Mel didn't hesitate. She grabbed a jar of her Autumn Flavor base—the toasted spices—and tucked it into a small velvet pouch alongside a piece of smoky quartz from her essentials basket.
"Mel, the forge feels cold. Not 'fire' cold, but... empty," he said, twisting his cap in his hands.
As Elias left, the tension in his shoulders visibly dropping, Mel turned back to her table. She picked up a golden-hued apple, slicing it thin to dry for her next batch of charms. To anyone else, it was just fruit and spice. To Mel, it was the literal taste of the season—the fuel for the magic that kept the town whole through the long, dark nights ahead.
Mel sat at her scarred oak kitchen table, the surface cluttered with the morning’s harvest. Her hands, stained slightly purple from mashing elderberries, moved with practiced rhythm. Beside her, a cast-iron pot hummed on the stove, releasing the spicy, grounding steam of what she called her —a blend of clove, star anise, and toasted orange peel that made the very walls of her cottage feel like a hug.
The front door creaked open, and a gust of wind sent a flurry of maple leaves skittering across her floor. It was Elias, the local blacksmith, looking weary.
"Focus, Mel," she whispered to herself. The equinox was three nights away, and her kit wasn't going to assemble itself.
The air in Oakhaven didn’t just cool when September hit; it thickened with the scent of dried cedar and pressed cider. For Mel Bennett, this wasn’t just a change in weather—it was the beginning of her "High Season."
