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arriet The Herbalist’s Almanac Page
Written: Midsommer, Year of the Willow
H
The page came down just after dawn, on a cold crisp morning at the tail end of Autumn. Harriet was stringing rosehips when the Almanac Tree stirred. Not a strong rustle, just the kind that made the smaller birds pause mid-song. Then, a single page fluttered free, gliding gently between the ferns. Harriet wiped her hands, slipped on her boots, and walked to where it had landed.
It was a page from the Almanac, and written in the curl of its fibres were seven small words:
"Find what was lost before the frost." Harriet frowned. This was unexpected, but she hadn’t had a page from The Almanac Tree before, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected.
“Not exactly a recipe,” she murmured, having hoped for a brand new recipe for milkweed pudding.
She tucked the page into her apron, marched swiftly back to her cottage and put the kettle on to think more about what could be lost before the frost. Her first thought was of sunshine; wasn’t it always sunshine that went missing before winter? No, that’s a silly idea.
The kettle whistled and her thoughts turned to something more tangible: gilded clover. Not the ordinary kind, but the sweet golden-hued clover that only bloomed in the summer, near the edge of the Grove. Of course, that must be it. That always disappeared before the winter. One day it was blooming and fragrant, the next day, not a single sprig to be found. She had picked a jarful weeks ago and set it aside ready for bottling, but had become distracted when a rare rainbow butterfly flew past her window.
It wasn’t like her to misplace a jar. She checked the kitchen, then the pantry and even the cellar. Nothing. Outside, the late-autumn wind was rattling the drying racks. A squirrel chattered crossly at a robin. Somewhere in the underbrush, something scurried, but still no jar was found.
By midday, Harriet had searched the cottage twice and made a list of possible culprits. Mice. They were always “borrowing” and never returning sweet treats from the pantry. Ferny (the badger cub who visited when it rained), always loved to take a few the jars from the shelves and listen to the clinking sounds they made when he tapped them with his little spoon.
Now, when she reached for it, she found only the label tucked behind a thistle jar, the shelf where it stood now bare. Harriet started to worry. Gilded Clover is very sensitive to frost, and if each gilded clover leaf isn’t bottled with three drops of dew and two rays of golden sunshine, then the whole year’s harvest of Cloverbright potion would be ruined and there would be none to give to the patients recuperating in Cove Hollow Hospital.
Or perhaps, she feared, she’d traded the clover without remembering. She rummaged through her logbook, checking every entry. No mention of clover. No tick beside its name. Harriet was stumped. Where was the clover jar?
That night, she sat on the porch with a mug of rosehip tea and thought about the message.
Find what was lost before the frost.
The first frost would come soon. She could feel it in the way the air cooled the back of her throat when she took a breath.
The next morning, she left early with a basket and a purpose. First stop: the brambles at the edge of the Grove. Ferny was likely to bury anything shiny, or jar-like, near there. She spent nearly two hours coaxing her way through the thorns, only to find two acorns, an old thimble, and a jar she has misplaced two summers previously. So that’s where her jar of bumblebee shoes went! But still no sign of the gilded clover.
Next, she visited the village. Everyone she asked hadn’t seen or been given a jar of golded clover by mistake. They even searched their shops just in case. Harriet was becoming more and more frantic. Where was the jar? Had she thrown it out by mistake? But Harriet never threw anything out. Everything was useful, one day. Suddenly a shout came from the other end of the street.
“I’ve got it!” Edda cried when Harriet ran over to her. “You gave me this jar last week and said it was for my rumbling tummy.”
“Oh Edda, bless you, but that’s silkweed clover, not gilded clover,” Harriet corrected, “but I hope your tummy is feeling better.”
“It really is Harriet, thank you so much,” Edda replied, “I’m sorry this wasn’t what you were looking for.”
Harriet said her goodbyes to Edda and crestfallen, made her way home with an empty basket. In the kitchen the Almanac page fluttered on the table. Waiting.
That evening, very dejected, Harriet decided to go for a walk along the meadow path. She put on her coat and hat, because it was beginning to get quite cold, and set off to clear her head and see if she could remember where on earth the jar of gilded clover had gone. No sooner had she entered the meadow, when she found a little den of mice. Their house was warmly lit from inside, but the windows looked familiar. Like...jam jars.
“Are those jam jars from my pantry little mice?” asked Harriet, careful not to frighten them.
“Yes, we borrowed two jars of bright yellow dandelion petals to help light up our house” replied Mrs Mouse and showed Harriet the soft yellow light now shining through the windows.
Harriet looked closely through the windows, it wasn’t the jars of gilded clover she had hoped for, but she was pleased her borrowed dandelion petals had found a home. She never wanted to remove something that had become useful to someone else.
“I’m glad your house is warm and cozy now, because winter is coming very soon” remarked Harriet, and bade them a goodnight, as she set off again on the meadow path.
“Wait!” exclaimed Mrs Mouse “We didn’t take something you needed, did we?” Harriet told them that she was looking for her gilded clover jar, but not to worry, she would keep looking.
“Try over there!” suggested Mrs Mouse, pointing to a little clump of grass in the middle of Burdock’s Dandelion meadow.
“There’s a jar of something in there, but it’s too heavy for us.” said Mrs Mouse. But Harriet barely heard her as she hurried over to the little raised patch of ground.
There, as if waiting to be found was the jam jar of gilded clover. Harriet nearly cried with happiness.
“I found it!” she said, gleefully. And putting it safely into her satchel, she skipped back to the den of mice, thanked them profusely and set off home at a fast
Back at home, she immediately set to work bottling the gilded clover with three drops of dew and two rays of sunshine, for each leaf. Soon there were many jars of Cloverbright potion lining the shelves of her pantry, ready to be taken to Cove Hollow Hospital. The next day as she left for market, she almost slipped on the cobblestones which had a fresh layer of frost covering them.
And the page? The page lifted that off the kitchen table afternoon, its words now written, the task complete.
It fluttered away on the breeze, and Harriet didn’t try to stop it. She had found what was lost before the frost.
The End.
The story is told, the adventure is through,
But another page waits. Perhaps it’s for you?
And high on the hill where the old branches sway,
The Keeper of Tales tucks the story away.
