This Poison Heart, page 26
Marie turned to me. “I’m gonna head out, too.” She gently gripped her arm where I’d seen those streaks of black. Poison was working its way through her body, but she’d said not to worry. I didn’t think I was going to be able to do that.
She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, letting her lips linger for half a second longer than they needed to. She turned and walked to the door. “Mamas Greene, it was good seeing you both.”
Mo grinned. “You come back any time you want. I’ll make waffles.”
“No, the hell you won’t,” said Mom. She tucked Marie’s arm under hers and steered her out into the hallway. “I’d never let her do that to you, baby. Don’t you worry.”
Mo helped me off the counter.
“I think I’m gonna go to bed,” I said.
“Let me help you upstairs,” Mo said.
“No, I’m good. I got it. Love you.”
“Love you more,” she said.
I shuffled out into the hallway and made my way upstairs as Mo joined Mom in the front room. I crawled into bed and pulled the covers up to my neck.
The image of the Absyrtus Heart was burned into my mind. I Googled “human heart” and a video came up in the search results for a donor heart that was kept pumping by a system of tubes and machines. If it had been flipped upside down and rooted in the ground, it would have been the same as the plant in the garden. I closed the video, tossed my phone toward the end of my bed, and tried to fall asleep.
CHAPTER 26
The next morning, I found Mo in the kitchen scrambling eggs and making toast.
“Need me to get the fire extinguisher?” I asked.
“Hush,” she said.
I eased myself onto a seat at the table. The swelling in my ankle had gone down, but it still ached. I didn’t think I’d be able to get back into the garden yet, but I couldn’t stop thinking of the Heart.
Mom came into the kitchen wearing a billowy red bonnet and a raggedy robe that looked like Freddy Krueger had used it for practice before he sliced those kids up on Elm Street.
“This pollen is tryna kill me today,” she said, sniffling. “Bri, baby, I know you’re laid up, but your arm still works, right? We gotta stay on top of the dust if y’all want me to live. All the sills I cleaned last week already have a layer of green dust on them.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. Only thing getting me out of Sunday morning cleaning was probably death, so after I finished breakfast, I found the broom and a bunch of clean rags, then hobbled to the apothecary to get started.
I opened the windows in the shop, letting a warm breeze waft through. The sun slanted through the stained glass window on the outer wall, casting blue and green columns of light onto the floor. Down the hall, I heard the familiar notes of Sam Cooke’s crooning, and I smiled. They’d played that song at their wedding and I loved it—but now, it was house-cleaning music, which would be followed by either Earth, Wind & Fire or Zapp & Roger. Broke ankle or not, it was time to clean.
I grabbed a rag and dampened it under the faucet. A thick layer of dust sat in the grooves of the open window, tinged green from all the pollen wafting through the air. I cleaned it out and moved on to the overhang of wooden trim that went around the entire room. Dragging the cloth along, I made my way back behind the closet-sized drying rack.
A frayed piece of the rag caught on the trim where it had come away from the wall. I yanked hard, trying to pull it free. It broke loose with a soft click, and a small, narrow door opened in front of me. A gust of sweet-smelling air wafted out.
“Mom! Mo!”
Mo came first, holding a kitchen knife, and Mom barreled in behind her, her Taser crackling in the midmorning sun.
“What is it?” Mo asked frantically.
“Look!” I pointed toward the door. Its seams were perfectly aligned with the wood paneling. Nobody looking at it would have even known it was there. “The rag caught on some kind of latch when I was dusting. It just popped open.” Mom pulled me back a step.
“Wait a minute,” Mo said. She hurried out of the room and came back a moment later with a flashlight. She clicked it on and shone it into the room behind the door. The column of light cut through the darkness to reveal a space the size of a large bedroom. There were no windows or other doors. Mo stepped in and Mom and I followed her. The walls were painted black, making the space feel smaller than it actually was. The sweet smell was more pungent inside the room. It reminded me of honey and burned paper.
There was a small table at the back of the room. As we approached it, the light from Mo’s flashlight danced in her trembling hand.
“What is this?” Mom asked, her voice barely a whisper.
The surface of the table was covered in a black cloth. In the center was a large statue of a woman with three faces—Hecate, the goddess Medea was in service to. Objects were arranged on the table: three rusted skeleton keys, bundles of what I was sure was mugwort, garlic skins, black candles with trails of wax that had run down and dried in layered mounds, and onions that had sprouted and snaked across the black cloth before rotting away to almost nothing. There were small bowls, black stones, and a wreath of decayed flowers around the statue’s neck—even a glass jar stuffed with black bird’s feet.
“It’s an altar,” Mom said.
“Auntie Leti has one,” I said.
“But it’s not like this,” she replied. “Hers is for working, for . . .” She trailed off. Her eyes narrowed and I followed her gaze. Sitting at the base of the statue was a photograph, ripped on one edge and stained brown at the bottom like something had spilled across it, soaking it all the way through. I immediately recognized the bubbly little girl, no more than a year old.
It was me.
Mo reached for it, and Mom caught her by the wrist. “Don’t touch it. Don’t touch anything.” Her voice was higher, her face drawn tight. Mom pulled out her phone and dialed a number. “Leti, I—I need your help.”
I didn’t like the way she sounded. There was real fear in her tone, and I suddenly became uneasy. Mo came and stood next to me, putting her arm around my shoulder, and I hugged her tight.
“There’s an altar in this house,” Mom said on the phone. “There’s a statue of a woman with three faces.” She paused as Auntie Leti asked her a question. “Garlic, onions, black flowers, crow’s feet.” Her face relaxed as my aunt spoke. “Leti, hang on, I’m putting you on speaker.” She held the phone out. “Go ahead.”
“This isn’t my practice, Thandie. You know that.”
“I know,” said Mom. “Just tell them what you told me.”
“The triple goddess is Hecate. Also known as the Queen of Witches, Keeper of the Keys, Guardian of the Crossroads. In Greek mythology, she’s said to have aided Demeter in her search for Persephone.”
The hair on the backs of my arms stood straight up.
“She’s ancient,” Auntie Leti said. “An original goddess, or an entity that the goddess label was slapped onto because they didn’t have a name for what she was. The black flowers, the crow’s feet, black stones, candles—those are all for her. Like an offering. She’s often said to be accompanied by a black dog. She’s the guardian of women and children, so I wouldn’t be overly concerned.”
“It’s too late for that, Leti,” Mo said.
“There was a picture of Briseis on the altar,” Mom said.
There was a sharp intake of breath and a long pause.
“Take me off speaker,” said Auntie Leti.
Mom talked to her for a few more minutes, while Mo moved behind me to examine something on the wall. “Briseis, look,” she said.
Something was drawn there—an intertwined maze of twisting lines, like vines, each new leaf bearing a name. There were hundreds of branches, each bough sheltering dozens of generations beneath it. “Colchis” was painted in a flowing script at the very top, and directly underneath was the crest—from the hidden door in the Poison Garden, from the desk in the room behind my fireplace, from the drawing Mrs. Redmond had given me.
“Shine your light up there,” I said.
Mo pointed her light at the top of the wall. The unmistakable face of Medea emerged from the gloom, her dark eyes staring down at us. Her name was written under her portrait, and every branch stemmed from her. She was the founder of this family tree. I traced the branches until I found, near the bottom where the leaves were sparse, my name nested under Selene’s: Briseis Colchis.
Mom came up behind me and seemed to take in the wall in one sweeping glance. “Baby, this is incredible. Look how far back this goes.”
I scanned the wall. Near the top, directly to the right of Medea’s painted face, was another portrait—a man. His branches intermingled with Medea’s, but abruptly split off.
“What did Auntie Leti say?” I asked.
“She’s gonna get back to me,” said Mom. She exchanged glances with Mo, who nodded, and they steered me out of the room.
“That tree goes back so far,” Mo said. “You really think this is real? I mean, how can we know for sure?”
It was real. It had to be. There was a reason my blood woke the Heart from its slumber. My blood was Medea’s blood, and she had been the plant’s original guardian. I needed to tell them about that and about me. It couldn’t wait anymore. “Listen, I have to tell you something and it’s going to sound impossible but it’s important.”
“Baby, you can talk to us about anything,” Mom said. “You know that.”
I should have trusted them with this sooner. I hoped they’d understand why I’d waited. “Since we’ve been here, I know things have been weird. Strangers showing up, this shop, the garden. But I think it’s all connected.” I tried to think in a straight line. “Circe left me some letters.”
Mo straightened up.
“They led me to the garden. She knew what I could do with the plants. But she also knew something about me that even I didn’t know until a few days before we came here, when I cut my thumb.” I took a deep breath. “Mo, when you scared me that day, I was working with a water hemlock. It’s one of the most poisonous plants in the world.”
“Where’d you even get something like that?” Mom asked.
“I grew it in the park and brought home a piece to study. I was just gonna take a few notes and then get rid of it. I cut it open and there was poison on the blade of the scalpel when I sliced my thumb. It should have killed me.”
Tears welled up in Mom’s eyes. “Baby, you should have told us. We’d have taken you right to the hospital.”
“There wouldn’t have been time. There shouldn’t have been time. I should’ve died within the first five minutes, but I didn’t.”
“What are you saying?” Mo asked.
“I’m completely immune. I’ve come in contact with every poisonous plant you can think of since we’ve been here and nothing has happened. Circe knew I was immune and that I could cultivate the garden I found. And there are plants in there that are too toxic for anyone besides me to handle. That’s why people have been showing up here. I can grow things they can’t get anywhere else. So could Circe and Selene, and the Colchis family has been running this shop for generations.”
Mo and Mom continued to stare at me, speechless.
I took a deep breath and continued to the part that I knew would be the hardest for them to understand. “Also, I found a document that says the goddess Hecate—the exact same goddess that altar is dressed for—gave the power of immunity to Medea, and her children inherited that power from her. It’s been passed down to everyone in her line. Now I have it, but—” I stopped short.
“ ‘But’ what?” Mom asked.
I gripped my hands together in front of me. “Circe and Selene were keeping a plant called the Absyrtus Heart. Absyrtus was Medea’s brother and he was murdered. Dismembered. Medea kept the six pieces of his body buried in her garden. The pieces seeded a plant that isn’t like any other plant in existence—the Absyrtus Heart, and there’s one right out there in my garden. The Colchis family has been running this apothecary and protecting the Heart, but I think Selene was trying to keep me from having anything to do with this place.” If it hadn’t been for Circe I never would have known any of it. That was a detail that still made no sense if she and Selene were as close as everyone else made it seem.
“Someone was after the Heart,” I continued. “It has some very special properties. It’s why . . .” I hesitated. The tendrils of everything I had learned twisted together like the vines in the Poison Garden—inescapable and deadly. The people who’d come after me wanted the Heart. Maybe someone had always been after it, killing off members of the Colchis family to try and get to it. A piece of the Heart had made Marie immortal, and clearly, somebody wanted that power for themselves, wanted it enough to kill for it. Everything I’d learned pointed to one conclusion. “I think that’s why Selene was murdered.”
Mom blinked, then put her hand on her chest. “Briseis, are you serious? Who told you that?”
“The medical examiner,” I said.
“I thought she was sick,” Mo said. “That’s what the agency told us.”
“There’s been some issues with record keeping,” I said. I felt like I was lying and telling the truth at the same time. The issue was that Lou had a job to do in Rhinebeck and it was inextricably linked with trying to keep the Colchis family secrets intact.
An alarm went off on Mo’s phone. She sighed. “I’m supposed to go into the shop and touch base with Jake. I need to do the bank deposit, too, but it can wait.”
“You can go ahead and go, Mo,” I said. “It’s okay.”
“Seems very not okay, Briseis,” she said.
“We need that deposit to get put in the bank,” Mom said. “I don’t want you to go, babe, but I kind of need you to.”
Mo sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I know. I know.”
“Until Leti gets back to me, let’s take things one step at a time,” Mom said. She put her hand on my shoulder. “We can talk about Selene if it’s bothering you, and we can damn sure see that her death gets a thorough investigation if it hasn’t already. You’ve been learning all these new details and not telling us? Baby, that bothers me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t want to ruin this for us.”
“We are not that fragile, baby,” Mom said. “And you’re not ruining anything.” She took my hands in hers and held them tight. “I’ve watched you and your power grow over all these years. Sometimes I wonder what it means, where it comes from. Now it looks like we have some answers.”
“You don’t think it sounds impossible?” I asked.
Mom shook her head. “What it sounds like doesn’t make a difference to me. This isn’t just something in your blood. It’s you. It’s who you are. How could I doubt what you’re telling us when I’ve seen what you can do?”
Tears streamed down my face. There were still questions that I needed answers to but they could wait. Mom put her arms around me and pulled me close. Mo came over and wrapped us up like she always did when me and Mom got to ugly crying.
CHAPTER 27
Mom dropped Mo off at the train station so she could commute to Brooklyn and check in with Jake. The rest of the day passed in a haze. In the early afternoon, I snuggled up next to Mom on the couch as we waited for Auntie Leti to call back. I sent Karter a bunch of texts asking him if he was okay, but he didn’t text back.
The doorbell rang.
“I got it,” Mom said. She went out into the hall and a few seconds later, I heard Karter’s voice.
I stood up to meet him but when he came into the front room, he looked upset. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot. “Can I talk to you?”
“What’s wrong? I’ve been texting you.”
“Can I talk to you alone?” he asked.
Mom huffed. “It’s not a good time, Karter.”
He stepped toward me with the most desperate look on his face. “I’m sorry, but you have to listen to me. You gotta leave. All of you. You gotta get out of here.”
“What? Why?” I asked, confused.
Karter reached out and took hold of my arms. “Can you trust me? Can you please just listen to what I’m saying?”
“I’m listening, but you’re not making sense,” I said. “If this is about the Heart, you don’t have to worry. I told my parents. They know. It’s okay.”
“That’s not it. I mean, it’s part of it, but listen—have you ever heard of something called the Living Elixir?”
I tried not to show any expression on my face as shock coursed through me. I’d seen instructions for something called Living Elixir but they’d been in a sketchbook behind a hidden door in my room. Something didn’t sit right. How did he know about that?
Mom stepped forward to nudge him toward the door. “Karter, baby, this isn’t a good—”
“Listen to me,” Karter said, raising his voice. “You and I both saw that plant. We saw what it did, and I think that plant makes the elixir. Do you know what people would do to get their hands on something like that? Do you know how much danger you’re in? You heard what that Lou guy said. You think this is a game?”
Mom stepped between us. “You need to go,” she said. “Walk out before you get put out.”
The doorbell rang again.
“What, are we having a damn party?” She angrily pulled the door open. “Nice to see you, doctor,” Mom said loudly. “Karter here was just leaving.”
Dr. Grant came into the front room and locked eyes with Karter, tilting her head to the side. I didn’t know if she was somebody’s mama, but she gave Karter one of those looks that meant she was not to be messed with. He turned around and left without another word. His footsteps pounded the porch steps and his truck skidded out of the driveway.
“My pops asked me to stop by,” Dr. Grant said. “And I have some information to share with you, but first, do you mind if I ask you exactly how you much you know about Karter?”
I was caught off guard by the question. “Karter?”
“After I ran into you the other night”—she regarded my mom cautiously—“I did some digging.” She took out a small notepad and flipped it open. “He was born here the same year you were, but he didn’t go to school in Rhinebeck. Not under that name, anyway. The bookshop has only been open for six months. Before that, it was a coffee shop. The tags on his truck belong to a man who died two years ago. That can sometimes happen when someone forgets to transfer the title, but it struck me as odd. What else do you know about him?”
