The Honey Witch

by Sydney J. Shields

“One day, I will be a rose. And I will plant myself somewhere so beautiful that I will never want to leave.” Her mother laughed. “And what if someone wants to pluck you?” “That is what the thorns are for,” she said.

These are the wild women who run barefoot through the meadow, who teach new songs to the birds, who howl at the moon together. Wild women are their own kind of magic.

what is so wrong about being a bitch? It is the closest a girl can be to a wolf.

“No. You see only springtime. What happens when I am winter? I will tell you, Mr. Notley. When winter comes”—she leans in close so their noses are almost touching—“you will freeze.”

she must, for she will not shed one more tear for that man. He is not worth the energy, and neither is anyone else.

But what happens when the girl keeps living, when she ages proudly and defiantly, without abandoning imagination, or stories, or that secret wish to find magic wherever it hides? Well, then the poets would call her a witch. It is better to be lost in a beautiful daydream than trapped in a dim reality.

“So Mother chose love, but you did not?” Wise choice. Love is a burden. It doesn’t work for wild women.

She is only trying to protect you, so much so that she cannot see how it is harming you. Perhaps it is the artist in me, but I’ve always thought it so romantic to have beauty and creation as your purpose.

And when I am gone, look for me in the yellow flowers. I’ll be there for you, always.”

A Honey Witch provides women with choice—something they are all too often denied.

“What any woman wants for herself is not for you to decide. You would do well to remember that.”

I used to always give you a hard time, too,” Mr. Benny says to Althea. “You still give me a hard time, Benny. That never stopped,” she replies.

She fills her day with her favorite things—summer fruit, Earl Grey tea, spell casting, and honeybees. Fresh sunflowers, yellow ribbons, daydreams, and lullabies.

“Well, that’s how all love works,” August says. “You can’t love anyone without the fear of losing them, without the forethought of grief. There is an inherent loss in love, but that does not mean that love is not worth it.”

A witch knows to never answer the darkness when it calls.

August, and Mr. O’Connell hovering so closely over her that she can see up their noses.

“Come now, everyone, quiet down. There is nothing wrong with my daughter’s singing,” Lord Claude says, but his smirk says otherwise. “She just always chooses to scream along with the music instead.”

Frankie leans over to August. “It makes me wonder what our wedding will look like one day.”

“Her ring that you now wear around your neck was her engagement ring. I made it for her.”

But eventually, you get so old and so sick that all people can do is take care of you.

If you love them, you must leave them.

We can’t outrun death, but we can rewrite