Ten-year-old Lea Wilde had a secret. A nasty one that gnawed inside her as she peered into the oven, pretending she didn’t want to cry. On a stool in the corner, her mum, who used to love her, breastfed the baby. The air was thick, cloying, as if overwrought with all the things that weren’t being said.
Outside, the early-August air shimmered, dappled with white fluff from the village’s cottonwood trees. A wagtail bobbed along the garden gate and a fox slunk behind the rhododendron bushes, just as Father’s sunburst mop of hair came into view.
Shooting Lea a wink, he crossed the kitchen in two strides and draped one tree-trunk arm around Mum and the now-dormant baby. “My beautiful girls! How are you?”
“Good.” Mum sighed and rested her head on his shoulder so he couldn’t see her face. “I made steak and ale pie.”
“Ahh, my favourite.”
Lea froze. Mum’s lying, she wanted to say. She’s mean. She isn’t Mum. But Father wasn’t to know, that much Lea understood, so instead she focused on the myriad whorls and dustings of flour, the rolling pin, and the crumpled, red-checked tea towel. She took a cloth from the sink and wiped the surfaces, willing her hand to stop its feverish trembling.
No one else could fix this; it had to be her.
#
The next day, Lea shadowed the river eastwards until she reached the wicker basket, empty of fresh eggs and littered with coins, marking the dirt path to the local witch’s house.
After a few minutes she spied the ochre thatched roof above bricks the colour of warm gingerbread. The sage green shutters were hooked open, their sills lined with fat magnolia candles and potted herbs.
There was a forbidden game Lea and her friends played which involved lifting the weighty gnome-shaped knocker and sprinting into the heather until their knees buckled. Lea boasted she was the fastest, but on this occasion she approached slow and steady.
To her left, neat rows of cherry and beefsteak tomato vines gave way to leafy cabbages, radishes, turnips, and a patch of girthy cucumbers, bent and twisted like snakes in the grass. No weeds: not one nettle, thistle, or tuft of spotted spurge.
She stepped onto the threshold and knocked, curling her toes to prevent herself from fleeing.
“Coming!”
As the door swung inward, a bouquet of blackberry and apple crumble, cinnamon, and toasted oats wafted towards her, mingling with the earthy garden scents of freshly-turned soil and honeysuckle. Her stomach groaned.
Holding the door was a smiling, olive-skinned woman with shiny black hair tied in a ponytail. She wore a sunflower dress overlaid with a flour-dusted apron. A tea towel was slung over one shoulder.
“Hi there,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
Lea swallowed. “I need a magic potion.”
“I see.” One eyebrow quirked upwards. “And may I ask what it’s for?”
“My mum. She’s… in a bad way.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, but she should see the doctor if—”
“No. I think…” Lea clamped her mouth shut; she shouldn’t have to explain. “Aren’t you a witch?”
The woman tilted her head but said nothing. A gust of wind sent tendrils of Lea’s auburn curls across her face, but she held her gaze.
“My name’s Faye,” the woman said at last, side-stepping Lea’s question. “What’s yours?”
“Lea Wilde.”
“Ah. The Wildes. Yes, I should have guessed by your hair. Your mother just had a baby, no?”
Lea nodded.
“Maybe you should come in.”
Inside it was airy and oven-warm. A lamp stand carved out of solid forest pine nestled in one corner and whole pumpkins, filled with what Lea suspected to be slow-brewing moonshine, dangled from oaken beams. A tortoiseshell cat stretched out on the deerskin hearthfire rug, lazily curling its tail.
Lea believed her mum to be cursed and so Faye suggested a beeswax candle: a magical one that should dispel any such darkness. However, Lea would need to harvest the ingredients herself and, most importantly, tell the bees her secrets.
All of them.
#
At first, the hives vibrated with agitation at her presence, but within a couple of days they allowed her to check on them and extract their honey with Faye’s help.
After a week, Lea stopped wearing the protective suit and welcomed their furry bodies on her exposed skin. It was in these moments that she shared her truths. Two or three revelations each time was recommended so the bees could digest what she had told them.
There were seven hives in total, all marked with a thick strip of coloured paint. When Faye inspected and pried honeycomb from the other colonies, including the aggressive Reds, Lea would confide in the friendlier, more placid Greens.
Faye insisted that if Lea listened hard enough, she would be able to hear the susurration of her secrets in the corn and the wheat, rapeseed, and tallgrass. In return for her confidences, the honey produced would be unique to her, and exquisite: a natural elixir.
She told them of her crush on Jason Whyte and how she once stole a raspberry doughnut from the bakery on Main Street. Even about the time she took one of Father’s cigarettes and smoked it in the cut-through with Ken and Mary. The fact she was spending many of her days here instead of scampering around the village with her friends.
The Green colony undulated and rippled above her, accepting her quiet offerings with their characteristic, good-natured hum. In the farmer’s fields beyond, her father would be sweating in one of the tractors, had been since before dawn, would be again tomorrow. If he could just—
“All finished, Lea?”
“Um, yes.”
“Thank the hive and the queen for their cooperation,” Faye prompted.
Lea did, and they returned to the cottage, long grass swishing in their wake.
#
“It’s important,” Faye said, “to combine the beeswax and oil well before adding the honey, otherwise the centre of the candle could collapse.”
Lea secured a wick to the bottom of yet another glass jar with a dab of wax and used a pencil to hold it straight whilst Faye continued stirring the mixture. This was the fourth candle they had made today with the Purple colony’s produce. Lea felt she was getting the hang of it.
“Faye,” she said, focusing on her task. “What is the worst thing the bees would do?”
“What do you mean? Mind your fingers.”
Faye poured the scalding-hot mixture into the jar, making sure to leave space at the top. Lea stared as the concoction oozed, folding over itself and spreading to the edges.
“You said if they felt you hadn’t shared everything, they would leave, or worse. What is the ‘worse’?”
“Why do you ask?” Faye frowned. “If you haven’t told them everything, it won’t work—”
“No. I swear. Just curious.”
“Well…” Faye returned to the stove and placed three new chunks of beeswax in the cannister. “They may make… bad honey.”
“Oh.”
Faye did not elaborate and Lea did not ask. But that night she dreamt of rancid black tar creeping up her arms and over her collarbone, questing for her mouth, searing her pale skin…
She jolted awake to darkness, entangled in sodden, twisted bedsheets.
It was Saturday.
Today they would harvest the Green colony.
#
Bad honey.
Faye’s warning echoed in Lea’s mind as she waded through the clover and wood sorrel to the corner of the sun-drenched meadow. This time, she went alone.
Three yards from the colony, several bees came to investigate her, settling on her freckled hands and neck. “I’ve come to tell you something,” she said.
Three alighted on her face, nibbling gently, and Lea confided in their purring, golden fur. She told them how her mum mutated every morning after Father left for work. How she either ignored Lea or called her names: lazy, selfish. Ignorant. How Mum claimed Lea had no idea what life was like, but in the same breath refused to articulate what this meant. How it was hidden from Father, who billowed in and out of their home in a joyous flurry, bringing with him scents of dried sweat and tractor oil. How Lea felt invisible and yet too seen…
The bees on her face hesitated. Could they feel her apprehension? Did they know she was still holding back?
One began crawling up her nostril and she breathed it out sharply. It didn’t sting. After a moment they lifted and flew away, blending with the circling multitudes above the hives, thrumming as if discussing her words.
Iridescent beetles and dragonflies flitted across the field and vanished past the dark line of trees that marked the edge of the woodland.
Sweat beaded around the nubs of her spine as the droning churned and seethed, morphing into a full-bodied, indignant buzz. How dare you not trust us, she could feel them saying. Why had she been so stupid? Of course they knew. She could hide her secrets from Mum, Father, the other village kids, and Faye — but not the bees. Hadn’t that been the first thing Faye told her?
“I’m sorry!” She gasped and quivered as the swarm descended and encircled her. However, their intention was not to harm but to envelope Lea in their warm reverberation. The sound was lulling, soporific. Balm for the soul. It’s alright, they said. You can tell us.
And she did.
#
Lea found her mum in the living room, pacing, rocking the baby. As she entered, Mum paused and looked up. “What’s that?”
“It’s for you.” Lea edged forward, holding the candle as if it were a holy offering. Her words felt dry and brittle on her tongue. “I made it myself. It should be scented with eucalyptus and hawthorne, and…um…” She placed the jar on the table, her fingertips lingering on the glass. “It’s magic, Mum. My… bad secret was carried away, but if I don’t tell you, it’ll come back.” A detail Faye had chosen to keep from Lea until after the candle was made.
Mum didn’t move, didn’t blink. In the crook of her arm, Lea’s baby sister, Iris, gurgled.
Lea steeled herself. “When Iris was born,” she said, “I was mad. Jealous. I thought you and Father wouldn’t love me as much anymore and I… I wished you wouldn’t love the baby. I wished you wouldn’t… be happy.” Her throat ached; tears burned her eyelids and scorched a path down her cheeks. The silence was unbearable. “But I didn’t mean it! I’m so sorry, Mum. It’s… It’s all my fault.”
“Oh Lea…” In a breath, her mum closed the gap between them and embraced Lea with her free arm. “It is not your fault.”
“You’re angry.”
“Not with you.”
Keys clattered on the kitchen counter, making them flinch. “Girls?” A moment later, Lea’s father surveyed the scene with a quizzical furrow. “What’s all this then? Everyone alright?”
Lea locked eyes with her mum, with the cerulean gaze that had always, always loved her, and found that her words had been spirited away.
But as it turned out, it didn’t matter.
“Actually,” her mum said, lifting her face. “No. No, I don’t think I am.”
Lea closed her eyes and felt the curse lifting, easing the pain in her chest. Out of the open window it flew, farther and farther, until the wind snatched it away.
A wind that whispered to the wheat.
Zelda C. Thorne is a British author who grew up in a pub in Essex and now lives in Norfolk with her family. She has been published by Off Topic, JAKE, and Flash Fiction North as well as shortlisting for the Olga Sinclair Prize, NYC Midnight, and Writer’s Playground. Her speculative piece ‘Star Status’ featured on the USA science fiction podcast Tall Tale TV and is the title of her debut collection. Find out more at www.zeldacthorne.com.
