The Honey Witch

by Sydney J. Shields

there is great wisdom to be found in heartbreak.

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.

“Eating sweets is perhaps my only talent.”

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

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 waves goodbye and then takes off in a run, knowing that she will not allow herself to be tamed.

she is a grown woman, and is that not magical in itself? To have survived this long, despite the world’s penchant for beautiful dead girls? Marigold has grown up surrounded by the poets who

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.

Love is a burden. It doesn’t work for wild women.

We’re called Honey Witches. Our magic comes from working with the bees to create enchanted honey. We also use flowers, herbs, and spices for our spells. But it is the nature of the universe to have an equal opposite to every force. Fire is the opposite of water. Air is the opposite of earth, and…”

honey is ash. So where there are Honey Witches, there are…” She leans in. “Ash Witches?”

Ash Witches are meant to clear away the rot of death, to bring warmth to people. Honey Witches tend to new growth in the wake of fire, to help life rise from the ashes.

Immediately, she feels something surging in her veins—power. It’s hot, almost burning underneath her skin. But it feels good. It feels right. It feels like she was always meant to burn.

“I had to,” she says. She does not turn away. She does not look down. She stands tall and proud and certain that she did the right thing for herself.

Anyone can be capable of something impossible—as a witch, she must believe that.

The landvættir do not communicate the way we do. They rely on their empathy and ability to sense true intention. They speak in hopes, dreams, and wishes.”

“We’re Honey Witches, darling. We find beauty where others may not. Spirits guide us to it. We bring marvelous things to life,”

The second those two locked eyes, they were in love. It was as quick as the sting of a bee,” Althea says with pride. All children must believe, at least for a small time, that their parents are soulmates. It is nice to be right about that.

“I’d choose power in my veins over a ring on my finger any day.”

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.

That book has been passed through generations of witches, of both Honey and Ash. It can answer anything. Well, almost anything. But not curses. Evil witches don’t like to share what could be their undoing.

“Eternity is not a gift. It is a punishment. To outlive everyone you know, everyone you love, and everyone who once loved you—” She stops herself and swallows. “One hundred years is more than enough for me.”

being lost is so much more romantic.

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 am certain it was less about him and more about enjoying the feeling of being chosen by someone who I thought was better than me.

“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.”

It is a mistake to think of grief as an absence. It’s more of a dark, shadowy thing that sits in constant periphery, always there, always stealing air and making it hard to breathe. It’s a demon that she has fought every single day, but it will not leave.

Friendship is the greatest gift one can give,”

“I’m grateful for the scars. They led me to my purpose,

“Fuck civility. Fuck whoever invented it,”

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

the world is quite nice, but only if you know where to look. Friendships are harder to break than you think, and you will not outgrow the ones that are the most important. Heartbreak is inevitable, but so is healing, so don’t be afraid to fall in love freely and often.

Those people, their skepticism is born out of the fear that something could be more powerful than what they can create.

it’s like asking the skies to stop holding rain clouds because they’re too heavy. It can’t be done. It doesn’t matter how hard it is to carry; that grief cannot be let go.”

“Grief is often too strange and too vast to fit into words.”

Bad things can’t happen to people in comfy beds.

Who made this rule that people cannot have everything that they want, all at once? She would love nothing more than to write them a strongly worded letter detailing her displeasure.

“We fall together.”

People think of loneliness as a feeling, but it’s a presence. It’s a living thing that takes the shape of the company you wish you had.

We can’t outrun death, but we can rewrite it.