Chapter 6
Honey
Honey spun to face Emma. “Elaborate,” she ordered.
“I’ll explain everything.” Emma’s eyes flicked past Honey’s shoulder. “But tell Poppy to leave first.”
“Who’s Poppy?”
“Mr. Bloom,” Emma said, exasperated as if Honey were the one waylaying her.
Honey turned just as a white car bumped up the dirt road toward the farmhouse, sunlight flashing off the windshield.
Great. Now she could get some space, get settled in the hotel, and clear her head. Then, she could come back better prepared.
But she couldn’t make herself move.
It sounded like Emma said that she had been making wishes and somehow they’d been getting approved. But that wasn’t what made Honey hesitate. When Emma said she’d been holding it all together, all the pieces fit into place. The chaotic home. The chewed nails. The incessant fidgeting.
Honey recognized it. She’d lived it.
The frantic, desperate need to keep your family together. The constant mental math of who needed what, and what would happen if she dropped even one ball.
If Emma really was holding this farm up alone and crumbling under the pressure and Honey was the only one who knew and especially suited to fix it…
She should leave. She was supposed to be impartial. Objective. That was the whole point of an auditor—observe, report, don’t get involved. Now look at her, heart twisting over a teenager. No wonder most of the higher-ups at the bureau chose to stay behind their desks.
The car rolled to a stop beside her. The window slid down, and the driver leaned toward her with a kind smile. “Excuse me, ma’am,” the driver said. “Would you like that ride?”
“Yes, please. But…” She looked back at Emma. At the tired lines under her eyes, at the way her arms were crossed too tightly over her chest. A kid should never have to carry that much.
Honey remembered late nights sorting through half-baked spellwork before it spiraled into something dangerous.
Diluting potions with vinegar and food coloring before the neighbors noticed the glimmer.
Tweaking runes just enough to short-circuit their spark.
All to keep the family’s work just this side of legal.
Technically, her parents weren’t allowed to channel magic.
Only the officially sanctioned Anchor House could tap the ley line in each county.
Everyone else was supposed to keep their spells ornamental or risk a bureau audit.
Honey had spent most of her teenage years making sure their family’s work looked like bath bombs and essential oils instead of what it really was.
Her parents meant well, of course, just like this Mr. Ethan Hale might be an okay man. But they were chaotic, impulsive, and had no sense of structure. So, Honey became the structure. The schedule. The brakes. The cleanup crew.
It had made her sharp. Efficient. A natural fit for the bureau.
But it had also made her tired.
And looking at Emma now, it struck something old and aching in her.
“Mr. Bloom, I’m so sorry to have wasted your time,” Honey said. “But I actually need to cancel.”
“No problem.” He fished a card from the dashboard and handed it over. “Call my cell if you need a ride. No charge.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”
“It’s what we do. Welcome to Brim's Hollow, Ms. Baxter.”
Honey hesitated. The neatly trimmed white beard and short-sleeved button-down gave Percy a calm, grandfatherly presence.
A worn canvas mailbag sat in the passenger seat beside him. Recognition clicked.
“You’re the mailman,” she said softly.
“Guilty as charged.” He chuckled. “Name’s Bloom. Percy Bloom. But you can call me Poppy like everyone else does.”
She glanced down at the business card—plain, sturdy cardstock, with his name, number, and a little hand-drawn stamp of a smiling envelope in the corner.
“Thank you,” she said, and meant it.
Honey watched him go, the gravel crunching under his tires, then turned back toward Emma. “Let me be clear. I am here to do a job. There is absolutely no way I can allow you to be granted unauthorized wishes any longer. So, my presence here will not save your orchard or your family.”
“Right,” Emma nodded, her shoulders slumping.
Honey exhaled sharply through her nose. It was the right thing to say. The boundary was important. Necessary. And yet…
She sighed and dropped the sharpness from her tone. “But I am very good at systems. And I will speak to your father about this mess. But it is not for children to worry about.”
The sound of an approaching vehicle caught her ear, and Honey turned toward the driveway expecting to see Mr. Bloom again but instead, a battered brown pickup with signage for Bob’s Collections & Seizures came to a stop.
A man in a wrinkled T-shirt and reflective vest stepped out, clutching a clipboard and a grim expression.
“Oh, for goodness sake.” Honey pinched the bridge of her nose. “Stay here,” she told Emma, before striding toward the truck. “Can I help you, Mr…?”
“Seth,” he said without looking up from his clipboard. “Repossession order. This here’s a formal seizure notice on the MAJA Classic.”
“The what?”
“It’s a tree shaker, ma’am.”
Honey took the paperwork he offered her and flipped through, brow furrowing. It was all technically in order. “Thank you,” she said, keeping her voice pleasant but firm. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to request an extension.”
“No can do.” The man said, taking the clipboard back from Honey and tossing it into the back of his truck. “We’ve already delayed three times.”
Honey managed a tight smile. “Very well.”
She walked back to Emma who was chewing her nail again. “What’s that—”
Honey held a hand to stop her. “Never mind. Tell me when the trouble started.”
“We all knew about the well.” Emma began, eyes darting over Honey’s shoulder to the man. “Mom used to talk about it all the time. Then one day, after Mom was taken, I overheard about a spotted lanternfly infestation and I wished for the trees to be pest free and the next day they were.”
Honey raised her brows but held her tongue.
Emma hurried to explain. “I didn’t mean to get carried away. But it worked. So I started doing more. Delaying frosts until we could get the trees covered. Wishing for cloud cover so we had time to get the apples sun screened. I never wished for anything selfish! I just…I kept us going.”
“Please don’t arrest me.” She finally looked at Honey, cheeks red. “It’s not like I was trying to abuse it. I just didn’t know what else to do.”
A mechanical clanging sounded, and both Honey and Emma whipped their heads toward where Seth was hooking up some monstrous looking mechanical farm equipment to his truck.
“Wait? He’s taking the shaker?” Emma called, moving past Honey.
“You can’t!” Her voice wobbled. “We need it to harvest the peaches. Oh god, and the cherries. I didn’t mean to—he can’t just take it!”
Honey’s hand hovered over Emma’s shoulder while Emma looked seconds away from hurtling herself in front of the truck.
“Emma. It’s beyond your control. Let’s just leave it to your father—”
“You don’t understand! Without that, Dad and the Fitches will have to handpick, and there’s no way they can work fast enough to fill the order from the distributor, and we'll lose the contract and…Oh god—” Emma took one step forward.
Honey put a hand on the girl’s shoulder in what was meant to be a comforting touch.
This wasn’t her job. Technically, the well was her only jurisdiction, and she was already toeing the line by even being here when the homeowner had asked her to leave.
But Emma’s wide eyes and the sheer desperation in her voice struck something in Honey she hadn’t expected: a memory of being young and frantic and realizing the grown-ups weren’t coming to fix it.
She exhaled through her nose. “All right,” she said crisply. “Just a moment.”
She turned away from Seth, and retrieved her phone. “Don’t hook up anything,” she said without looking at him. “There’s no need for you to proceed until this has been properly reviewed.”
He shrugged and leaned against the truck, clearly skeptical.
Honey dialed the number on the side of the tow vehicle. She was transferred twice before a tired-sounding receptionist picked up. “This is Bob’s. How can I help?”
“This is Honey Baxter, Senior Auditor with the Bureau of Magical Compliance,” she said, adopting the clipped diction of someone very official. “I’m on-site in Brim’s Hollow regarding a scheduled vehicle repossession. I need to speak with Bob directly, please.”
A long pause. “Uh…Bob’s in a meeting—”
“Then pull him out,” Honey said calmly. “This falls under subsection thirteen of the Fair Magical Holdings Act. If he proceeds without review, he’ll be in violation. I’ll wait.”
Another pause. Then a click.
“This is Bob.”
“Hello, sir,” Honey said, smoothing her skirt with her free hand. “I’m calling to request a temporary hold on the seizure scheduled for this morning. Your field agent is attempting to repossess a utility vehicle from a property that is currently undergoing a governmental audit.”
“I’m sorry, who are you with again?”
“Department of Magical Compliance. Audit Division.” She cleared her throat.
“While this isn’t a magical asset, per se, the vehicle is clearly being used in conjunction with crop stabilization systems and other…
agrarian functions. Which places it under provisional oversight for now.
Therefore, I am requesting—in writing if necessary—a one-month extension. ”
A beat. “I’ve never heard of that.”
“It’s obscure. Most private contractors haven’t. But unless you’d prefer I initiate a formal filing—which would include compliance reviews from Magical Agriculture, Rural Integration, and Property Mediation—I’d strongly suggest granting the extension.”
Bob sighed into the phone. “Lady, we’ve got a backlog. I can’t just—”
“You can,” she said with firmness. “And you should. I’ll send over provisional documentation. Thirty days. That’s all I’m asking.”
More silence. Then a muttered, “Fine. One month. But I don’t want any forms from a bureau I’ve never heard of.”
“You’ll get none assuming this agreement is noted in your system today. Thank you.” Buzzing with satisfaction from a job well done, she hung up before he could change his mind.
Turning back to Seth, she said, “The seizure’s been delayed. Kindly unhook the vehicle.”
“Sure thing, ma’am,” he said, already moving to unchain the vehicle.
Emma blinked at her. “That worked?”
She offered a pleasant smile. “It’s amazing what people will agree to when you present a reasonable argument.”
Soon, the truck rumbled away.
“See? We need your help, Ms. Baxter,” Emma said.
Honey considered the story. Her fingers itched to pull out her clipboard and start writing things down. She had so many questions and mentally jotted a dozen of them down to revisit later. Preferably with Mr. Hale, who should have been handling this from the beginning.
“The main problem,” Honey said, smoothing her skirt, “is that your father doesn’t want me here.
The regulations are clear. Despite the presence of magic on this property, unless I have a warrant, I need his consent to be on site for an audit.
Of course, this would all be easier if Brim's Hollow had a Director of Arcane Relations to bring this to, but never the matter now, we’ll get it sorted. ”
Honey needed to get some space alone to think it all over, consult her regulations, and make a neat and tidy list of what she needed to do for the audit and what she could help with without overstepping her bounds as compliance officer.
The more she turned it over in her mind, the more sure she was that saving the farm and the family from certain collapse would be the perfect opportunity to demonstrate how order and structure could bring true joy to people. The idea sang to something in her.
Really, the possibility of the satisfaction of a good system was worth it alone. That and the ability to complete her audit and get her promotion.
If only she could get Mr. Hale to be reasonable.
“He’s a nice guy,” Emma offered quietly, as if reading her mind.
Honey raised her eyebrows as if to say, I’ll take your word for it.
“I’m saying if you were hurt or in danger”—Emma’s gaze kept darting over Honey’s shoulder and her voice rose in volume—“he would let you stay.”
Honey blinked. “I’m not in the business of tricking people, Emma.”
“Well, sorry in advance,” Emma said.
“What—”
“Don’t tell my dad!” Brooke’s voice rang out behind them, full of gleeful mischief.
Honey turned just in time to see Brooke hurl something long and writhing straight at her feet.
The snake hit against her shins with a sickening thwap.
Honey screamed.
It wasn’t dignified. It wasn’t professional. It was sharp, high, and straight from the diaphragm. She flailed backwards, her heel catching on a rock, and then—
Splat.
She landed butt-first in a mud puddle, her legs splaying and the contents of her file arcing through the air.
There was a pause.
Then Brooke threw herself to the ground, rolled onto her back, and began groaning theatrically. “Ahh! My ankle! Snake! It was huge! She saved me!”
“I what?” Honey shouted.
Emma covered her mouth with both hands. “Do you have to be so dramatic?”
“Dramatic?” Brooke gasped, clutching her leg. “She threw herself between me and the rattler. Like a shield! I’ve never seen anything like it. I think she’s a hero!”
“What is the matter with you?” Honey yelled.
Brooke winked up at her from the grass.
Honey groaned and looked toward the farmhouse. Sure enough, Ethan Hale had appeared on the porch, toting the youngest Hale kid in his arms.
Great.