Quick Transmigration14 min read
I Turned Wild Honey and Sour Berries into a Small Empire
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"I tasted it and I laughed out loud," I said, lifting the wooden ladle for Ezekiel to try.
"You like it?" Ezekiel Campos blinked at me over the steam. "You made this?"
"Me and the whole mess at home," I said. "Try it. Tell me if I priced it too high."
Ezekiel put the spoon to his lips. He chewed once, then twice. He set the spoon down, eyes bright.
"This is... honest," he said. "People will pay for honest. How many jars do you have?"
"We've got two full jars today and a half a pail of honey left," I said. "And a promise to make more tomorrow."
"Leave them," Ezekiel said, standing up. "I want both jars on my counter now. I'll take a crate by nightfall."
He handed me a small cloth pouch with silver that felt heavy in my palm. I tucked it against my ribs like it might fly off.
"Be careful, Elyse," Polina warned later, when we walked out of the back door of the tavern. "This is town. These people are not our kind."
"Good," I said. "Then they will pay us for things we can make."
We walked the three miles back to the hollow where our crooked house sat. Emmalynn, my girl, ran ahead with a stick and a grin. Her hair had little ribbons now. She was sticky with honey at her chin.
"Did you sell our tea?" she asked, breathless.
"Yes," I said. "We sold to the best table. We will eat real rice tonight."
Emmalynn's eyes shone like two small moons. "Really? Will there be meat?"
"There will be bone soup and maybe a few slices," I said. "And we will buy little things, not all at once."
Asami, my mother in this body, stood in the yard with a needle and thread. She looked ten years younger when she smiled. She did not say much, but her hands were steady.
"Put the jars under the bed," I told Asami softly. "Hide the silver in the wall. We will need to buy grain before anyone notices."
"As if I could hide it better than the hens hide their eggs," she said, and laughed, a quiet, relieved sound.
"We are not hiding from neighbors," I said. "We are hiding from habit. They see change and they come for it. We don't need that. We need to build fast."
"Build what?" Polina asked, wiping her palms on her skirt. She had chopped the last of the bamboo into thin strips. "A new house? A shop?"
"A business," I said. "A way to sell what grows on the slopes, what we can make by hand, what people in town will pay for. Honey, jam, dried mushrooms, bamboo shoots. We start small. We keep our secret small. Then we grow."
Polina's grin went wide. "I can handle a knife and a stove. I can do jars. I can stir."
"You can do all that," I said. "You will run the smoke and keep watch at the hive when I am gone."
"Watch the hive? I will sit under the tree and pretend to watch," she said.
"Don't pretend," I said. "Watch like your life depends on it. Because for now it does."
We slept that night full of rice and bone soup, the kind of sleep that knits courage into you. I woke before dawn. Emmalynn slept with her head against my arm, thumb in her mouth. I left her there and walked outside into the cool light.
"Where are you going?" Asami asked, stirring the small coals.
"To check the trail," I said. "To see if anyone came late in the night."
There were footprints in the muddy path—two different sets. One set led toward the river and vanished. The other went to our goat pen and stayed.
"Someone was here," I told Asami. "They looked but they did not take. They were polite thieves."
"They take only what they need," Asami said. "Or they respect what belongs to the poor."
"They will take what we hide if we let them," I said. "We will not let them."
We worked like a hive that week. I taught Polina how to press jam without burning. I taught Asami how to keep the jars sterile. We taught Emmalynn how not to dip her fingers in when her back was turned. We made a small stall by the river. We kept the jars wrapped in plain cloth and the jars themselves cheap. But the flavor was not cheap.
"People will line up if you keep this up," Ezekiel told me two days later, wiping his palms on his apron.
"Then we will keep it up," I said. "What do you need from town?"
"A steady supply of bamboo shoots and dried mushrooms," he said. "And you teach my cook the sauce. We'll put it on the menu. I will take the risk."
"You will take the risk," I repeated. "You will buy first, you will pay up front."
Ezekiel laughed. "Fair. You will deliver it, and I will pay with silver. Deal?"
"Deal," I said.
But a deal like that draws eyes. People notice that the poor woman with the small girl comes to town and leaves with silver. Old habits die hard; curiosity draws vultures.
"Don't go near Forrest," Polina warned over the fence when I told her I had to go find more bamboo in the low valley.
"Forrest?" I asked.
"Forrest Li," she spat the name like dirt. "The man who acts like a bore and thinks like a fox. He hangs around markets. He likes women who wear sadness."
"He spoke to me once," I said. "He wanted me to wait for him down the lane. I pushed him away."
"Good," she said. "He sits at the river most days. He watches. He remembers."
I did not want to think of Forrest. I wanted to think of jars and shelves and prices. But the world is full of men who think they can buy silence cheaply.
We loaded a crate of early bamboo shoots into the sled and I walked with two other market women toward the road. The sun brightened the road like a promise. Emmalynn was at a neighbor's, her laugh floating on the wind.
We reached the first cross. Forrest stood there, as if he had waited all morning just to be seen. He smiled like a man who collects people.
"Ah," he said. "Elyse. Busy selling the goodness of the mountain?"
"I sell what my hands make," I said. "And what the mountain gives me."
"Forrest," Polina said through her teeth, "step aside. We have no time for your jokes."
Forrest's smile grew small. "My jokes are not meant for women to fear," he said. "I mean to help. I mean..."
"Help yourself somewhere else," I said. "We do not need your 'help.'"
He stepped closer, like a storm that leans in. He smelled of wine and old sausages. The carts creaked. People turned.
"Such fury," he said. "You are bold for one who lives on little. Maybe luck has changed."
"Luck," I said, "is made. Not borrowed."
He reached for my arm. I did the only thing I had learned in my old life and had not expected to use here: I slapped his hand clean off.
"Don't touch me," I said. "Don't you ever touch my child, my mother, my house. Leave or I will call the town watch."
"Forrest," he said, voice folding. "You will make trouble."
"Make trouble?" I laughed. "I already make breakfast. Go find trouble with men who like trouble."
He left, but his face was a map of small plans. He had the habit of keeping score. The next week he found a way.
It began small. A man in gray at the market accused us quietly—loud enough for a cluster of women to hear—of selling 'witch jam.' "Too sweet," the man said. "Too good." The women tittered.
"Who said that?" Polina demanded. "Who dares say our jars carry curses?"
A woman in braids pointed at Forrest. "He said he saw her with a pot and a bag of strange things. He said they looked like witch work."
I stepped forward. "If any of you have eaten my jam, raise a hand," I said.
Two raised hands. The two were Ezekiel's waitresses. "I eat yours," one said. "My mother eats yours. My baby sleeps better. No witch there."
People murmured. But the seed had been planted. Gossip likes sugar. It spreads.
That night I found a note pinned to the door. The handwriting was Forrest's—clumsy, with too many loops. It asked me to meet him by the river at dusk. The note smelled faintly of vinegar.
"He will not stop," Polina said when I showed her. "He thinks he can scare you. He will try to ruin you before he can own you."
"He will not own me," I said. "Not in body, not in trade. People buy what they want. A man who takes by fear will lose the market."
"How will you stop him?" Asami asked. She had stopped pretending she feared change. She watched, sharp as a hawk.
"I will let him show himself," I said. "And I will make sure everyone sees the truth."
I planned the trap over warm milk with the girl asleep between my knees. I taught Polina a second recipe—the cold pickle for bamboo—and told Asami to starch her apron clean. We would use the market, our friends in town, and a single ledger.
The ledger belonged to Ezekiel. "If he will buy from you, let him buy on my books," Ezekiel said with a grin. "I will record every purchase. If someone tries to steal your trade, you show them these pages."
We counted the proof. We counted jars sold, honey weighed, shipments taken to the tavern. We asked a friend in town, Finlay Olsen, to sit at our stall the day Forrest came. Finlay was a quiet man who liked clocks and numbers. He agreed to help.
"Sit behind the jars," I told Polina. "Let the jars breathe and the town do the rest."
The day came. The market was bright. The sun made the honey glow like a promise. Men and women moved, merchants called. I set the jars in a neat row. The sign said "Honey & Berry Jam—Elyse's." Simple. Cheap ink. A bargain for good things.
Forrest came in like a storm, winded with village drama. "Sell it," he told anyone who would listen. "Buy it if you like curses."
"Who will buy from a man who yells?" I asked him, mild.
"People will see the truth," he said. "I will make them fear you."
"Fear is heavy," I said. "People cannot carry fear and bread at the same time."
He laughed. Then he did what he had planned. He grabbed a jar off the table and smashed it on the stones. Jam exploded like a small sun. People gasped.
"See!" he cried. "Trick! Witchcraft!"
I stepped forward. "You broke my jar," I said. "You spilled our day."
"She put herbs in it!" he said. "She mixes potions."
"People who drink this get better sleep," the waitresses called. "They buy more and come back."
"Forrest," I said, and looked at him as if I had not looked for a long time. "Did you come here because you thought you owned women? Because you thought you could push them like carts? Or did you come to make trouble because you are empty and you must make others feel small to fill yourself up?"
Forrest's jaw worked. He had expected fear. He had not expected the town to turn. I heard the change in the air—the market is a chorus where one voice is answered.
Finlay stepped up with my ledger. "She sold five jars to Ezekiel this week," he said, opening the book like a judge. "And three more today to my sister. I have the weights here."
Ezekiel came out from his doorway, wiping his hands on his apron. He looked at Forrest with the slow, steady look of a man who runs a house where people eat and pay. "You have a story, Forrest? You have a reason to break a woman's jars?"
Forrest tried to speak, but the people gathered. "He is a troublemaker," a woman said. "He brags and then blames. I remember when he took free flour and told my son to be quiet."
"Who will testify?" I asked, and people quietly spoke. A cart driver said the same. A baker nodded. One after another, the small stories collected into something heavier than rumor.
Forrest's face went pale. He started to shout and then to stammer. His voice found its old armor: lies. He claimed he was the market watch's cousin. He claimed he had the right to test goods.
"Do you have proof?" Ezekiel asked. "Paper? Receipt? Or is this the same knife of noise you use to slice people's days?"
"Forrest!" shouted a woman whose rooster had been stolen last winter. "You took my rooster. You cut its throat and said I was to blame."
"No!" Forrest screamed. But around him the crowd closed. People took out their knives, the simple kind, not to threaten blood but to show they were done with being afraid.
I moved closer. My hands were steady. "Forrest," I said. "You will pay for the jar and the day. And the town will decide the rest."
They took him to the magistrate. I did not expect miracles. I did expect the village to stop being small and quiet when someone did wrong. The magistrate was not kind. He had a ledger of his own.
"For theft, destruction of property, slander," the magistrate read, holding a long list. "Fine: five days work in town and public apology."
Forrest's face crumbled. He tried to bargain. "I will be paid to leave," he said. "I will be taken."
"No," said Ezekiel. "You will work. And you will pay Elyse. You will make it right."
The crowd watched as the magistrate's men tied a rope to Forrest's ankle and marched him down to the communal yard. They made him scrub pots. They made him stand in the sunlight and confess. Every pot he scrubbed, people watched. Every confession he muttered, someone wrote down. A woman recorded his words by the well and a young boy drew the scene for his mother. The story spread.
A month later, his wife filed for a separation. His job as a tax collector—he had a small job in the town office—was revoked after the townsmen found old receipts he had pocketed. The marketplace watchers removed him from his place of comfort. Villagers laughed when he walked by now, or spit a safe word into the ground. He had lost face, family respect, job, and the easy pass of being known as "one of us." He had been public, and public is a wide place in a small town. People recorded him for the mayor. People clapped when he left.
We watched from our doorway as the town folded him into ruin. It was not mercy. It was balance. He had chosen to show his teeth; the town had chosen to bite back.
The fallout opened space for us. Ezekiel bought crates at steady prices. The tavern put "Elyse's Bamboo & Honey" on the menu. Polina taught the cook how to pickle the shoots. Asami began to stitch small labels with neat letters. Emmalynn began to carry jars in a small satchel. We put one little sign out front—no gold, no shine—and the people came.
"How much do you need to be happy?" Polina asked me one evening as we counted notes by candlelight.
"Not much," I said. "Enough so Emmalynn never goes hungry. Enough so Asami can have a blanket that fits. Enough so you can marry someone who looks at you and sees the house you will build instead of the money you can make."
She laughed, a low, sharp sound. "You and your plans. You have a list longer than the river."
"Then we chip at it," I said. "Piece by piece. Jars, jars, jars. A crate for tonight, two tomorrow, three the day after. We hire a hand. We teach another woman. We buy a second hive."
"Five years," Polina said. "We will have a store."
"Ten years," I said, thinking of a house with glass in the windows and a bed that felt like a cloud. "We will have enough to put Emmalynn to school outside town."
We moved faster than that. The tavern began to send riders to bring honey. A merchant from the next valley asked to buy barrels. People from the manor even came once, curious. They bought a dozen jars as gifts.
"I don't like the manor folks," Asami said. "They smile like rain and take like drought."
"We sell to them," I said. "We use the money to buy seeds and salt. We do not let them decide our life."
We made our own little rules. Money was counted in the morning. We kept one pouch for wood and one for grain and one for "open hands"—money to be used for what the family wanted in a moment to celebrate. When Emmalynn wanted a red ribbon, we used the open hands.
One summer afternoon a man came who smelled of horse leather and new iron. He unrolled a map and pointed at a patch of forest.
"There is a grove that blooms with wild blossoms," he said. "I will pay you a large sum if you harvest the pollen and make oil. The city wants your bees."
Ezekiel had sent him. "He has money," he said, winking. "He has a wagon. He will pay in advance."
We sold fifteen jars at once. The man left with a crate.
"Are you afraid?" Polina asked as the wagon dust rose.
"No," I said. "I am careful. We are careful."
We invested. We bought a second hive and a smoker, a larger press, a better jar press. We bought clean cloth for filters and a second press. We hired a boy—quiet and steady named Stefan Oliveira—to carry crates. He counted like he had always counted.
Business is a slow fever. It warms your hands and then it spreads. We paid the water bill late that winter but then we bought a cow that spring. The cow gave milk and the calf and a small sum in an emergency. We bought a small chest for silver and put the keys in three places. We locked the chest in the morning and hid the keys in the wall and behind the stove and under Emmalynn's pillow in case she wanted to see how the world tasted.
We taught others. We taught the woman who sold eggs how to dry mushrooms. We taught a neighbor how to dehydrate bamboo shoots. We shared a rope and a ladder for the hives. We trained hands.
"Why share?" Asami asked me one night, buttoning a new shirt.
"Because they will return the favor," I said. "Because if we teach them, they will buy, not beg. Because a village that cooks for itself can stand tall."
The market grew a little kinder. People who had looked away now smiled. They stopped assuming our jars were magic or danger. They saw the honey drape over bread and knew its price.
We had money. We had a roof heavy and sure. We had a list of debts shrinking. We still had enemies. Forrest had left the valley, shuffling behind his sack, his head bowed. Men like him do not die; they go where someone else will use their cunning. But here he had lost what kept him small—his easy control over others.
The real test came like a winter storm. A fever struck Emmalynn in late October. It took her breath from her and made her pulse thin. I sat holding her as she burned.
"Go," Asami said to me, voice thin with fear. "Find the apothecary in town. Bring back what he sells."
I ran. The path was a white thread. My legs burned. In town, the apothecary was full of jars and words. He had a bitter powder and a tonic and a black root for sweat. He did not speak much.
"This will be enough," he said, handing me glass. "Boil with honey. Too much heat will break the medicine. A child needs small bowls."
I paid with the basket of silver we kept for emergencies. It felt light and heavy at once. I ran home and boiled and cooled and spooned the warm bitterness into my girl's mouth.
She coughed. She slept. She woke the next day with a laugh like a bell. I cried then in the yard, the tears soothing like rain.
"We will not go back," I said, to the sky, to Asami, to the house. "We will keep going."
Years folded into a pattern of small victories. We opened a lean shop by the road with a low sign: Yamaguchi & Family—Honey, Pickles, Preserves. Polina married a man who came to town who liked her laugh and her steady hands. He taught leather and we made a good dowry with jam and smoke. Asami bought a chest of cloth and began to sew for pay and for pride. Emmalynn learned to read with a kindly schoolmaster who came from the city sometimes. She learned numbers like she learned to climb trees—eager and sure.
Ezekiel grew fat on our honey and his tavern grew loud. He married a woman with soft hands who could pour beer and count coin. We hired Stefan and then a second boy named Lennox Zhu who carried crates with a grin. We bought a small cart and painted it green.
People told stories in the market about the woman who had come from "another world" because sometimes I would say things like, "In my city we did this by machine," and the concept sounded like a fairy tale. I kept my true secret half-buried. I did not tell them I had come from a place of glass towers and bright lights. I told them instead I had come from a place where people got up early and did not stop.
One spring morning, as I stood on the tavern steps opening a crate for Ezekiel, a man presented himself in a neat coat. He had kind eyes and hands that never slipped.
"Abel Dumas," he said, which I knew was one of Finlay's suppliers from the next valley. "I am told you have a touch for turning the sour into sweet."
"I have a broom," I said. "And a recipe."
He laughed. "I mean your work."
I thought of how fast the winter had been and how much Emmalynn had grown. "People will buy if you make honest things," I said.
"Would you come to the city?" he asked. "We need someone who can do what you do. We will pay well."
I looked at Emmalynn chasing the tavern dog. I looked at Asami sewing. I looked at Polina's happy hands.
"No," I said. "I will not leave them. We have our place."
"You can teach," he said. "Think bigger."
That night, I lay awake with the sound of Emmalynn's breathing like a small drum. "Teach?" she whispered when she rolled over.
"Yes," I said. "We teach."
We made plans. We opened a small table at the market where women could sell their new jars. We started a tiny class where I taught idiosyncratic canning and simple food safety and how to value your labor. People came. They brought jam and mushrooms and strange herbs. They learned to price what they made and to keep a small book.
Years later, the town would call our little co-op "the honey guild" out of love and habit. They would call me many things, but mostly they called me "Elyse who doesn't give in." I liked that. It fit.
Polina bought a small ox and built a lean shed. Asami built a new bed and I built a new wooden ladder with wide steps. Emmalynn wore shoes that did not leak.
Forrest never came back. His name became a caution for children who thought it fun to push. When someone tried to cheat, the town called the ledger and the magistrate and the tavern. There was little space for men who thought to grow by making others small.
One evening, when Emmalynn was eight, she and I walked to the hill where we had first found the hive. The wind was soft and the wildflowers hummed.
"Do you ever miss where you came from?" she asked, plucking a bright bloom.
"Sometimes," I said. "I miss a window that opened with a click and a light that turned on. I miss easy heat in the winter. But I don't miss hunger."
She thought about that. "Will you ever go back?"
"I don't know," I said. "Maybe. But I found home here. Home can be a table, a jar, a child who laughs."
She smiled and ran ahead.
I looked at the jars in my hands—the next week's work, labels drying in the sun. I thought of all the names we had called ourselves and the small things that had become important. I thought of how life had bent and become ours.
At dusk, I went home. The family sat around a table with new cloth and a small candle. We ate rice and a little meat and a bowl of sweet porridge with a spoonful of honey.
"To who?" Polina asked, with a wink.
"To all of us," I said. "To the people who do not bow."
We clinked spoons. Emmalynn put a jar of honey on the windowsill to catch the last light.
The jar glowed like a small sun.
"One day," I told her, "we will travel farther. But for now, the market belongs to us. We have our work. We have our names. We have the honey."
She pressed her thumb to the jar and left a tiny mark.
"That is ours," she whispered.
It was. We had made it. We would keep making it. We would keep building, steady and small, like bees at work.
The End
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