Sister Heely emerged from her workshop as Penelope stepped back inside.
She felt a little haunted by Steph’s last glance back at her, before the cart had rounded the bend. Yearning, regret, something of shame. Penelope had felt a wild urge to chase after the cart and hold Steph tight until he smiled.
Heaving a sigh, Penelope peeled off her coat and hung it by the door.
The house felt too quiet, too still, with just herself and Sister Heely there. Penelope already missed the cheery clamour of so many other people sharing their home.
“I’ve got some tinctures and perfumes to prepare for market. I thought it might be nice to make a special fragrance for the Ball while I’m at it. Would you like to help?” Sister Heely asked Penelope, her gaze sympathetic.
“I’d be glad to,” Penelope replied, relieved to have the methodical task of herbal preparation to occupy her mind, and Sister Heely’s steadfast company for the day ahead.
Set up in the front room of the cottage, opposite the lounge, Sister Heely’s workroom was small but meticulously arranged. Waxed wooden benches encompassed the room, mounted above cabinets and shelves brimming with bottles, books, bowls, and dried herbs.
A bench was built into the bay window overlooking the front porch and gardens, atop which sat a variety of flasks and crucibles made of quartz, copper, and heavy stone. Small pots of herbs were arranged by the arched windows set to look over the east-side flower bed, beyond which was Cynthia’s stable.
More shelves and pigeon-hole cabinets were fixed into the walls above the benches at intervals conforming to Sister Heely’s esoteric standards. These were stocked with bottles of fragrant essences, honey-hued oils, crystalline tree resins, liquors for tinctures, and blocks of cloth-wrapped wax.
In the middle of the room stood a square table of weathered grey wood which gleamed in the light of small glowstones ensconced in the walls. Overhead, bundles of herbs in various states of drying hung from the wooden ceiling beams.
Setting herself to a familiar task, Penelope filled a small pail from the stone basin set into the back wall and began rinsing herbs. Sister Heely smiled and started shaving various waxes into a small crucible of shining quartz, which she then placed on a warming plate of glowing amber stone.
Soon the scents of crushed herbs and sweet oils filled the small space.
They spent the day working quietly. Though the ache in Penelope’s chest persisted, it became dull as together they poured warm waxes into jars, and bundled up herbs to hang from the wooden ceiling beams.
Penelope found herself soothed by the gentle grind of Sister Heely’s mortar and pestle and the astringent scent of herbal liquor as she strained tinctures through cloth. The gentle clink of copper on crystal and the honeyed scent of waxed wood lulled Penelope into a weary state of calm as the day wore on.
“Now,” Sister Heely sighed as she stretched out her back. “The market stock is all done. Shall we make ourselves some perfume for the ball?”
Penelope grinned and helped Sister Heely arrange a collection of small black bottles onto the table, fragrant essences that Sister Heely had distilled from flowers, herbs, and resins gathered from the Faewood.
For herself, Sister Heely chose floral notes of rose and jasmine, with a base of vanilla and a dash of a sweet, blushing flower they had only found the once in the twilit woods last spring.
While Sister Heely shaved down more wax for their perfume bases, Penelope took her time choosing her fragrances.
Penelope closed her eyes and recalled her night wandering the forest. The snow-dusted earth beneath her bare feet had smelled rich and mossy. The aromatic wood of the trees had been dark and earthen, but with a hint of something sweeter. Like winter plums and blackberry syrup. Atop all of that, coaxing Penelope down her wayward path, had been the sugar-light perfume of wildflowers and the clean petrichor of storm rain. Oh so subtle, yet intoxicating on the frozen air.
Penelope smiled to herself and set to work, plucking out several of the bottles, a mix of woodsy resins, sweet fruits, and flowers. She scented each one, discarding some as too cloying, others as too tart. When she was satisfied with her chosen essences, Penelope began the process of blending them into a final perfume.
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Collecting several small, empty jars, Penelope placed within them tiny beads of each fragrance, working by intuition as she altered the mixture from jar to jar. Once done, she fixed the lids into place, giving each jar a little shake to stir up the scents.
Together, they waited for their fragrances to unfurl and fill the small jars with a blended aroma, before removing the lids to sample each in turn.
Sister Heely sighed in bliss as she sniffed delicately at her first jar. Penelope smiled and turned her attention to her own.
While each blend was reminiscent of that night in the forest, only Penelope’s fourth jar truly captured the feeling of lush magics and sweetened hollows, of secret fruits ripening at midnight, and the enthralling bloom of moonlit flowers.
Penelope hummed in delight before trading jars with Sister Heely.
“Oh, this one, absolutely!” Penelope exclaimed as she breathed in the floral mix of Sister Heely’s third jar. Penelope stuck her nose deep into the jar and huffed, causing Sister Heely to splutter about improper scenting techniques. Penelope twisted away with a mad grin as Sister Heely tried to snatch the jar back, finally yielding with a giggle when the older woman threatened to place Penelope’s jars on the highest shelf out of the princess’ shorter reach.
Sister Heely in turn sniffed at Penelope’s chosen jar with a pointed delicacy that made Penelope snicker into her hand. Sister Heely closed her eyes, humming in pleasure at the fragrance. “Oh, darling, that is simply divine!”
Penelope watched as Sister Heely tended a flask of oil and melting wax where it sat atop the warming plate, pouring two measures into quartz beakers once the wax was fully liquid. Penelope claimed one and added in her fragrances, drop by drop, stirring as the liquid cooled to a buttery gold.
They poured their final perfumes into the shallow wells of polished blackwood cases and placed them on a shelf by the window to set. Penelope gave the cooling perfumes a final huff, squealing in glee at the scent.
As the afternoon waned into the dark of winter’s evening, they washed the jars and wiped down the benches. Everything was perfectly in place and evening tea underway when Sister Rosin returned, striding through the front door with a cheery hoo hoo!
“In the kitchen, little owl!” Sister Heely called. Penelope giggled around a mouthful of fresh-baked pumpkin bread.
“Everything went well with Steph, then?” Sister Heely asked as they sat down to eat.
Penelope swallowed another mouthful of bread with a gulp and began spooning stew into her bowl. The ache in her chest that had subsided throughout the day returned.
“All fine, all fine. Though he insisted on being dropped at the gates outside of Grimwood Village for some reason. And I said, absolutely not, young’un, I’m taking you all the way home—honestly, a boy still pasty as death trying to walk through the town on his own, not on my watch. So I steered us up to the gate, and Steph tries to hide under the hood of his jacket, which the guards were not having a bar of, and then—” Sister Rosin paused to take a breath and a bite of stew. “Then the guard at the gate, tall fella with a mask carved all in sunflowers—very sweet if you ask me, not very scary for a gate guard, but there you have it—he peels back Steph’s hood, actually huffs and says ‘finally!’ and waves us right on through. I rode with the little sprite all the way to the Upper Village, his face getting more peaky by the moment, when he suddenly just jumps from the cart—still moving, I might add—and chases off into the crowds with a backwards wave before I can even think on yanking him back by the scruff.”
Sister Rosin huffed through her nose, tearing off a mouthful of bread from her dinner roll. “Anyway, the lanky lad was moving quick enough, so I reckon he’ll be fine.”
Penelope and Sister Heely stared as Sister Rosin finished her tale with a nod. Penelope blew out a slow breath.
“This morning Steph told me he was sort of, but somehow not quite, a Grimwood Ranger. I wonder if the guards recognised him because of his training,” Penelope mused.
Sister Rosin hummed in thought as Sister Heely squawked, “What?”
“That would explain why the guards at the docks seemed to listen to Steph when we were trying to find you... Though, he’s such a young thing, I can’t see why the older guards would defer to his judgement the way they did...” Sister Rosin frowned as she continued chewing her stew.
Penelope frowned down at her own bowl, puzzling over her conversation with Steph that morning. “He asked me for a dance at the Dark Moon Ball...”
Both the Sisters snapped their gazes to her face.
“He asked you—”
“Wait, Steph’s going to—”
“Oh,” Penelope muttered, realisation settling like a cold stone in her stomach. “He asked me to dance at a royal ball. With him.” Penelope smacked her palm to her forehead.
“Well,” Sister Rosin smirked as understanding flared in her eyes. “That would explain a fair few things, huh.”
“I thought he meant... he’d be in the kitchens, and... and we’d sneak off, or...” Penelope stared dazedly at the wall.
“Hmmm. Kitchen hands and sort-of-but-not Rangers don’t dance with princesses at royal to-dos, duckling, sneaking off or no,” Sister Rosin chuckled, looking thoroughly amused. “I mean, we wouldn’t care, obviously. But it’s not quite the done thing, is it?” Sister Rosin smiled, though there was a bitter edge to it.
Sister Heely looked thunderstruck, mouth opening and closing as she floundered for words.
Penelope shook her head, curls bouncing. “But... But it’s Steph so I didn’t think... I just thought he was being... He asked me. To dance. At...” Penelope rested her head in her palms as she snorted through an onslaught of suffocating giggles, finally managing to choke out, “Steph’s a prince of Grimwood.”
