Chapter 5
Chloe
I’d like to say I’d spent every moment since the Ren Faire in a revenge-fuelled montage of main-character moments – doing yoga in front of a perfect sunrise, journalling in perfect cursive, hiking myself into a new personality.
But if we’re telling the truth, most of it was me sitting in the same sagging desk chair, trying to figure out what to bring to the Luau in Stardew Valley, and maintaining a first-name basis with every food delivery driver in the local area.
The only thing that had changed was the running commentary in my head, which now belonged to a girl I’d met exactly once, and who, statistically, should have evaporated from my consciousness immediately like every other hot stranger I saw and parted ways with.
But no; Teddy’s voice, acid and un-mistakable, haunted every dumb decision.
Every time I went to binge a Let’s Play or start a new download on Steam instead of doing something “of consequence”, I’d hear, “keep flitting through life unbothered.”
Phil, for his part, was delighted by this development. “You finally have a nemesis,” he’d declared, after I’d complained to him and Jack about the Teddy Voice for the third film night in a row. “Now you can undergo your main character transformation. Get a montage. Maybe a makeover.”
“Excuse me,” I’d gasped, swatting his arm, “are you suggesting I need a makeover?”
“I would never,” he’d said, dropping his head to my shoulder. “But who doesn’t want a makeover montage?” And I supposed he had a point.
Over the next couple of months, though, my “nemesis” did actually motivate me to do things I’d previously only joked about.
I started listening to self-help audiobooks without irony whilst I gamed and even bought myself a journal with an inspirational quote on the cover.
It was the first time since uni I’d written anything that wasn’t a work email or a backstory for a D like I was piecing together a puzzle, even if I had to make a glorious mess of things in the process. I wasn’t sure why I’d stopped trying.
The realisation came on like a sugar rush: I wasn’t haunted by the Teddy Voice because I cared what she thought.
I was haunted because I agreed with her.
At least, to an extent. And as life moved on for the people I loved, it was becoming clearer and clearer that I wasn’t moving towards anything in particular. I was, in fact, flitting.
So maybe it was time to make a glorious mess of things again and see what stuck.
For my birthday the year before, Amy and Phil had gotten me a half-day mead-making seminar at a nearby honey farm.
I’d been fresh off my failure so hadn’t booked it then, but now I managed to dig out the details and book in for later in the month.
It turned out it was for two people, but since neither Phil nor Amy was free, I looped in one of my other favourite people: Amy and Jack’s mum, Patricia.
She helped run the local rewilding trust, which I’d volunteered for a few times, and it turned out she knew the owner of the farm through her conservation work.
So she offered to come along with me to see her friend and be my “hyper,” she said, though I was pretty sure she meant “hype woman.”
The week before the course, I did my homework: I watched YouTube videos about honey fermentation, reread the notes on my phone from the original disaster, and even bought some of the mead they produced on the farm. I wanted to be prepared.
On the morning of the workshop, I woke before my alarm, which was nothing short of a miracle. Patricia collected me from my flat, and we drove through the Welsh Marches towards Abergavenny.
The farm, Gwenynen Hollow, was so picturesque that it looked like a film set.
A woman in her early fifties, bushy, greying hair springing in every direction, bright teal overalls splattered with multicoloured paint, greeted us as we got out of Patricia’s car, a golden spaniel circling at her feet.
Jen, the woman’s name was, led us into a big modern warehouse.
I loved it in there instantly; it was chilly, but the air was heavy with the smell of yeast, herbs, and honey.
We followed her to a table with four other people sat around it.
“Welcome to the sweet life!” Jen said, then had us introduce ourselves.
The workshop started with a tour of the farm and the hives.
Jen explained the basics as we went – bee colonies, pollination, why honey tasted different depending on the nearby flora, and what it meant for a hive to “go queenless”.
She was funny, too, making bad puns and sometimes, I thought, deliberately exaggerating her vaguely American accent for dramatic effect.
The weather was warm enough to actually open the hive, and when Jen handed me a frame of honeycomb laden with bees, I was surprised at how alive it felt, the hum of hundreds if not thousands of tiny bodies vibrating together.
For a second, I forgot about the Teddy Voice, or even my own.
This, in my hands? It felt consequential.
It felt considered and deliberate. Built with intention and hard work.
It was intoxicating, and I hadn’t even had any mead yet.
Back in the studio, we started the actual mead-making.
It was sticky work, and my batch was the first to go wrong, but I didn’t care.
It was the most fun I’d had since … well, I couldn’t actually remember when.
As we worked, Jen answered questions about the farm’s business model – they sold bottles of mead and jars of honey on the website, and they were stocked in several local supermarkets.
No national deals just yet, but they were working on it.
And over the summer they’d be attending some festivals and markets, too.
It all sounded so exciting to me, though I was sure for Jen it was more work than pleasure.
Lunch was a spread of local cheese, bread, and fruit – and honey, of course. I sat next to Jen, who asked me what I did.
“I work in event planning at an animal rescue,” I said, “but I don’t love it.
Mostly, I’m just trying to juggle everything I need to without fucking up too badly in front of the rich people who give us money.
” I was surprised at how readily I’d offered up this truth; even Patricia, sitting on Jen’s other side at the warehouse table, raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“You’d be surprised how much of all this is just that,” Jen said, gesturing around her. “Trying not to fuck up, and trying to make something nice out of it when you do. Fewer rich people, though.”
After lunch, Jen walked us through how to carry on with our batches when we got home, though I only half listened.
Despite the intentions I’d come in with, I didn’t actually want to make my own mead at home anymore.
It would feel empty – pointless – after how fun and communal everything had felt today on the farm.
But I scribbled down a few notes anyway.
When the other guests left and it was just Patricia and Jen and me, Jen handed me a bottle of mead, clinked it with her own, and led Patricia and me into an art studio attached to the farmhouse.
Watercolour paintings and canvases lined the space, sometimes stacked half a dozen deep against the wall, all in various stages of completion.
We sat around a table in the middle, and Jen and Patricia talked about the future of the farm – how hard it was to maintain at her age, and how Jen was trying, along with the council, to turn it into a destination for tourists and locals, not just mead enthusiasts.
I listened, and I was surprised when I felt like I had something to contribute.
“You should do a festival,” I said, not really thinking it through, but the idea stirring something in me nonetheless.
“Something that brings the community together; builds relationships with other local businesses. Maybe throw in a honey tasting or two. People are desperate for that kind of stuff.”
Jen’s face lit up. “That’s not a bad idea.” She reached over to a half-finished sketch of a flower and flipped the paper over, jotting down some notes as I rambled.
We talked for an hour, maybe more. By the end, we had two discarded sketch papers full of half-baked ideas. And actually, maybe they weren’t so half-baked; it seemed I’d learned a thing or two from my experiences at the rescue.
On the drive home, I replayed the day in my head. I’d done something relatively small and pointless and incredibly fun for myself, and something less pointless for someone else along the way. That familiar stab of panic was nowhere to be found.
When I got home, I wrote it all down in my new journal, then showered and went to bed happy, the smell of honey still lingering in my hair and on my skin.
And for the first time in months, the Teddy Voice didn’t haunt my dreams at all.
Instead, I dreamt of wildflower fields and the soft, relentless hum of a thousand bees working together, making something sweet out of nothing.
* * *