This Poison Heart, page 17
Mrs. Redmond leaned back. “I’m sorry, Briseis. It’s the mom in me, always worrying. You know, Karter is—” She stopped short as she gazed past me to the TV. A ticker flashed across the bottom of the screen and the reporter took on a solemn tone.
“A tragedy in Rhinebeck tonight. Longtime resident Hannah Taylor was found after an exhaustive search covering most of Dutchess County, and the result was not what anyone was hoping for.” The reporter’s voice cracked as he announced the details of the woman’s death.
Mrs. Redmond shook her head and her eyes glazed over. “Oh no.” She stared at the television, her hands trembling.
“Mrs. Redmond?”
She clenched her teeth and looked down at her desk. “Hannah and I went to high school together. Graduated the same year.”
I looked at the TV again. “I’m so sorry.”
She hung her head and dabbed at her eyes. “Would you excuse me, Briseis? I need to make some calls. Hannah’s mother is probably beside herself.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Please be cautious,” she said, her voice choked with emotion.
“I will.” I reached out and gently squeezed her arm, then went to meet Mo in the car.
CHAPTER 17
“Got what you needed?” Mo asked, eyeing the drawing in my hand.
“No. It wasn’t a key. It’s a drawing that was with the other papers.” I glanced up at the office window before we pulled off. “Mrs. Redmond just heard that a close friend of hers died.”
“Seriously?” Mo asked.
“It was on the news. They found her body somewhere close by.”
“That’s terrible.” Mo shook her head and heaved a big sigh as we headed back to the house.
“You okay?” I asked.
“It’s funny how people complain about stuff that happens in the big city, but I’ve never had my tires cut back home. It threw me.”
I angled myself toward her. “I’m sorry. We’re out here because of me.”
Mo reached over and squeezed my hand. “No, love. Don’t be sorry.”
“Do you regret coming out here?” I asked.
“Do you?”
“No,” I said. That wasn’t the whole truth. “Maybe a little.”
“Why?” Mo asked. “You’ve been running around here with Karter. You seem happier than you’ve been in a minute.”
“Yeah, but this has to be weird for you and Mom. I know we talked about it and you said you’d support me, but we’re living in a place with people who knew my birth mother and her family. We’re living in a house that belonged to them. That has to make you and Mom feel some type of way.”
“We’re being honest?” Mo asked.
I took a deep breath. That was Mo’s way of saying she was willing to have a tough conversation. “Yes,” I said. “We’re being honest.”
Mo nodded. “I don’t know why your birth mother chose adoption. You were, and still are, the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen. I loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you, and for the longest time, I asked myself how anyone could walk away from you.”
A knot formed in my throat. Mo kept her eyes forward as she continued. “But my thinking was flawed. I wasn’t as knowledgeable about the adoption process as I should have been. I have no right to judge anyone, especially when your birth mother’s decision made it possible for you to come into my life. What she did, for whatever reason she did it, was a choice that allowed us to be together.
“I think about her a lot and being here makes me think of her even more. I hope she didn’t come to her decision under any circumstance other than it was the right choice for her and for you.” She cleared her throat. “And now we’re here, in her space, making it our own, and I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t worried about how all this is affecting you.”
“And I’m worried about how all this is affecting you and Mom.” I couldn’t keep the tears from spilling over. “I didn’t come here because I wanted to know more about my birth family. I came here because I knew it could help us out.”
“But that’s the thing,” said Mo. “You don’t have to choose, love. You can do both. Of course you’d want to know more about these people, about their past, about their lives, and I—we support you. You love me and Mom, right?”
“More than anything.”
“And the feeling is mutual, baby girl. I love you more than I love myself, and you know how much I love myself.”
I laughed through the tears. Mo was the best at making a heavy situation feel lighter.
“Talk to people, research, look at pictures, ask questions. We both know that you got something running in your veins that can’t be easily explained. Maybe this is your chance to get to the bottom of it. Me and Mom are here for you no matter what. We are a family. Nothing is going to change that, understand?”
Mom and Mo were so different in most ways, but not in the way they loved me—unconditionally and with their whole hearts. I reached out and squeezed her hand. “I love you.”
“I love you more.”
We pulled up in front of the house, and she leaned over and hugged me tight. Mom came out to meet us.
“Why are y’all cryin’?” she asked.
“Just having a heart-to-heart with our baby,” said Mo.
We climbed out of the car and stood around, looking at the new tires. Mom put her arm around my shoulder and wiped my tearstained face with the sleeve of her shirt. “Anything I need to be aware of?”
“Nah,” Mo said. “We were mourning my waffles and thinking about how much better they’ll turn out next time.”
Mom pulled me closer dramatically. “Oh, baby, I’d cry too if I had to eat any more of her breakfasts.”
“Next set of waffles is gonna be lit.” Mo winked at me.
“I thought we agreed to no more buzzwords,” I said.
“That wasn’t a buzzword,” Mom said. “She’s telling you her next set of waffles aren’t gonna just be burned, they’re actually going to be on fire. Lit.” She glanced at the shiny new set of tires and rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe this. Why would somebody slash our tires?”
“The people at the tire place said it happens,” Mo said. “Local kids, you know?”
“They need an ass whoopin’,” Mom grumbled as we climbed the porch steps.
Billowing ash-gray clouds rolled across the sky. The smell of rain hung in the air. My plants would love that and it would give me a break from watering.
I went inside and up to my room. I studied the drawing Mrs. Redmond had given me—a black-and-white sketch, it didn’t have the details of the illustrations in the big book. I wondered whether it had been Circe or Selene who drew it, and what the three lines there at the bottom meant.
After making sure Mom and Mo were occupied downstairs, I opened the hidden door behind the fireplace. I slipped inside and studied the crest carved into the desk more closely. There were no lines anywhere around it. I pulled open the drawers and searched for any markings, symbols, anything that might help me figure out what I was missing but there was nothing.
Frustrated, I slumped into the chair and stared down at the crest. The lacquered finish was dull in the area directly in front of the symbol, as if it had been worn away over time. I traced the faded mark and found it ran under the lip of the desk. Scrambling out of the chair and crouching down, I swept the light from my phone across the underside of the desk. Three lines were etched deep into the wood, and a shallow divot sat directly on top of them.
“Holy shit,” I whispered, my heart thudding in my chest.
I pressed my finger to the indentation. There was a soft click and a compartment fell open with a heavy thud. I jumped, knocking my head on the edge of the desk. I clamped my hands down over the ache. The plants in my bedroom crowded in on me, stretching their roots across the floor.
A sketchbook sat tucked inside a hidden compartment the size of a small drawer. I lifted it out and paged through. The Absyrtus Heart was drawn there in even more intricate detail than it was in the big book. The inner workings of the plant were unlike anything I’d ever seen. The stalk appeared to be covered in something more like skin than plant matter. The lobes were shown splayed open and the voids inside were draped with pale, cobweb-like structures. On the last page was a recipe and some notes scribbled in the lower corner.
The Living Elixir
Absyrtus Heart
Quicksilver
Liquid Gold
Transfigure
Infuse in a draft of honey
This burden is sometimes too much to bear. The Heart must be kept, but at what cost?
We must find the pieces that have been lost to time. We must. We have to bring them together to save her. Even if it is too late, we must still do this.
Absyrtus in pieces, everlasting life.
Absyrtus made whole, master of death.
Maybe I’ll set aside this terrible task and let this family pass into legend and myth like our ancestors before us.
Tucked between the last pages of the sketchbook was a single sheet of paper, sealed between two pieces of plastic casing. As I studied it under the glow of my flashlight, I thought “paper” might not have been the right word to describe it. It was more like fabric. I could see the individual fibers poking out from its uneven edges. It was covered top to bottom in lettering that looked a lot like the Greek I’d seen in the books about Medea. It was riddled with holes, so I assumed the casing was the only thing keeping it from falling apart.
I set the book on top of the desk and reached into the compartment to see if there was anything else. A wadded-up piece of cloth was shoved inside, near the back. As I pulled it free, something clattered to the ground.
I picked up the object. It was a small, ancient-looking key, made of some kind of off-white material too heavy to be plastic—maybe some kind of bone. About the size of my pinkie, its bow was a beautifully carved Valentine’s Day–style heart. Another shape was set inside, molded from a glistening red stone, and this one resembled a tiny human heart.
A bolt of exhilaration shot through me and my hands began to shake. This is what I’d been looking for. It had to be the key to the door in the garden.
My phone chimed in my hand, and if I hadn’t been gripping it so tightly out of pure excitement, I would have dropped it. It was Marie.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Briseis. I’m sorry to call so late.”
I glanced at the clock on my screen. “You’re good. It’s not even nine. Everything okay?”
“I was wondering if you wanted to come over.”
I looked down at the key. I really wanted to go straight to the garden, but the time and the sound of her voice were making me reconsider. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything you want,” she said.
“Right, I, uh—do you know about—”
“The garden?” she cut in.
“So you do know about it.”
“I’ve never been inside their garden, but yeah, I know.”
“Did Circe ever tell you anything? About what was in there?” I asked.
There was a long pause. “Why don’t you come over and we can talk about it?”
“Right now?” I snatched the scarf off my head and touched my hair. It had been a few hours, and I’d dried it halfway before twisting it up so I could get the most stretch and cut my drying time by more than half, but it was still damp at the roots.
She laughed lightly. “Come on. It’s been a minute since I’ve had company.”
“I don’t have a ride. I don’t drive. And I—”
“I’ll send a car for you.”
“I can get an Uber or a Lyft myself. It’s not a big deal.”
She huffed into the phone. “Do you know how dangerous rideshares can be? I’ll send my own car with a driver I can trust to get you here safely.”
I hadn’t heard right. “Wait. You mean like a car service?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Gimme thirty?”
She huffed into the phone. “Okay. See you soon.” She hung up.
I closed up the hidden room and stashed the newly discovered sketchbook and key under my mattress. I put the hair dryer on low heat, high air and blasted my scalp till I was sure I could safely take out the twists. I could not meet Marie in another state of crusty disarray.
Ten minutes under the dryer and the world’s fastest take down later, my hair was coifed and ready to go. My eyebrows were a mess and I didn’t really feel like putting on a full face of makeup, but I also wanted to look halfway cute. I threw on a pair of gold hoops and dragged a fingertip full of Vaseline across my lips. I slipped on a pair of sneakers and went downstairs. Mom and Mo were in the front room.
“Is it okay if I go over to Marie’s house for a little bit?” I asked.
“Who’s Marie?” Mom asked.
“That girl who came to the house the other day.”
Mom raised an eyebrow. “If you want to, baby, but do you think it’s a good idea? You just met her.”
“She seems pretty nice,” I said.
Mo gave me a look. “Nice, huh? Is that why you got on them hoops? Everybody knows that hoops mean you tryna look cute.”
“Do I look cute?” I asked.
“Always,” Mom said. “Do you need a ride?”
“No,” I said. “She’s sending a car.”
They both turned toward me, eyes wide.
“A car?” Mom asked. “What kind of rich people behavior—”
“Shoot, Briseis is single. Might be a match made in heaven,” Mo said.
Mom thought for a moment then nodded in agreement. “Secure the bag, baby.”
I cringed. So hard. “First of all, y’all are terrible, and second, that’s not what’s goin’ on. She knows about some of the plants in the apothecary, and she invited me over to talk.”
My phone buzzed.
Marie: Car’s outside.
“The car’s here.”
Mo scrambled to the door with Mom at her heels. I went over and peered around them. In the drive was a sleek black sedan with tinted windows. The driver’s door opened and a tall, bald woman with broad shoulders wearing a bloodred pantsuit got out and came around the passenger side. I pulled the door open and walked onto the porch.
“Miss Briseis?” the woman asked.
Mom’s mouth was stuck in a little O. Mo’s eyebrows arched up so hard they disappeared into the one wrinkle that ran across her forehead.
I kissed Mom and gave Mo a hug. “I’ll text you when I get there.”
I jogged to the car and the woman opened the door for me. Only when I was standing next to her did I realize she was at least six feet tall. “Okoye got nothin’ on you, huh?”
Her deep brown eyes moved over me, and she smiled, her mouth full of perfect paperwhite teeth.
“Miss Morris will see to it that she is home safe and sound,” she called up to my parents, who were still standing on the porch with their mouths open.
I climbed in and she closed the door. The car’s interior smelled like warm vanilla, and the upholstery was the same red as the woman’s suit. The driver’s door opened and closed, and the partition rolled down.
“Comfortable?” the woman asked.
I nodded.
“Help yourself to anything you’d like,” she said.
A refrigerated chest filled with soda and water bottles and illuminated by a ring of white lights was built into the center console. I pressed my lips together to keep from asking, out loud, what in the entire hell was going on. I picked up a root beer.
“This is perfect. Thanks.”
We turned out of the driveway and onto the road that led away from the house.
“My name is Nyx,” said the woman. “I work with Miss Morris.”
“Marie?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Nyx.
“You work with her? Like, driving people around and stuff?”
Nyx smiled. “Among other things.”
I opened the root beer and took a drink. “You probably won’t be honest with me, but I’m gonna ask anyway. Is this a setup?”
Nyx raised an eyebrow. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Like, she’s not trying to kill me or anything, right? My parents worry.” I’d be so mad if I put on these hoops just to get murdered by the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.
Nyx laughed. “No, you’ll be safe with her.”
That answer was a little weird, but so was drinking root beer in the back of a luxury car on my way to a stranger’s house. I tried to make polite conversation. “So, the few people I’ve met since I’ve been here have lived in Rhinebeck their whole lives. Is that how it is for you and Marie? Are y’all from here, too?”
“Not me,” Nyx said. “I came here from California years ago. But Miss Morris has lived here in Rhinebeck since it was Beek-man’s land.”
“Who’s Beekman?” The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I’d heard it.
I thought I saw Nyx bristle in the rearview mirror. “An old man. But let me stop talking before I say too much. I fear I may have already.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m new here. I don’t know the town gossip.”
“That’s probably good. This town is full of nosy people, and now that you’re in that house, I’m sure you’ll be the talk of the town.”
“Yeah. I’m starting to understand that.”
We drove through town and crossed over Market Street. The hustle and bustle of Rhinebeck village faded as we drove south. Twenty minutes later, Nyx navigated a steep, narrow driveway. I peered out the window, but it was hard to see through the tinted windows.
“We’re here,” Nyx said.
She hopped out and came around to open the door. I found myself in the driveway of a very large, very expensive-looking house. The immaculately kept lawn looked like a sea of green carpet. Statues dotted the landscape and I was creeped out by the way they loomed in the encroaching blackness, their marble skin reflecting the soft light from the house. Beyond the driveway was a void, but I could hear rushing water.
“The mighty Hudson is beyond the bluff,” Nyx said.
“So, Marie is rich? Or her parents are rich? Because this place looks crazy expensive.”
