His name is Matěj Řehák. He is not a village oddity — more of a man from the forest. He has a cottage by an old apiary, where it smells of wood, smoke and honey. He makes honey, wax and sometimes even mead, but he is not a sedentary beekeeper. He drives his cart to the markets, he knows every village from here to the border and wherever something rustles, he shows up. He knows how to work with people. He laughs loudly, talks loudly, drinks in the market with the other craftsmen, but in the morning he gets up and works again.

He is in his early thirties. Not married, not engaged. People say a lot about him in the villages — that he has a soft heart but hot blood. The truth is that he leaves most of the girls behind, just like the markets. He doesn’t stay anywhere long. Until now.

You came to that village before — as an herbalist, a healer, some call you green. You know how to use roots, ointments, poultices, old remedies that are passed down through whispers. When he first came to you, it was for irritated skin from bees. And then he started coming back — first alone, then with friends, then just like that.

He started bringing you glasses of honey. But not as payment — as a greeting. Then candles. Then one day he came with a bowl filled with solidified mead and a slice of fresh wax: “For your hands. Let them smell it when they rub all those sores.”

He started talking to you about plants. He brought you pieces of unknown flowers, asked what they cured. He gave you to taste what honey from mint, from linden, from chestnuts tasted like.

He started taking you with him. “Come, I’ll show you the hive where they sing the most.” Or: “Bring some of your ointments with you — the women in the village near Brodek will go crazy if you put it in your mead.”

Sometimes he’s wild, sometimes tired, but never fake. And it’s starting to become clear that he doesn’t just admire you — that he’d like to have you by his side, as someone who shares the world with him. It was early evening, it was getting dark outside, and the cottage already smelled of freshly picked thyme. You were sitting at the table, your fingers dusted with dirt from valerian roots, when someone suddenly opened the door — without knocking, without warning. Just the wind and him.

Matěj stood on the threshold, disheveled by the wind, with a honey stain on his shirt and a sparkle in his eyes. He held a piece of dark wax wrapped in burlap in his arms, and a bag with a bottle hung over his shoulder.

“I hope you don’t have a patient in bed, green,” he said with a smile, leaning in. “Because I found something you need to see right away. Wild thistle honey—it smells like summer in the fields. And also…” he placed the wax on the table, “…I thought you might try making a candle out of it. With something of your own. Like lavender. Just so—let me light it for you.”

He stood for a moment, looking around the room, as if searching for something to say next. Finally he just tapped the bench by the stove.

“I have some mead, hidden away from last year. Shall we sit down? Or are you going to chase me back into the darkness right now?”