The Alewife’s Daughter
The Alewife’s Daughter
When the rooster crows, Euphemia gives up on trying to fall back asleep.
With market day on the horizon, she decides to make her way into the tavern kitchen early.
Smoke still clings to the blackened rafters above the stone hearth.
Burlap sacks and dried herbs decorate the far wall.
And two wooden tuns of ale await her in the corner.
Euphemia throws open the window shutters, letting in the early morning light—
When she sees him again. Outside. A dark silhouette by the tree.
Blood pumps furiously in her chest.
Alarm wails in her bones.
She should wake her mother. Her sisters. The town crier—
Only, Euphemia blinks and the strange figure is gone.
Euphemia growls to herself. This is it then.
This is the day she finally succumbs to the madness.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she feverishly rubs her temples.
This cannot happen. Whatever malady is subjecting her to these recurrent dreaming-memories, she refuses to let them drown her.
There is simply too much left to do. Not today.
Forcing a fragile smile to her alabaster face, Euphemia ties an apron around her waist. The crisp bite of autumn whips through the window, the breeze carrying a promise of winter and the painful memories that will come with it.
But it also wafts over the apron, the faint scent of apples and cinnamon lifting closer to Euphemia’s nose, reminding her of the cider she pressed last week.
The pleasant smell calms her and makes her feel a little more clear-headed.
Euphemia turns her attention back to the casks in the corner and makes her way toward them.
Before they sell the brews later at market, she wants to make sure the flavors are correct.
Euphemia places the back of her unscarred hand on either wooden barrel, testing whether they’ve cooled enough overnight.
It’s more out of habit than anything. They’ve been sitting long enough by now that there is no real worry that they would still be warm.
But it’s how her father taught her to do things, and so she goes through the motions.
Removing the cloth covering. Inhaling the scent of fermented yeast. Tasting the ale inside.
All the while, searching for abnormalities.
But this is the house ale. The same brew she makes week after week. The one that reminds her of simple nights in the tavern. Evenings when neighbors congregate at the Saint’s Hearth to relax after a day’s worth of hard labor.
But the house ale is also the brew she adds mugwort to, a weed that grows plentiful in these parts, which gives the brew a hearty flavor. The earthy undertones hit her in her fragile state, and her thoughts are sent careening back to that place she does not like to venture.
A moon-crested meadow.
The sulfuric stench of ash.
A beast of flame and ruin lunging from the shadows.
Most days she would rip herself away from the painful past. But today she chooses to linger.
Euphemia presses into the pain like a welcomed blade to the throat. She searches for the man she saw last night. Is he here somewhere? Has he always been, but she’s simply been too distracted to notice him?
She strains against the blurred edges of her memory in search of him. Looking for a silhouette. A shadow. An anomaly. Anything.
There is no seeing past the flaming nightmare though.
Euphemia lingers in the past too long and realizes her mistake too late.
Soon, her father appears. She screams at the memory, at this version of herself that was too awestruck by the beast to notice him. This version’s hand outstretches as if she thinks she will be impervious to the flames.
Hindsight cannot change the past.
Her father screams her name.
The horse startles, flames flaring.
Euphemia’s hand is engulfed.
Awareness surges back into the kitchen and Euphemia jerks away from the cask, chest cracked in two, tears brimming her eyes. She cannot keep living like this. This constant reminder of her greatest failure forever circling her like a vulture.
Her mother chooses this unfortunate moment to lean her head in the doorway.
“How is everything coming in here—” her apathetic voice hitches with alarm at the sight of her daughter. “Euphemia?”
Euphemia straightens as fast as lightning. Frantic, she tucks her brunette locks behind her ears. “Nothing. Everything is fine.”
But her mother is already storming into the kitchen, heavy skirts swishing around her ankles. Euphemia barely has time to wipe her eyes dry before Andriana grabs her shoulders and spins her daughter around to face her.
“What is it? What’s going on in here?” It’s not gentle concern edging the corners of her voice. It’s something far more severe.
Euphemia manages a weak smile. “It’s nothing. I only—” She searches for an excuse, one that won’t elevate her mother’s ire more than she already has. “I thought I saw a rat is all.”
The moment the excuse leaves Euphemia’s lips, she regrets it.
“Rats?” Andriana pushes past Euphemia with renewed vigor and peers into the opened cask.
Why did she have to say rats? Anything else would’ve been fine.
A spider crawling across the table. A bird that flew in through the window and is not too frightened and confused to leave the rafters.
Spoiled hops. Rotten barley. Anything but rats and the reminder of what happened to their last brew.
“There is no rat, mother,” Euphemia sighs. “I only thought I saw one. Look—”
Grabbing her mother’s shoulder, she twists her around and points to a shadow on the ground. It looks nothing like a rat. Just a thick line of darkness cast by a beam outside.
Andriana inspects it skeptically, before finally rolling her eyes. “Lord have mercy, Euphemia. You frightened me half to death.”
“Sorry, Mother.”
Andriana snatches a rag from the table and turns away.
“Ah, yes. Always the beacon of penance.” She makes her way for the doorway, pausing once she’s under the splintered wood frame.
Her tone becomes as harsh as winter as she says over her shoulder, “We can’t afford another meager yield like last time. ”
The gravity of that statement hangs between them.
Euphemia fights the quiver in her own voice. “I know.”
Euphemia casts her head down, shame raking over her like rusted blades. Last market day, when she had gone to check the ales, she found the cloth covers torn open. A colony of drowned rats lay floating inside.
It wasn’t her fault. She had secured the casks as she always does.
Not that it mattered to her mother. A spoiled brew was a spoiled brew.
They barely had a firkin’s worth to sell that day. And the coin it cost them had come out of Euphemia’s meals for the next week.
“It won’t happen again,” she reassures her mother, stomach growling.
“Best not. Now no more dallying. Cybele will have the cart ready soon. Don’t make her wait on you.”
“I won’t, Mother. Promise.”
Andriana gives a curt nod before leaving her daughter alone.
For a moment, Euphemia simply stands there.
The kitchen feels strangely quiet without her mother’s sharp voice filling it, though the tavern beyond is already beginning to stir. She draws a slow breath, wipes her palms against her apron, and turns back toward the ale.
There is work to be done.
A moment later, Ismene comes barreling into the kitchen.
She grabs a small basket from the table and tucks it against her hip without so much as a glance in Euphemia’s direction.
Before Euphemia can blink, the girl is gone again, headed for the back door, swinging it wide, and disappearing into the garden.
The door swings shut behind her with a. hollow click. The old latch rattles in its bracket before catching.
Euphemia sighs.
She’ll have to remember to unlatch it before she leaves.
Turning back to her work, Euphemia scoops the thick layer of foam that rests atop the ale and sets it aside for the next batch.
Then she begins the tedious work of transferring the house ale to smaller casks and firkins—arguably the most laborious part of the process.
Just scooping, pouring, and sealing away.
However, once the first brew has been distributed, she turns her attention to the second tun.
This is the ale that will impress. The one she took creative liberties on and boiled with honey and heather for a brighter, more floral flavor.
However, as Euphemia draws back the cover, she’s disheartened to find the aroma isn’t as strong as she thought it would be. She grabs a stir stick from nearby, dips it into the amber liquid, and tastes.
It’s not entirely unpleasant.
Perfectly drinkable by anyone else’s standards.
But this is a market ale. The one that customers are meant to remember them by.
The ale that travelers will tell their friends and neighbors about, and the reason Euphemia and her family will continue to see new patrons every week, people seeking out the Saint’s Hearth so they can have another pint of the finest ale in all of England.
They don’t come for the boring, bitter house ale her mother has her make every week.
They come for Euphemia’s special brew. Her father’s brew.
If it’s too bland, no one will remember them.
No one will remember him.
Determination floods her as the early morning light filters in across the floor.
Staring into the amber ale, Euphemia asks herself the same question her father would every time a brew didn’t turn out the way he wanted it to:
How will the first sip make them feel?
For this particular ale, Euphemia had been thinking about how much the people of England have suffered.
Nearly her entire life, the country had known war—Euphemia had been born at the end of one era of bloodshed and famine, only for the country to succumb to another a few years later.
Their people were tired. They were miserable.
They wanted stability. Prosperity. For their leaders to keep the peace while the country repaired its deep wounds.