Page 20 of Of Potions and Honey
Maybe their Golden River-brand hiking boots had fallen apart halfway to the ‘famous pond’. Mira would not be the least bit surprised about it.
She glanced down at her gently clinking cargo. She dearly hoped that her bottles would be of better quality. She wouldn’t be using them for long, but right now, she really needed a little bit of a victory, even if it was just successfully getting a batch of fertiliser onto her shelves.
Ten
Mirastareddownatthe primroses, neatly lined up on her front porch. They were fine, all things considered. The faint pink tinge in the petals of the white ones notwithstanding – and the fact that they had doubled in size over night. If only she had checked the back of the recipe book beforehand. Getting the dose right, as it turned out, was just as important as getting the recipe right.
“That’s some healthy-looking primroses.”
Mira looked up at the voice from the road. Yoni.
“What did you feed them?”
“About five times as much fertiliser as I was supposed to.” Mira sighed. “Can I help you with something?”
To her surprise, Yoni nodded at the flowers. “That, actually. Whatever you poured onto those. I assume you’re using your… uncle’s recipes?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I used to buy from him. It’s just not the same with the boxed stuff Harper sells.” Uninvited, Yoni stepped onto thestone path and came over to climb the stairs. “Can I place an order?”
For that?!Mira just about bit her tongue and kept that to herself.
“Not yet, I’m afraid,” she replied. “This batch… had some imperfections. It works fine,” she added hastily, “it’s just… the pastel pink ones weren’t pastel pink when I bought them from Eren.”
Yoni’s brows drew together sharply. “You… coloured your primroses?”
“Not on purpose! There was a reaction, and the potion changed colour, but it smelled fine so I decided I’d try it and see if it worked anyway, and…”
She fell silent, heat creeping into her cheeks, and gestured at the flowers. Yoni climbed the stairs and bent over the row of pots, studying them so intensely Mira was almost sure Yoni was mocking her. Abruptly, Yoni straightened again.
“Could you walk me through the steps? I think I know what happened, but I can’t be sure from just looking at the flowers.”
Mira blinked owlishly. Whatever she had expected, it hadn’t been that. “What?”
“The steps,” Yoni repeated impatiently, “that you took when you brewed this. Can you tell me?”
“Ah.” Mira gulped in some air, embarrassment fighting with her confusion. “I’d need to check the book, I haven’t memorised it yet.”
Yoni inhaled sharply, but nodded. “Show me.”
It was exceedingly awkward, leading Yoni through the empty shop with its embarrassingly dusty shelves and nothing on them. The brewing kitchen looked slightly better, if only because after wiping up roughly a dozen accidents, Mira had stuck a rag or a brush into every corner of the room.
While Yoni took a quick look around, Mira discreetly shut the door to the storage room, which was still waiting for a deep clean, and hoped Yoni didn’t notice.
“So, the book is over here.”
Mira had to squeeze past Yoni in the small space to get to the counter where she kept the recipes, and the little stack of notes that she kept meaning to add to a notebook, or at least tape into the recipe book on the corresponding pages. She hadn’t quite expected that. Yoni was tall, but she was also… oddly muscular. It was surprising, considering her line of work. It was also momentarily distracting.
“…yes?”
Right! The recipe! Mira fumbled the pages twice before she managed to find the right one.
“Here. It’s not overly complicated, and the fertiliser does work, so I’m not sure where the problem is…”
“So let’s go through it, then,” Yoni said with the tone of a school teacher at the end of a particularly long week. Mira nodded quickly.
“All right. So, I started with the mint leaves in the water…”
