rose a twirl between her fingers, admiring its craft. “You could do a good job selling them to sweethearts when the summer market opens, though.”
“Right.” Florian wilted.
Though Kells was obviously charmed by his trick, she was far too practical a woman to delight in mere decoration. She had better things to do than fill her house with clutter, no matter how pretty. She didn’t keep her gardens for their beauty, after all; she was more interested in what they could do for her than in things that were pretty for their own sake.
What Florian needed to give her was something truly useful, that she couldn’t easily obtain herself. He was already giving her manual labour; she didn’t seem especially keen on putting his body to other uses. Or at least, she hadn’t come out and made the first move for it. All else Florian had to offer was his brain, or his art. Between his general curiosity and his inherent need to keep busy, he was sure he’d think of something.
◆◆◆
“Would you cut my hair?” Florian asked one morning, apropos of nothing.
Kells looked at him over her toast. “What makes you think I’d make a good barber?”
“You’re good with your hands in every other respect.” Florian tamped down on the rush of heat that gave away just how much he’d thought about how else Kells might be good with her hands.
“I’ve never even seen your hair. How long have you been here? Weeks, now. And with your hair hidden under that cap, day and night.”
With an embarrassed twist of his mouth, Florian pulled his cap off to let his hair come tumbling down. It was styled in a long bob, the tips at the front coming down past his chin, while the rest was gathered a little shorter at the back to expose his neck. It had been quite fetching when it had been fresh and she’d been in pretty dresses and blouses with her face all painted, but now, in boy’s clothes, and with it needing a trim, he felt more awkward than anything.
“I got it cut like this as a joke,” he said, turning the cap in both hands as he avoided looking Kells in the eye. “For that night when we were out partying. It was a laugh at the time, but I’ve rather had enough of it, now.”
Kells took a thoughtful munch of her toast, butter shining her fingers. “Alright,” she said eventually. “Tonight, after tea, I’ll cut your hair, sure.”
That evening, Kells sat Florian on a stool in the kitchen as the sunset glowed through the window over the sink. He had a towel draped over his shoulders and another in his lap to catch the hair, as Kells went at his head with a wet comb, straightening and dampening the strands. Florian’s hair was a dark, rich chestnut brown with a little wave to it, which her mother had always commended, telling her how lucky she was to have such a pretty natural texture. Florian liked his hair well enough, and he certainly bore it no resentment, but he couldn’t stop imagining what he might look like with a proper boy’s haircut. Bobs were one thing, with some girls getting them cut daringly short, but they still read entirely feminine to Florian. He wanted something more drastic.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Kells said, standing behind him with the scissors as she ran one hand roughly through his hair, getting a feel for it. “But I’ve got to give you the same cut I give my brother. I’ve done his hair enough times that I know what I’m doing, but I can’t promise results if you ask for anything different. That alright?”
“That depends. Is your brother as good-looking as you are?”
“I really can’t say.”
“I suppose I’ll take my chances.”
At the first cut, Florian shut his eyes, and with each subsequent chunk of the scissors, he felt lighter. His chin dipped as his shoulders dropped, neck lengthening, bared to Kells as the weight of his pretty, fashionable haircut fell away in feathery flutters to the floor. He kept his eyes shut as Kells worked, moving around him from one side to the other, one hand touching his face, cheeks and temples, to measure the symmetry. Through the window, the sunset warmed his skin, pink and red and orange through his eyelids.
Up close, Kells smelled good, and with his eyes shut, Florian didn’t feel self-conscious about breathing her in. She smelled like lemongrass and cooking herbs, and the slightly sweet, slightly spicy scent of the magic she used in her potions, like her life’s work had sunk into her skin over the years, clinging just under the surface. She smelled the way a warm embrace felt, and Florian shivered from wanting. He hadn’t slept alone for so many consecutive nights in years, and his body ached to hold another body close. This haircut was the most prolonged physical contact he’d had since arriving at Kells’ cottage, and he wasn’t even sure it counted. It was only scissors to hair, after all. Kells’ light touches around his face were brief and workmanlike, promising nothing but an even cut.
“Ready to see it?” Kells’ voice was low and closer than Florian expected, making him jump, his eyes flying open. Thankfully, the scissors had already been safely set aside.
Excited and strangely nervous, Florian bundled up the towels full of chopped hair to follow Kells to the loo. There, he took a deep breath before flipping on the light and plunging in to look at himself in the mirror over the sink.
He looked handsome. There could be no overestimating the power of the right haircut to flatter a face, but he’d spent so long hiding under that cap that he’d failed to imagine what his new face might look like with a proper masculine cut. Though it wasn’t fixed in place with pomade, leaving the longer strands on top loose and wavy to tumble over his forehead and make him look younger than he really was, the style didn’t make him look anything like a girl. The back and sides were short enough that it felt like running his fingers through a dog’s coat rather than the silky strands he’s been used to. It made his jaw look angular and his cheekbones stand out, and his heart and his stomach both flipped with euphoric relief.
“Good enough?” Kells asked from behind him, in the doorway.
“I absolutely adore it.” His grin broke out as he met her gaze in the mirror. “I don’t really look like your brother like this, do I?”
She snorted. “Definitely not.”
“Good.” At Kells’ raised brows, Florian elaborated. “I don’t want you to see me as anything like a brother.”