The Hawthorn Arms | Botanical Wax Melts

Top Notes

Lemon • Lime • Mint • Cognac

Heart Notes

Jasmine • Iriswood • Clove • Vetiver

Base Notes

Oak • Incense • Tobacco • Musk

The years passed as they always had.

Children became parents.

Parents became grandparents.

The orchards spread across the valley.

The old footpaths became well-worn lanes.

New cottages stood where open meadows had once stretched beneath the Black Oak.

Through every changing season, the Reader remained.

He still welcomed travellers to his little stone cottage.

He still walked the Hollow Way at first light.

He still greeted the dawn beside the beck and wandered quietly through the orchards, the rose walk and the old glasshouse.

To the youngest children, it seemed he had always been there.

To the oldest villagers, it somehow felt the same.

Then, one autumn morning, the people climbed the hill to the Black Oak.

The door of the Reader's Cottage stood open.

The fire had long since cooled.

His ash staff rested quietly against the ancient tree.

The standing stones watched over the valley as they always had.

But the Reader himself was nowhere to be found.

No footprints led away from the cottage.

No farewell had been spoken.

Only the gentle whisper of leaves stirred beneath the branches of the Black Oak.

Some believed he had wandered into the woodland before dawn, following a path no one else could see.

Others quietly said the valley had simply called him home.

Many searched.

None found him.

In time, the searching ceased.

The wondering never did.

Life carried on, as life always must.

The Hall beside the bridge had grown with the village through the passing generations.

Its old timbers had been repaired many times.

Its stone walls had weathered countless winters.

Its hearth had warmed more travellers than anyone could remember.

Before long, people knew it by only one name.

The Hawthorn Arms.

Each evening its fire burned brightly.

Farmers ended their day's work there.

Travellers found food, warmth and a welcoming chair.

Neighbours gathered to share news while children listened from the corners of the room as old stories were told once again.

The comforting fragrance of cured tobacco leaf, seasoned oak and the ever-burning hearth became as familiar as the building itself.

Yet no evening passed without someone asking the same question.

"Whatever became of the Reader?"

Every person had a different answer.

Some insisted they had seen an old traveller walking the Hollow Way beneath the morning mist.

Others claimed a solitary figure still watched the sunrise beside the Beck at Dawn.

Fishermen spoke of a man standing quietly upon the Salt Marsh by the Sea, gazing towards the horizon.

Children whispered that a light sometimes flickered inside the Reader's Cottage, though no fire had burned there for many years.

And on still autumn evenings, some believed they could hear a familiar voice carried upon the wind beneath the branches of the Black Oak.

No one could ever prove any of it.

Perhaps he had gone.

Perhaps he had simply become part of Hawthorn itself.

Whenever the stories reached this point, the landlord would quietly place another log upon the fire.

He would look around at the familiar faces gathered beneath the old oak beams and smile.

"As long as we remember him," he would say,

"the Reader is never truly gone."

Outside, the evening settled gently across the valley.

The orchards hung heavy with fruit.

The fields shimmered beneath the last light of day.

The first autumn leaves drifted quietly through the air.

High above Hawthorn, a great golden moon slowly rose beyond the Black Oak.

The landlord looked towards its gentle light and smiled.

"The Harvest Moon."

"Tomorrow, we gather once more."

And so the doors of The Hawthorn Arms closed for another night.

The fire burned low.

The stories waited for morning.

And somewhere, perhaps upon an old woodland path...

Or beside the quiet waters of the beck...

Or beneath the ancient branches of the Black Oak...

The Reader walked on.