The Honey Witch

by Sydney J. Shields

She sits beneath the wisteria tree, her orange cat curled in her lap. The bee-loud glade sings for her, a song worthy of the one hundred years she has lived. A century of honey, earth, stone, and sky. Of blood, venom, blooms, and ash. She thinks of everything that was, and everything that could have been.

The springtime buds that decorate the earth remind her of childhood when she wanted to grow up to be a flower.

“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.

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

“How is it that you are not married?” Marigold flinches. “What makes you think that I should be?” “You are beautiful and full of life, like springtime,” Mr. Notley says. “And why should those qualities merit promising myself to another? Perhaps there is a reason you cannot marry the spring.”

“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.”

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

“But shouldn’t she want more for her life than that?” “What any woman wants for herself is not for you to decide. You would do well to remember that.”

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to pry?” she says quickly as she opens the door to the cottage and rushes inside. Following her, he says, “She tried, but that is not in my nature. Prying is my strongest talent.”

I would tell him that the feeling he has when he’s alone at night—that burning desire to see the whole wide world and take a bite of it—it never goes away. And I would say that I hope he grows up braver than me. Brave enough to follow that feeling, and do so alone if he must.”

She watches her cruelty collide with Lottie’s skin, seeping into her blood, spearing her pounding heart.

Lottie looks her up and down and ponders, her smirk widening into a grin. “Okay. Undress, Witch.”

😊 yesssssss

“At least you’ll be back for another wedding soon,” her father says. “Frankie and August are so taken with each other. It’s every man’s dream to see his children fall so deeply in love.”

🥹

“When it rained, I had nothing to protect myself and what few possessions I retained. Most of my worst memories are of the rain. And now, whenever it storms, I have to get out. I have to run and save myself. Otherwise, it feels like I’m drowning.”

SOBBINGGGGGGGG

“Althea and I were soulmates,” he finally says to the waking stars. “There was a time when we had a life together. But when she was cursed, so was I. I lost all memory of what we were. We lost the life we were supposed to have. And when she died, I felt it.

SOBBING AGAIN!

She was the moon and I was the sea, and we were always reaching for each other.

Their lips find each other, and they melt like harsh winter under a ruthless sun. This is love. This is the secret that everyone is searching for. This is the warmth in the bones, that sleepy-sweet feeling in the muscle. This is the moment between a dream and the morning, where such goodness feels so real but impossible to hold.