Today was a foraging day. The garden was well in hand, the bees content, and the Holmeshallow Farm children both away on school camps (for which I think their teachers should be given medals, and a week away at the most relaxing country spa you can find).

My foraging basket sits by the back door, always ready. It’s so much easier to have an extra set of secateurs and gloves, and a couple of other oddments, so I can grab and go. If I had to pull my ‘kit’ together each time I went, well, I’m not sure I’d ever go. There are always things to be done in the various places I store my ‘at home’ versions of the components, and by the time it’s all put together, it’s time for tea and there’s no point.

The pond was quiet, just a couple of ripples in greeting as I passed. The harvest garden was also drowsy, the bees humming around the plants as always, but their pitch was lower, calmer, than it had been in the first weeks since the introduction of the sentient swarm. Their hive must be near-full for them to be sounding so relaxed and content. The cooler weather was slowing everyone down as the race to be fully stocked and settled for winter eased. We were ready, and those that weren’t knew where to find me.

I clicked the gate closed and wondered where to start. I was after mushrooms today, with a side quest for beech nuts and sloes. The rose hips were also ready for harvest but I had a surfeit of those in the garden.

The hazel grove would be as good a place as any to start, and I could do with some wild-grown hazelnuts, I prefer their taste to the supermarket ones.

There was a good crop waiting for me, and it wasn’t until mid-harvest I realised the grove had sprouted a mushroom circle. Deathcap mushrooms no less; that was dangerous. So not a fairy circle, they preferred edible varieties. Strange.

I pulled out my hag stone, it’s part of my foraging kit, and you’d be surprised how often I use it. Or, given who I am, and where I forage, you may not.

I put the stone to one eye and scanned the clearing through the hole in the centre.

Inside the circle was a mushroom sprite, some variety of bolete from the look of them. They also looked very unhappy. As well they might, they were trapped.

The question was, did I interfere? My first instinct was of course to free the poor thing, especially since they were from a human-friendly mushroom family, but then, maybe they’d been put there for good reason.

They spotted me, spotting them, and, instead of asking for help, glared, and turned their back on me. Even stranger. It seemed they had no interest in freedom.

Still, I had to ask. “Would it assist you if I were to open the circle surrounding you?”

They looked horrified. “No! That will let them in!”

“Who?”

They tilted their head towards a half-rotten stump on the other side of the clearing. Through the hag stone, I saw three smaller bolete sprites peering at me from behind the crumbing wood. They squealed and ducked out of sight when they saw me aim the hag stone in their direction.

The sprite in the circle hunched their shoulders. “They won’t leave me alone. I’m supposed to be learning the sounds of the woods but how can I when those little screechers latch on and chatter all the time. I mean, if they were my siblings, I suppose I’d put up with it, but they have their own elder sibs, why are they picking on me?”

I snorted. “Probably because you’re a mite nicer to them. I’ll shoo them off if you’ll tell me how you managed to get into that circle without damage.”

A small smile and a tiny nod.

I strode around the circle and bent over the stump. “Now what’s here to harvest?”

The spritelings squealed (high-pitched and painful, I could understand the sprite’s misery) and vanished into the undergrowth. I took a couple of large, heavy steps in the direction they’d run, enough to set off a series of ever more distant rustles, then returned to the prisoner.

They heaved a sigh, and the slump in their shoulders now said ‘relief’ rather than ‘pain’. “Thank you. I traded some of my mushrooms to a deathcap sprite and they grew a circle around me as payment. They’ll be back at sunset.”

“How do you know they’ll return?”

“They always do, we’ve made this trade before.”

I straightened. “Well then, I’ll leave you to your peace and quiet.”

“Before you go, may I ask, what variety of sprite are you?” They flushed and hurriedly added. “If I’m not being rude in asking.”

Heavens, what a change in manners. Those spritelings were clearly quite the trial. I may have written a quick note to the Green King about the incident and delinquent miniature mushrooms before writing my diary this evening.

I smiled at the sprite and replied. “None, I’m a human, and a witch. One with an offer for you. If you need a haven in future, and can’t find your deathcap friend, I’m happy to trade some mushrooms for time in my garden, protected by my wards, and the resident bees. Ask your elders, or the bees, for directions.”

This time the smile was blinding and I winked at them, put the hag stone away and left them to their day’s respite.

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