Chapter 4
IV
Angela: We cleaned out most of my grandmother’s old stock and planters so we could lease the shop.
I got too busy to finish off the cleaning, and Rafe got irrationally angry when I tried to throw away his mouse heads, so I left things the way he liked them.
We never found a book, leatherbound or otherwise. Sorry I can’t be more help.
What do you need it for, anyway? As far as I knew, she never kept a shop ledger.
The next morning, I wake in my bed and panic. Still blinking against the onslaught of light, I slap my hands into the cold bedspread, searching for the warm body of my husband but finding nothing.
Warrick never, ever misses a night at home with me.
Did I sleep in? If he had to fix his own breakfast, he’d be in a foul mood—
No. He won’t be in any mood.
Because Warrick is missing.
And I have a meadery to organise.
My meadery. I can’t believe it’s really happening. I throw myself out of bed with a smile on my face, pull on my gardening clothes, and head downstairs.
My shoulders ache from last night’s painting.
After we finished the primer coat, I told Rafe that I wouldn’t be looking for the spellbooks tonight, but I’d bring them into the shop when I came in.
He looked hopeful as I gathered my things to leave, as if I might ask him to come back to my cottage.
But I know that walking a strange, naked man back through the village to my house when Warrick was missing would get the attention of the local gossips, as would taming the infamous Rafe.
As soon as I closed the door to the shop, he shifted back into a cat.
He scratched at the door, howling pitifully as I walked back across the green.
I nearly turned around so many times to go back for him.
Boundaries are important. I don’t want a thief – even one cursed to be a cat – in my cottage, not now that…
…that I have the place to myself.
I pad into the front room. Warrick mostly left me to decorate the house how I wished, although he didn’t like seeing any of my mother’s or grandmother’s things anywhere.
When we were dating as teens, they never liked him, and unlike me, they weren’t much good at plastering on a smile and pretending.
A couple of years ago, in a fit of creative energy, I took down a quilt Mum and I made of bees flying around a garden of bright red flowers, made from squares of my grandmother’s hand-dyed fabric, and replaced it with a picture wall of Warrick and me.
Photos from our wedding, from date nights at the pub, me in the garden, him at some of his pop-up stores in London and winning a business award, us in front of the wall of hoverboards in the sitting room, and us on the one holiday we took to Majorca.
I pull that last one off the wall and stare at it.
A bee wanders across the glass, waggling his bum at me, telling me that he’s found a great source of honey nearby.
I brush him off Warrick’s face. We’re sitting together on a sun lounger.
I’m wearing a new bikini that I agonised over buying.
I tried on so many in the shop until I found one that I felt comfortable in.
When I nervously modelled it for him, Warrick said I should wear a shirt over it so that other men didn’t get ideas about me.
But then, he told me I should take the shirt off for the photo.
In the picture, he’s grinning from ear to ear, his arm around me, water droplets glistening on his bare chest. My smile looks genuine, but all I can see is the white shirt balled in my fist.
I go to replace the photo, and find I can’t do it.
I grab another picture, and another, and before I know it, the wall behind the sofa is empty except for the hooks sticking out like little bee stingers.
I know what will cover those up.
In the attic, I find the quilt folded up in a trunk of my mother’s things that Warrick didn’t want around the house.
At the bottom are two grimoires – our large family book, and a smaller one my mother and I were filling in together, mostly with gardening tips and honey spells.
I carry the quilt and books downstairs and smooth the quilt over the wall.
I step back to admire it, a tiny smile daring at the corners of my lips.
What are you doing? You shouldn’t be smiling. Your husband is missing. You shouldn’t be taking down his pictures.
I tear down the quilt and throw it into a corner behind the sofa. I hung all the pictures back up again, exactly the way they were. I wipe a tear from the corner of my eye as I flee into the kitchen to make a cup of tea.
I drink my tea with shaking hands as I mix up a pot of sugar syrup, and suit up to give it to the bees.
They buzz happily as I approach, rising from the flowers winding around me in their dance.
Because of the temperate climate in England, beekeepers usually only get one harvest per season, but those beekeepers aren’t honey witches.
I can usually get three harvests. I time each harvest for a specific nectar flow, and my first early summer flow is coming up shortly – the sycamore, for endurance, hawthorn for fertility, bramble for protection, and lavender for calming.
“I opened a shop!” I tell them happily, because you should always tell the bees about the important things in your life, and this definitely counts.
“I’m going to open a meadery, and I’ll need your help to keep the shelves stocked.
I also have to help a thief break the curse the Widow Hardcastle put on him, but in exchange, he’s going to help me lift heavy things and paint the walls and such. ”
Today, when I check the frames, they’re nearly ready, but not quite.
Seven of the ten frames in the uppermost box are now being filled, so I add another super on top so the bees have enough room.
I check all the hives for signs of disease and offer a simple enchantment to protect against mites.
After thanking the bees for their hard work, I head to the potting shed to check on my supplies.
I step around the dark stain on the floor and shuffle a stack of gardening tools out of the way to get to my barrels.
I have seven different brews stacked on shelves on the back wall, and four more in glass carboys on the floor.
The potting shed would normally be too warm for aging mead, but an enchantment keeps the temperature cool even on the hottest summer days.
I do the primary fermentation in the laundry room on a heat pad, and move my must out here for secondary fermentation and aging.
I check the apple and amaranth barrel that got broken a few days ago, and it’s already refilled. Being a honey witch has its benefits. If the meadery is as successful as I hope, we’ll go through my entire store in a week. Luckily, my barrels magically refill and age much quicker than normal.
I won’t be selling that particular brew in the meadery, but it’s useful to have around as part of stronger healing potions.
I started making mead because in all the “silly fantasy books” (Warrick’s words) I read and the video games I no longer play, the weary adventurers roll up to a tavern, and a fresh-faced barmaid serves them a pint of mead.
I always wanted to know the barmaid’s story, and I’m good with flowers and gardens and bees, and after leaving university, I needed something to do that connected me with my love of history.
Mead is the oldest alcoholic drink in the world, and it was popular during the Viking age and medieval periods, which are my favourite historical periods (everyone has a favourite historical period, right? right?).
Warrick bought me my first beehive for my birthday.
After a couple of false starts, I managed to prevent my bees from swarming, protect them from robber bees, and extract my first honey harvest. I batched up the honey and sold it at the local market, and that was fun, until it wasn’t.
So I started making meads. Warrick loved the drink, and he was fascinated with how I could enchant it with nectar from different flowers (he’s always been fascinated by my magic – it’s part of what drew me to him as a lonely teenager.) I made a mugwort mead just for him (it sounds terrible, but it’s delicious when infused with rosemary and thyme, and increases strength and endurance) that gave him several personal bests at the gym.
“You’re on to something here, babe. Performance-enhancing mead.” Warrick had a friend who was in the alcohol business, and he thought he might be interested in bringing out a product line.
I’ve been ridiculously excited about it and prepared a whole PowerPoint presentation, which I gave to Warrick with a crate of different meads to try. But a few weeks ago, Warrick came home after delivering the case and said the friend was no longer interested.
“He thinks mead is too feminine and won’t appeal to blokes. But don’t worry, babe, you didn’t want to run an alcohol business anyway. So much paperwork. You know how overwhelmed you get, and I’m so busy at my job that I wouldn’t have time to help you.”
“Did he give the meads back then?”
“I said he could keep them. There’s plenty more where they came from, right?”
Warrick’s words ring in my ears as I rinse out a cup under the kitchen sink and taste each of my meads, all except the apple and amaranth.
I wonder if I can get Rafe to help me move the barrels to the shop. It’s going to be useful to have help.
A couple of bees circle lazily around the shed, hopping from barrel to barrel, wondering if I have more sugar syrup.
I step over the dark stain as I leave. I should probably get to the shop before Rafe destroys it.
What am I going to do about Rafe?
When I arrive at the shop that morning, Rafe greets me at the door in his cat form. The pie container from yesterday is strewn in pieces across the floor, and he’s added a couple of stolen fruit buns with the icing licked off and a large, fat, rat carcass to the mess.