Midnight at the Blackbird Café

by Heather Webber

yarrow, its white flower clusters making it easy to spot. Her secret teachings over the years hadn’t been in vain. She’d given me an education I treasured. From it, I’d developed a love of herbal tea—creating my own blends wasn’t so much a hobby as an obsession.

Yarrow tea wouldn’t cure whatever ailed Doc, but it might help some, given its beneficial properties for the liver.

I planned to be a loner for six months, to save myself the pain of it all. That had backfired spectacularly, because all I’d learned was that the pain of denying oneself friends was worse than leaving them when it was time to go.

Friendly, not friends. It still hurt to leave, but not quite as much. The downside, of course, was that I lived a rather lonely life. It was a small price to pay to protect my emotional well-being.

I liked most creatures and knew many snakes were harmless, but I preferred to keep my distance.