Chapter 6 #2
“Mead isn’t just for geeks. It’s become more popular in recent years.” I swipe the bottle back from him. “Micro meaderies are opening all over the UK and Europe, and the market has been growing at a steady eleven per cent per year, and is estimated to be worth $1.5 billion globally by 2033—”
“I appreciate the economics lecture, Oh Supreme Bee Commander, but I was actually hoping you’d let me try some.”
“Oh, right. Of course.” I wipe down two ceramic goblets – made by my grandmother for rituals – and fill them with the elderflower mead.
I hand one to Rafe, and we sit down in the two egg chairs on the patio, looking out over the garden and hives.
The bees dance around us, occasionally wandering along the rim of my goblet or walking across my legs.
“Sk?l.” I hold up my goblet. “That’s Old Norse for ‘cheers’.”
We clink goblets. I watch Rafe as he takes a sip. His eyes widen, and his whole face lights up, and the warmth in my belly spreads out through my ribcage. “This is delicious. It’s like a medieval rave in my mouth.”
“It’s really more of a winter drink. It’s so warm and cosy. But I’m hoping the flavours from the summer flowers will give it an all-year appeal, and I can serve it cold and sparkling at the meadery. If I even get to open a meadery.”
“Why are you so nervous about the paperwork?” Rafe watches me with that feline intensity.
“Far less competent people than you get these licenses every day, and they don’t have the advantage of magical powers or a handsome sidekick with little regard for the law who can squeeze through small spaces. ”
“I just…” I shake my head. I’ve never told anyone about my problems with reading before, and I’m not about to start. “I’m used to things not working out for me.”
“I find that hard to believe,” he says. “Look at this beautiful garden. Opening a shop is nothing compared to what you created here.”
“I’ve had a shop before.”
Why did I say that?
Being around Rafe untethers me. Thoughts tumble out of me before I can assess them for danger. And this is definitely danger territory.
“I sense a story behind this.” Rafe peers at me over his goblet. “Spill.”
“There’s nothing to spill. It wasn’t even really a shop. I had a stall at the village farmers’ market selling my honey. For two weekends. And then I quit.”
“Why?”
“Drink your mead.”
“Why, witch? Tell me, or I will keep doing this.”
He pokes me gently in the ribs.
“Rafe, stop.”
“Never. Why don’t you want to tell me? Does it have to do with him?”
“Just forget about it.” There’s no way to tell this story without making Warrick look bad. And it’s not the truth, not at all. But then I wonder why I’m still defending him, even to myself, when he was cheating on me.
“I’ll annoy the truth out of you, Honey Witch. It’s best to admit defeat now.”
I take a mouthful of mead. Elderflower softness dances on my tongue, and I find the courage to speak.
“Okay, okay, fine. I don’t like being idle.
I come from a family of women who quietly got on with things.
My mother arranged flowers, made preserves, and told the occasional fortune.
My grandmother sold herbal remedies out of the front room of the cottage and hand-dyed fabrics with plant-based dyes she made.
They wanted something different for me, a life beyond the village.
I thought I was going to be a historian, but when that didn’t work out, all I had left were the skills they taught me – how to make and sell things.
Warrick said I didn’t need to worry about money.
He made enough for us, and I inherited the cottage mortgage-free, so our bills were pretty low.
For a while, that was nice – he went to work, and I tended the garden and cooked and read books and looked after the bees.
My mother taught me how to care for the hives and how to perform honey magic.
But after a few years, it became clear that even when I baked honey cakes and honey fudge every day and gave it all away to the neighbours, there was still more honey than we could use.
I filled the pantry, the potting shed, and the woodshed up to the ceiling with honey jars. I was starting to get concerned.
“I’d go to the farmers’ market every week to get our vegetables. One day, they had a signup sheet for new stallholders and I just…signed up.”
“That doesn’t sound like you at all,” Rafe teases.
My cheeks heat at the memory of it, and how similar it was to my snap decision to rent the shop.
“Warrick was livid when I told him. ‘We’re trying to have a baby,’ he told me.
‘You’re supposed to be taking it easy, not stressing yourself out.
It’s my job to take care of you.’ But when I showed him the woodshed filled with honey, he had to agree we should do something.
“But it was all just so much harder than I thought. I needed a license for that, too, and labels for the jars, and a way to take payments. And then I had to transport all the jars and my signs and stall decorations to the market, which meant that Warrick had to drive me.” I’d needed Warrick to write my signs for me, too, and set up the POS system, but I’m not going to mention those two arguments to Rafe.
“I thought our first weekend went really well, and it was so lovely chatting to everyone at the market, but when we packed up and came home, Warrick turns to me and says, ‘That was disappointing. This isn’t a very efficient way of selling things, and you have to stand around all day in the sun.’ I guess in his world, you buy a container of products, and you sell them once to one person, and then you move on, so he wasn’t used to this kind of selling. ”
“Oh, yes, that’s it.” Rafe’s voice drips with sarcasm. “It wasn’t at all that he couldn’t stand you enjoying something that wasn’t about him.”
My cheeks heat. I hate how confident Rafe sounds, and how much I fear he’s correct.
I press on. “I did the market the next weekend by myself, and everyone was so friendly and supportive. But when I came home, I hadn’t made as much as the previous week, and Warrick was upset because we usually spend Saturdays together.
He worried that the market would take away from our couple time, and he brought up the baby again.
At the time, I was desperate to be a mother, and I had made less money, so I quit.
I gave away as much honey as I could, but I still had so much excess, and I needed a way to use it up, and that’s when I remembered a recipe in my mother’s grimoire.
A honey wine with lavender and meadowsweet that calms a temper. ”
“Mead!” Rafe holds out his empty goblet, and I pour more.
“I had lavender and meadowsweet in the garden. What self-respecting honey witch doesn’t?
I made my first batch and served it to Warrick with dinner one evening.
He loved it. He was so enthusiastic. He thought it might be the next big thing in the alcohol world.
He said I should make some different flavours and he would introduce me to a guy he knew in the alcohol business who might want to buy it from me.