Page 18 of Of Potions and Honey
Eren watched her as she carefully put the tiny pots into her basket, trying to make them all fit. She’d been lucky; primroses were nearly out of season, so he’d been selling off the last ones at half the price to make room in the flower greenhouse. His ‘little hobby’, he’d called it, claiming that the orchard was practically Cassia’s baby, and this way he had something to do without getting in her way. This was, as it turned out, where the strawberries had come from, though today, Mira needed something else.
“Testing,” Mira replied. “IthinkI got the fertiliser formula right this time, and I need to test it on something that isn’t planted directly into the soil, just in case I didn’t.”
“That’s great to hear. Honestly, I think the orchard could do with a new batch. Your uncle’s fertiliser always perked up even the sickliest trees, and they’ve all been looking a little bedraggled lately. Cassia’s worried about her peaches.”
Mira bit her tongue before she could reflexively tell him no. If she wanted to make this work, she’d need a much better sense for business.
“I’m still working on the mixture for trees,” she said cautiously, “but I can let you know once it’s ready.”
“That’d be amazing. We’ll take a whole gallon if you can manage that much.”
A whole gallon. That meant at least two successful batches, and right now, Mira would do a little happy dance if she could even get one right without spattering her entire stove with stickysomethingagain. Which reminded her.
“I’ll note that down once I’m home.” She grabbed her basket off the ground. “I need to get going, I still need to swing by Kian’s and get some honey.”
“Good luck, I heard the bees are capricious this year.”
Mira hoped that they weren’t too capricious. Honey seemed to be an ingredient in every single thing, and her Uncle had taken great care to note that only genuine Emberglen honey would do. Which came with an eye-watering price tag compared to what she was used to. Until now, Mira had used the jar she’d – reluctantly – bought from Golden River, but now that she seemed to at least have one recipe nailed down, she’d bite the bullet and get the good stuff, so she would finally have at least something to sell.
Kian Reynolds’ house was near her own, if one took the shortcut through the forest to the north-eastern edge of town. He had once been one of over a dozen beekeepers tending their hives and harvesting honey in Emberglen. Now, he was one of three who hadn’t closed up and left. That had surprised Mira more than anything. Honey had been one of the town’s most well-known exports. It was what the forest was named after, and for good reason.
There’s some large honey farms near Heartfield. Their honey is cheaper, we’re pretty much just selling ours to apothecaries now.
Yes, that sounded about right. And it had been no surprise to learn that the farms were selling their harvest directly to Golden River. It seemed like there was no escaping them.
Mira’s luck held when she caught Kian in his front garden, where he was patiently watching as his daughter was attempting to plant a small batch of bright pink flowers on her own. Being five years old, she was having some difficulties, though evidently refused to let her father help.
“No, not on top,” he said. “Look, you made the hole right there. That’s where the flowers go.”
“I know that!”
She plopped the flowers into the hole, where they promptly vanished because she had dug a little too enthusiastically. Her father – mostly – suppressed a sigh that told Mira that they had been through this before, brushed the dirt off his knees, and stood.
“Hey there. How can I help you? Honey?”
“Yes.” Mira eyed the little girl, who was tossing handfuls of dirt into the hole. “If it’s a good time…?”
“I’m not sure there will be a better time. If you could keep an eye on Lily…?”
It was easy enough to do that. Lily, as soon as her father had gone inside to grab the honey, started explaining to Mira in exhaustive detail what she was doing. That she was planting marigolds, that she had picked them out herself, and did Mira know the flowers were named after ‘the plant lady’s cat’? No, Mira had not known, but thank you for the information. The girl nodded graciously and began to explain how one needed to water flowers for them to get all pretty, which she demonstrated by dumping out most of the small watering can next to herdirectly onto the poor marigolds. Mira winced and kept herself from interfering; clearly, Lily was in charge and knew what she was doing. At least, she seemed very convinced of that.
With her expensive honey added to the basket, and the marigolds drowning in their giant hole, Mira left father and daughter to their devices and returned home, to hopefully produce something commercially viable at last.
It was pink. Mira couldn’t quite pinpoint when and how it had happened, but what she had pulled from the stove this time looked and smelled just right – except that it was the exact kind of colour one would expect from a batch of particularly romantic lemonade.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Mira felt close to tears. There was nothing she had done wrong, she was sure. Every step, she had double-checked before committing, and when she had put it on the back burner to simmer, everything had looked perfect.
“So how on earth are youpink?”
She stared balefully at the pot, almost ready to throw out the entire batch yet again. The only thing holding her back was the fact that she had used the expensive honey, and she refused to waste that. She sniffed the mixture again. A whiff of mint and petrichor, just like the recipe said. Mire hesitated, gnawing on her lip. If she was sure that she’d done everything right – and she was – and it smelled like it was supposed to, then maybe the colour meant nothing. Maybe it was still usable after all. And who knew, maybe the cheerful hue would make it look more appealing? Something about ‘making your flowers as bright as the potion’, perhaps. She’d write that down later. For now, she’d bottle it, and once it had cooled down completely, she’d try iton the primroses. At worst, Eren would have a good laugh when she came back to buy another dozen flowers because she had gruesomely murdered the first batch with her absurdly-coloured concoction.
She went into the back to go and retrieve her bottles. She’d gotten a single carton for a start, which she now went to grab from the back of one of the still very sparsely occupied cabinets in the store room. Mire squinted at the shelf, trying to make out the edges of the box in the dark. Aha!
When the box was halfway off the shelf, something brushed along her hand and skittered up to her wrist. When Mira screamed and yanked her hand back, the fat spider fell off and landed on the floor, along with the box. There was a crash, barely muted through the cardboard, and what little confidence Mira had managed to muster shattered along with the contents of the box.
The spider looked at her indignantly for evicting her from its comfortable dark corner and hurried under the cabinets, out of sight.
