“I’ll only turn eight once—shouldn’t we celebrate with chocolate cake?” she wheedled the morning before her birthday, more persistent than a starving dog after a bone.
“You can say that about any birthday,” Merry said, fanning herself with her straw hat. We were out in the garden picking sugar snap peas for dinner. “I’ll only turn sixteen once, and I didn’t even have a cake! It was that blackberry cobbler—which was delicious and I loved it,” she added quickly, throwing a look of apology toward Mama.
“Even if we could find chocolate in Amity Falls—which is this side of impossible—I’m sure we’d never be able to afford it, little love,” Mama explained, tossing another handful of pods into the basket.
“I wish Trinity had never shown me that story,” Sadie moaned, and she plopped herself to the ground with a petulant thump.
“You’ve loved reading the stories,” I reminded her gently. “We all have.”
“Stop being such a baby, Sadie.” Merry swiped a fistful of peas from the plant nearest her. “You can’t get everything that pops into your head. Don’t you think we all want things as badly as you want that cake? Ellerie needs new dresses, and I’m dying for new books, and Mama…” She paused, her delicate eyebrows knitting together as she pondered what Mama could possibly want. “Mama could use a whole lot of new things.”
“I’m happy with everything I’ve got,” Mama said. “And I truly wish there was a way to get you your chocolate cake, Sadie-Bird, but I don’t see how it will happen this year.” Mama reached out to cup Sadie’s cheek and rubbed her thumb back and forth across the downy peach fuzz. “I’ll tell you what….We’ll spare an extra bit of sugar, and I’ll make a honey cake in three layers—just like the one in the picture—and come spring, when they send out the next supply run, I’ll make sure Jeb—”
Though done by pure habit, she still blanched at her mistake.
“I’ll make sure whoever is running the store has chocolate squares on their list, and we’ll make a cake then too. With chocolate frosting so frothy, you’ll have to eat it with a spoon.”
Sadie folded her arms over her chest, clearly interested but unwilling to accept at first glance.
“And I’ll make you a crown to wear tomorrow,” I threw in. “Just like the one the princess wears in the book!”
“Which princess?” Sadie asked, as though it truly made a difference.
“Any of them, you goose,” I said, laughing, then helped her out of the garden row.
She brushed her skirts off with as much dignity as a pouting almost-eight-year-old could muster and looked at Merry. “What will you give me?”
Merry opened her mouth, undoubtedly to reply with something clever and biting, but Mama shook her head. My sister twisted her lips, thinking. “I’ll set the table for you for the rest of the week,” she offered. “So you can rule over your kingdom like a princess ought to.”
Sadie cocked her head to the side, as if listening to a voice the rest of us could not hear, before clapping her hands with glee. “Abigail and I accept! And we want the crown to be as golden as sunlight!” she added, turning to me.
I pushed myself up, peas all picked. “Then golden you shall have!”
* * *
Even after the honey was harvested, we were never allowed to pick the flowers growing in our fields. Once the combs had been cut away and we left the bees to prepare for winter, Papa would wade out into the fields, picking the annuals to extract their seeds. He liked to experiment with different combinations of flowers come spring. Every type of flower pollen produced a different taste in the honey—some giving flowery notes so sweet, it made your teeth ache. Others tinged the honey with a rich smoky flavor perfect for pouring over hardtack biscuits and dry bread.
The preparation of the flower fields was one of Papa’s favorite duties. He often admitted it would be much easier to allow the bees to forage for pollen in the wild, but he knew that the honey would be unpredictable and unremarkable. I think he liked imagining himself as a French winemaker, toying with varieties of grapes to create the perfect blend to ferment. He kept journals of his experiments, drawing pictures and writing detailed notes on which flowers produced the best flavors. It was a homemade field guide any botanist would envy.
So when I went to pick flowers for Sadie’s crown in the early afternoon of her birthday, I left the farm behind, wandering west toward the trio of waterfalls feeding the Greenswold. There was a large patch of wood sorrel there that would be the perfect shade of gold for a flower crown.
It was another hot day, and once I’d situated myself among the flowers, I unbuttoned the top two clasps of my dress and fanned myself. The mornings were always cold, on the verge of a hard frost, but as the sun blazed over the valley, it grew sweltering and miserable, feeling more like July than September.
I wove together a small circlet of reeds and ivy for the wreath’s base and was just about to start adding flowers when a voice called out, startling me.
“Beautiful afternoon, isn’t it?”
A figure moved through the trunks of the pine trees, almost as sleek and dark as the shadows themselves. As he stepped into the sunlight, I could see it was the mysterious trapper who called himself “Price.”
His pack jingled with an assortment of tools and a large machete, undoubtedly used to hack back the forest’s undergrowth. It also boasted an impressive collection of rabbit feet dangling on a string, a rather morbid bunch of fur and claws. I wondered why a man would ever feel compelled to carry so much supposed luck wherever he traveled.
“Hot, though,” he added, and plunked himself on the ground just feet from where I sat. A sheen of sweat dotted his brow, and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing tattooed bands of dark green ink circling his wrists like bracelets. There was a pattern within the bands, but I couldn’t quite make it out.
After rummaging through his bag, Price pulled out a round canteen and shook it once before offering it to me. When I passed, he downed it himself. I tried not to notice the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he slugged back long swigs of the water.
This boy was too attractive by half.
He recapped the canteen and wiped his lips on the back of his hand. “Hungry?” he asked, pulling out a small pouch from the bag. It was full of jerky and smelled spicy and delicious.
I shook my head. Back home, Mama was preparing an absolute feast for supper, and I didn’t want to spoil it.
With a shrug, he dug in. “More for me, then. So tell me, Ellerie Downing, do you fancy yourself a fairy queen?”