Submission (#8390) Approved

Honeybee knew she couldn’t avoid it forever. From the moment she woke up that morning she had dreaded enacting the plans she had drawn up the day before. Today the store was closed as she had planned to clean her house in preparation for the oncoming miasma season. There was a specific cleaning task she needed to get done today, but as long as she was cleaning something she felt a little less bad about putting it off.

The elnin found herself on her front porch with a broom in hand. She mindlessly swept the dust and pink leaf debris off the side of the porch. The wind picked up for a moment and gently tossed more pink leaves and flower petals onto the porch. Living in Faerndell was wonderful, Honeybee would never deny that, but as she went back to sweeping the new leaves and petals off from the porch she couldn’t help but wonder if any other regions had this issue. She looked up and over at the trees nearby her house, bright pink leaves growing off the branches. Hidden within the leaves were some apples, almost big enough to let gravity do its thing and send them off the branches onto the ground. Why couldn’t an apple blow down instead of all these leaves?

Now that the porch was cleared, Honeybee had little reason to put off her big task for any longer. While she could go out and do some gardening, pulling weeds and gently trim the faerie blooms that were beginning to grow too close to her roof, by the time she would be done it’d be dark out. And there was no way she was going to do her last task at night! With a soft sigh Honeybee stepped back into her house and began to make her way up towards the attic.

To no surprise, the attic space needed a lot of cleaning. Honeybee frowned as she looked around at all the dust that had accumulated since the last time she had been up in attic space. When she noticed several cobwebs off in the corner she shuddered, praying that there were no longer any spiders up here. At least, none currently; they could return to a clean room once she was done up here.

Honeybee finally began to work. She decided to start going through all the various items that were in the attic to take stock in what she had and what she would need to get before miasma season was here. There weren’t many things she needed in her everyday life that she couldn’t get here in town but she decided to be safe rather than sorry. Honeybee had developed a taste for manaberry jam made in Ealei this year, after all. Perhaps going through everything would jog her memory and prompt her to jot a needed out of town item on her ‘to buy’ list.

The first box was full of old clothes. Seeing as several items had been nibbled on by mice, Honeybee was quick to set the entire box down in the ‘discard’ pile. The next box had several blankets that had thankfully been spared from critters, so she placed the box over into the ‘keep’ pile. When she opened the third box, Honeybee was greeted by the site of something she had completely forgotten about for years. At first glance, the item appeared to be a simple old journal with a leather strap wrapped around to keep it shut tight. Honeybee carefully picked up the journal, untied the leather strap from around the journal, then ever so carefully opened it up to the first page.

Scrawled on the first page was Honeybee’s name, written in crayon by a young kittom learning to write. Honeybee couldn’t help but smile to herself, remembering when she received this journal as a young kittom. She had been so excited to have a journal of her own, able to now write whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Her younger self quickly decided to turn the journal into a recipe book, having jotted down all the strange recipes in her head whenever she felt inspired.

The Honeybee in the present carefully flipped through the pages, taking in all of the recipes. Many of the recipes called for fruits and vegetables grown in Faerindell, with specifications that they had to come from trees with pink leaves, or trees that had faerie blooms growing next to them. Some of the pages stuck together, figuring that whatever was written between the pages had been a recipe for something sticky and sweet. Still, she was amused by her younger self’s creativity in all the recipes she wrote down, even if she hadn’t understood the full intricacies of cooking yet. Honeybee had even written down a culinary idea that involved trying to bake a cake that didn't involve flour, milk, eggs, or yeast. It was pretty much an idea to toss juice into a baking pan and place it into the oven. Honeybee couldn’t recall ever attempting this recipe, but if she had then her younger self most certainly would have learned that no cake would come from boiling juice in an oven.

By the time Honeybee reached the end of her recipe journal the sun was beginning to set. The light trickling in from the small attic window was barely enough for the elnin to move through the attic space without issue. Oh, drat! She had spent all her time reading and prancing down memory lane that she lost track of time. She supposed she would have to finish up cleaning the attic tomorrow. The elnin began to move to pick up the box of blankets, paused, then placed the journal on top of the blanket box. With a smile and soft hum she made her way out of the attic with her blankets and journal.

Maybe she should attempt making one or two of her wild recipes some time. For now, though, she needed a shower and sleep. Her dreams that night would be of her childhood now, no doubt.