Nightshade Read online

  My visitors exchange a look. They too were young men, once. And now that they know how I have been shamed and abandoned, perhaps they will leave me be.

  “I see.” Horace’s voice is gruff. “Perhaps it would be best if we spoke to your father, then.”

  “My father is out.” I wave my hand, as if to indicate the whole north of England and Scotland, too. “If you can find him, by all means, speak to him. Feel free to go outside and look. I will make tea while you do.”

  Before they can catch breath enough to answer, I excuse myself and leave. How convenient it is to be a woman, sometimes! One can always use the kitchen as an excuse to escape men’s tedious conversations, their scheming and planning. Father has his work to hide behind, I think, and I have my kettle.

  As I light the fire my mind wanders down strange paths. Dread churns within me – dread that, somehow, this preacher’s death has something to do with Weed’s disappearance. But what?

  I take my metal canister of tea off the shelf. It is my own mixture of dried lavender blossoms and lemon balm, harvested from my garden and hung in the storeroom to dry. Weed helped me hang these stalks, I think. His hands touched these tender leaves, just as they touched me…

  I measure the tea, crumbling the dried leaves through my fingers to release the sweet fragrance. As I do, I think how easy it would be to add a bit of this and that to the kettle – just enough to sicken my guests later on, when they are safe at home in their beds, with only their wives nearby to hear their cries. Or enough to kill them, and silence their annoying questions forever.

  I do nothing of the kind, of course. Even after all I have seen, all I have suffered, all I have lost, I still know the difference between right and wrong.

  Do you really, lovely? I find the distinction rather blurry, myself.

  I am a healer, I think, blocking out the voice of evil. I will not kill.

  But it is oddly comforting to know that I can.

  2

  20th August

  This morning I treated a bad case of sunburn, rheumy eyes, and a deep wound made by a rusted nail that a careless farmer stepped upon. The last was the most serious, but if the farmer soaks his foot in a strong brew of sage and yarrow as I instructed, it ought to heal quickly.

  In the afternoon I tended my kitchen garden, which shows signs of fatigue from this relentless heat. As do I, it seems. I wait in dread for the voice of Oleander to return. So far it has not.

  I hope I am not going mad.

  ALL DAY AND LATE into the evening, the fields ring with the sound of reaping. The scythe swings, and like solders grievously overmatched in battle, the grass falls, row after slaughtered row.

  I witnessed it myself this morning, as I walked from farm to farm, dispensing cures, advice, and comfort. Now, as I sit here sewing, I try to imagine what Weed might have heard, if he had walked beside me – the cries of protest, perhaps, as the scythe swings once more.

  Does the wheat despise us? I find myself wondering. Does it wish we were the ones slain?

  My thoughts are scattered by a sharp sound, the pop and hiss of wood catching fire in the parlour hearth. That log, too, was once the living limb of a tree – perhaps one of the ancient ones from the forest, with their noble, spreading branches and strange tales.

  “A fire in summer,” I say without looking up from my sewing. “Surely that is a waste of wood.”

  Father straightens from the hearth with a grunt. “There is a storm on the way. When the wind howls like this, warmth is required.” He takes his chair and gazes into the flames. “I am worried about your health, Jessamine. Until now I have said nothing, trusting that time would be the best remedy, but my concern bids me speak at last.”

  “Speak, then.” Already I am on my guard.

  “It has been some time since your illness passed. To outward appearances you seem recovered, and go about your work without complaint.” Thoughtful, he gazes into the fire. “But there are days you lie late in your bed, as if reluctant to wake. Your skin is pale, but now and then your cheeks flush red, perhaps recalling some secret shame. At times you stare blindly into the air, as if conversing with phantoms. The stain of tears is ever present on your face.”

  “There is no need to worry.” Anger kindles within me, but I will be cautious: My father must have some reason of his own for speaking this way. “My body is perfectly well.”

  “Your body is young and strong, and can survive much. But what of your heart, Jessamine?”

  I put down my needle and thread. “My heart will heal when Weed comes back.”

  “I think not. I think your heart will only begin to mend when you accept that Weed is gone.” Finally he looks up from the fire and faces me. “Gone, and never to return.”

  “I don’t believe you.” If he wishes to provoke me, he is succeeding. “Time and again you have told me that Weed left me – heartlessly ran off as I lay dying. Before I did not have the strength to argue. Now I do.”

  “Calm yourself –”

  “Weed loves me. If he is keeping away from me, there must be a reason.”

  “I have told you the reason. He is a common scoundrel, who despoiled and abandoned you in the most unforgivable manner –”

  “You have told me lies. For I know Weed would be at my side even now, unless some force was preventing him.”

  “You have not had any word from him at all, then?”

  “No. I have not.”

  Father looks at me, strangely satisfied, and I realise, This is what he wanted – to know if I have heard from Weed. Why would he wish to know that?

  I feel exposed, and look away to hide the tears that spring to my eyes.

  Such passion! Such grief! It is most enticing, my lovely. A pity you waste it on that ridiculous boy, that callow, unwanted Weed…

  The room sways. I clutch my head.

  “What is it, Jessamine? You look unwell. Let me prepare a tonic for you.”

  I am faint, but I will not admit that to Father. He pours something for me to drink and brings it to me. The glass hovers in front of me. In its swirl of liquid I see visions: A dying lamb. The madhouses of London. A pair of large, terrifying wings.

  I push the glass away. “I had terrible dreams when I was ill, Father,” I say in a low voice. “Some of them were about you. About what you did on your trips to London.”

  His eyes glitter in the firelight. “Take a sip, my dear. It will steady you.”

  “I dreamed that you went to the madhouse there. That you fed poison to the lunatics, in order to test your formulas.”

  He stands so quickly the drink spills. “How strange. The fantasies our minds concoct when we are sick….”

  I rise to my feet, clawing at my head as if I could tear that voice out by its roots. “A fantasy? I thought so, too. Now I am not so sure.”

  Careful, lovely… your father has a dreadful temper, you know….

  I watch the blue vein on his forehead throb. His words are calm, but his voice is a tightened sinew of rage. “Jessamine, it seems your mind is more affected by your illness than I first supposed. I suggest you go to bed. I know some cures that can help you.”

  “Your cures!” I practically spit with contempt. “I think your cures are poison, Father. I think everything you have told me is a lie, and that which I believed to be a dream is all too real.”

  The images take form again – me, flying high over the fields of Northumberland, born aloft by a pair of dark wings. “And Weed’s love for me, and mine for him, is the realest thing of all,” I gasp. “If you will not tell me where he is, then I will have to look for him myself.”

  “Enough.” Three strides, and he is across the room. “I will tell you what you wish to know. But I warn you, you may regret it.” He gestures for me to sit down. “During your illness, Weed became distraught. Because of his extraordinary talent for healing, I believe he felt responsible for curing you, and was driven mad with frustration when he could not. He grew agitated, unreasonable. Finally he lef
t. I could not chase after him, for I did not dare leave your side. You were at death’s very threshold that night.”

  The light of the fire glows behind my father, casting lurid shadows along the stone floor. “He abandoned you, Jessamine, and you should despise him for it, not pine for his return. But you are right to call me a liar: He did not simply run off, as I have told you in the past.”

  I sit there, unmoving as a statue in church, as Father’s voice drops deep. “You were so weak. I thought it would kill you to know the truth. As time passed and you regained your strength, I dared hope you would make your peace with my story and would never have to know the fate of that coward Weed. I prayed you would forget about him. He fooled us both, for a time. I do not blame you for being deceived by him. I was deceived as well.”

  The flames leap, and the shadows do their mocking dance. My father’s words toll like a bell.

  “Weed is dead. He hanged himself, in a remote part of the woods of Hulne Park. I found the body myself. The fool!”

  Father approaches me and places a hand on my shoulder. I allow myself to soften, to weep. It is not difficult. I shed tears at will these days.

  “I thought it would be too cruel to tell you the truth. But it is crueller still to let you go on longing for something that can never be.” He steps back and spreads his arms, as if waiting for me to step into his embrace. “I hope you can forgive me, Jessamine. Oh, the curse of being a parent! The sins we commit to ease our children’s suffering!”

  I rise from the chair. Father takes a step toward me. I wheel from his open arms and race outside, into the storm.

  “Jessamine –” His voice follows me to the door, but the moment I am outside the shrieking wind drowns out every sound but the pounding of my own heart. Let Father run after me if he dares. I am one with the storm now, wild and furious, a howl of rage.

  “Weed!” I hurl my desperate cry to the starless sky. Up the twisting path I climb. The ground is muck beneath my feet. Am I truly mad, then? I must be, to think the poison garden is the only place left for me to turn.

  But how else will I finally discover what is real? How else will I know what is true, and what is a lie?

  And when the worst has already happened, what is left to fear?

  Unless the worst is yet to come. The thought stops me short. I pause for breath. Eyes closed, I feel the earth spin drunkenly beneath my feet, slipped off its axis like a wheel on a broken axle.

  Foolish Jessamine… did you really think I was only a dream?

  Thunder cracks, loud as a gunshot. I press my hand to my chest. My heart flutters like a trapped bird within the cage of my bones. My hair hangs sodden, like seaweed trailing from the ropes of a sailing ship. My dress is as wet as if I had risen up from the German Ocean and walked ashore.

  “Help me,” I cry with all the ragged breath I have left. “If you are here, show yourself, I beg you. For I do not know what to believe anymore.”

  I will show you.

  Once more, lightning slashes crookedly across the sky, briefly revealing the path before the world plunges into darkness again. The wind howls and blows, not east to west, but in strange circles that seem as if they would pluck the trees straight up from the ground and hurl them down again like broken toys.

  The black gate of the poison garden looms before me. I hurl myself at the unyielding bars. The lock taunts me, an iron apple dangling from a lifeless tree. Exhausted, I collapse to the ground.

  I assure you, I am no dream, lovely. I have powers you cannot imagine. I can help you find what you seek. All you need do is ask.

  Help me, my heart begs, yet I dare not speak the name of the one to whom I plead. The horrors of my nightmares come back to me ten times over: the torment. The lunatic asylum. My father’s wickedness and murderous lies.

  Nothing about this world is what I thought it was. I am lost, and have only one refuge.

  “Oleander!” I cry, but the wind swallows all sound. I lift myself from the mud and seize the bars of the gate in my two hands. The wet metal is cold and rough against my cheek. “Please! I need you. I need you to show me the truth… as you did once before…”

  The sound of the storm changes. To each side of me rain pours, lightning cracks, wind howls. Somehow I am shielded.

  I throw my head back and search the sky. Directly above me the night takes form. It is darkness upon darkness, like ink spilled upon black velvet.

  The inky stain is in the shape of outspread wings.

  I have waited for you to come back to me, the Prince of Poisons croons. And now you are here.

  “Tell me, please,” I gasp. The shadow wings beat once, twice. “Is Weed dead or alive?”

  Your beloved Crabgrass is rather unkempt at the moment. In a foul temper, and in urgent need of a bath. But yes; he is alive.

  The relief I feel is mixed with the sure, sickening knowledge that my father is no more than a murderous villain.

  “I must find him – does my father know where he is?”

  If your father knew where to find Weed, he would have had him killed by now. He cannot harness Weed’s gifts for his own purposes, and he will not have him be a potential rival.

  “He is a monster! Oleander, can you help me find Weed?”

  I can if I choose to. But first you must prove yourself worthy.

  “Tell me what to do.”

  I want you to avenge your mother’s death. Bring justice to her killer. Then you will have earned my aid.

  My heart clenches. “My mother was murdered? By whom?”

  Who do you think, lovely?

  His laughter falls like a rain of ice. There is no end to the wickedness of humans, is there? It surprises even me, sometimes. When your task is done, then I will help you find what you seek. And you will help me in exchange, when the time comes. For you and I need each other, as you will someday learn…

  “What do you mean?” I cry, but the shadow being ascends to the vault of the night, and is gone.

  The rain pours down with doubled fury. I slip and stumble along the muddy path, back to the cottage, too shocked to even weep.

  My whole life has been based on lies. And the only being that can help me find Weed is an incarnation of evil itself.

  Have I made a terrible mistake in rousing the dark prince? It does not matter, for I must find Weed again, whatever the price.

  And, this, too I swear: No corrupt magistrate, no dim-witted committee of farmers, will stand in judgment of my mother’s killer.

  No. I will deal with him – with Father – myself.

  The door to the cottage opens with a push. The fire sputters as the water from my clothes streams across the stone floor and sizzles into the hearth.

  “Father?” He is not here. Is he out searching for me in the storm? Has he been crushed by a tree or trapped on the far side of a flooding stream?

  I hope not. For I would hate to miss the chance to take my own vengeance.

  And yet, there is some small doubt within me. My father is wicked, I know. A liar and a murderer. But I always believed he loved my mother. There was a warmth in his voice, a softness in his eyes, that only ever appeared when he spoke of her.

  Surely it would not be wrong to want proof, I think.

  I walk toward the study, wet feet slapping against stone. The door is unlocked and swings open as I approach. Every window shutter has blown open. Gusts of wind howl through the room, lifting papers, toppling books. I can scarcely see, but who could light a candle in this maelstrom?

  As if in answer, lightning flashes once more, and then again. A volume lies open on Father’s desk. Its pages tremble in the moving air, begging me to read them.

  I lay a hand on the open page. As I do, the wind ceases and the night goes silent and still. In this otherworldly calm I can finally light a candle to read by. The page is written in my father’s hand, although his familiar neat script is slanted pell-mell and blotted, as if he wrote in a terrible rush, or as if his thoughts had become tinged with madnes
s…

  …my life’s work is lost, utterly lost, or so it seems. I think of all that I sacrificed to gain this knowledge, so painstakingly recorded in my diary. What compelled that misbegotten freak to seize the record of my work and flee? As if he had any need for it! Someday I will pay him back, I swear it – I will find him, wherever he hides, and reclaim what is mine.

  So much suffering, for naught! So many lives sacrificed! Even yours, my darling, my Elizabeth… but how was I to know that the child in your womb would weaken you so severely? You were never the same after the birth; it was as if all your strength was used to nourish the child, at your own expense. Poor Jessamine. She scarcely remembers you. She would never suspect how I think of you hourly, write you these letters every night, and above all, continue our work…

  She has grown so like you it startles me. Would you be proud to know how well she endured my treatments, Elizabeth? She suffered, yes, but survived greater doses than I ever dared give you.

  It occurs to me now: Perhaps her physiology has some special tolerance for the dark substances, since she was first exposed while still in your womb… this may be a topic for further study.

  Here is all the proof I need.

  My father poisoned my mother. She let him do it, it seems. She was a willing part of his “work,” even as I grew within her belly. Still, he bears full blame for her death.

  And my illness was no strong fever, my recovery no miracle cure wrought by the skills of Thomas Luxton. My father poisoned me, and harbours not one speck of remorse for doing so.

  And Weed – Weed is alive. Somewhere. And my father will kill him someday, if he can. If I do not stop him first, that is.

  Truth, terrible truth! It is like an ancient curse, from which there is no escape. The truth will drive one mad. Yet without it, how can one make sense of life’s madness?

  Do you like the task I set you, lovely?

  I do. For now I know who I am.

  I am Jessamine Luxton. Poison ran in my veins before I was born.