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It is the spring of 1831,
“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.”
“You are a wild creature, Miss Claude. I hope to see you again,” he calls after her. She waves goodbye and then takes off in a run, knowing that she will not allow herself to be tamed.
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.
crows mean death, honey turning black means that winter will be longer than it should be, and a night without stars means that someone is about to have their heart broken. If a bee flies into the home, an important visitor is coming. When the sun shines through the rain, someone is pregnant. If an ivy leaf with six points is found in the garden, someone is about to fall in love.
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.”
It is the winter of 1831,
“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.”
She knows better than most—sometimes being still can feel worse than death.
People do not often dream of dying, but they should. They should dream of a warm supper at a big table where every seat is full, then lying in their bed made of fresh linens, and the final page of a book that they will read before blowing out a candle for the last time. They should dream of being old and soft and blissfully tired, of having made so many memories that their heart cannot hold any more, of being ready to walk away from their body and into a world of stars.
