The Poison Diaries

By

Maryrose Wood

Based on a concept by the Duchess of Northumberland

Copyright

First published in paperback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2010

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FIRST EDITION

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Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

About the Author

About the Publisher

Chapter One

15th March

GREY SKIES; THE RAIN CAME AND WENT ALL MORNING.

A cold wind blew in gusts, worsening as the day went on, until the lowest branch of the great chestnut tree in the courtyard splintered down the middle and crashed to the ground. If I had been standing underneath, I would have been crushed.

Spun wool after breakfast. Read for a short while, but my eyes ached too much from sewing to continue long. Changed the soaking water for the belladonna seeds.

Father is still not home; it has been two days.

The berries of the belladonna plant are beautiful. I have always thought so. I would string the plump black pearls on silk thread and wear them around my neck if they were not so deadly.

The seeds are nearly as poisonous as the berries; Father has warned me a thousand times. But I am careful. First I tie the seeds in clean muslin bags and drop them in a pail of cold water. Before they can be planted they must soak for at least two weeks, and I must change the water every day. That is how Mother Nature would do it: the snow would fall and melt and then fall again. And it would be too risky to leave the seeds in the ground during the cold months; they might get eaten by birds and carried away to grow in some distant field, where they could wreak their mischief without warning. Instead I make-believe a winter for them, to trick them into growing only when and where I wish.

Even after all that care, only a few seeds will sprout, and of those half will soon shrivel back into the dirt. Are you so in love with death, lovely lady? I call you lovely lady, for that is what ‘belladonna’ means. You are curiously reluctant to be born. Is our world not beautiful enough for you? Or perhaps there is another, more perfect realm in which you prefer to dwell?

I laugh at myself now; what foolish imaginings! But when Father is away I must make do with whatever companions I can find: a sparrow on the windowsill, a shadow on the wall, or even a tiny, dangerous seed. We have lived alone here among the ruins for so long, Father and I, and he is away so much, and is so silent and lost in his own thoughts even when he is here, I sometimes worry I might lose my speaking voice completely from lack of use.

Let me test it.

“Hello.”

“Hello?”

Feh! I sound like a frog. A tincture of lemon balm and anise would cure this broken voice of mine.

Or someone to talk to. That would do it too.

I wonder where Father has gone this time. Someone must be very ill to keep him away from home so long. Father is not a doctor, nor is he a “butcher” (that is what he calls the surgeons). But high born or low, when the people of Northumberland are sick, they send for Thomas Luxton. On the rare times when Father has let me go to market day and walk through the crowds, with my cloak pulled close around my face (he does not wish me to speak to anyone, for he says they will try to trick me into revealing secrets about his work), I hear the things they say:

“You’re better off with Luxton than those universi-tytrained doctors, with their ointments that blister the flesh, and their buckets to fill with your blood.”

“Doctors! Tell ‘em you’ve got a sore toe and they’ll take a hacksaw to your leg!”

“Luxton may be an odd duck, but at least he doesn’t burn you and bleed you and stick you all over with leeches. Luxton follows the old ways, the lost ways…”

“…the witches’ ways,” some of them might add in a fearful whisper.

But Father would scorn the very notion of witchcraft. People call him an apothecary, but he considers himself a man of science, and a “humble gardener,” as he likes to say. By that he means that he grows all the plants he needs to make his medicines right here, in the garden beds that surround our stone cottage. He grows other plants too, in a separate walled garden behind a tall, black iron gate. The gate is held shut by a heavy chain, fastened with a lock that is bigger than my fist.

When I was small, Father warned me morning and evening never to approach the locked garden, until I was so afraid I couldn’t sleep without dreaming of snakes chasing me. The snakes’ bodies were links of thick metal chain, and their gaping jaws clicked open and shut like a lock, catching at my heels no matter how fast I ran. Finally I asked Father: “Why would anyone grow bad plants that have to be locked up behind walls? Why not only grow the good ones, and let the bad ones wither and die?”

“Plants are part of nature; they are neither good nor bad,” he replied, drawing me to his knee. “It is the purpose we put them to that matters. The same plant that can sicken and kill an innocent girl like you can, if mixed in the right proportions, make a medicine that saves a young man from typhoid or cures a baby of the measles.”

“But why do you keep some plants apart then?” I demanded to know.

“Because of you, Jessamine. Because you are only a child. Until you are older, and have the wisdom to know what you may touch and taste and what you may not, I keep the most powerful plants behind the locked gate, where they cannot harm you.”

“You don’t have to lock the ‘pothecary garden, Father.” I pouted like the baby I was at the time. “If you tell me not to go in I surely will not.”

“If you surely will not,” he said with a smile, “then the existence of the lock should not trouble you in the slightest.”

I have never won an argument with Father, but it is not for lack of trying.

I add more coal to the fire, and light a fresh candle to sew by. It is mid-afternoon, but the sky is thickly blanketed with clouds. The day feels dim as dusk.

Father must be working hard, wherever he is. I hope it is not a child who is ill. Not that I am squeamish about sick people: in fact, I prefer to go with Father when he pays his visits. I like to watch how men thrash about as they battle against terrible fevers, or how women moan and grunt as they labour to bring their babes forth, while Father mixes just the right medicines to help ease their pains.

But there is so much work to do at the cottage, especially with spring coming. Now that I am old enough to mind the house and care for the gardens myself, Father usually insists that I stay at home.

So here I remain, with only my sewing basket and the wet seed babies of my lovely lady for company. A damp, shaded spot near the stone wall suits the belladonna plant best. Or so Father tells me. I have never seen it growing there myself, for I am still not permitted to enter the apothecary garden. It is too dangerous; I am too young, I do not know enough – Father is stubborn as stone and will not change his mind. Yet I want to learn. For now I content myself with leafing through Father’s books and examining the specimens he brings home.

That is how I came to know the belladonna berries. Every autumn Father collects the lush, ink-black fruits and preserves them in a glass jar, that he keeps on a high shelf in his study. In late winter he removes a few and delicately slits them open to harvest the seed.

This is the first year he has entrusted the seeds to me to prepare for planting. “Remember, Jessamine,” Father warned, “you will be raising a litter of assassins.”

That was Father’s idea of a joke, but I knew to heed the warning. When I change the soaking water, I wear gloves and remember not to touch my fingers to my lips or eyes. After I finish, I wash my hands twice with lye soap and throw the gloves in a bucket of bleach. I place a lid over the pail that holds the seeds and the fresh water, tie it fast with strong twine, and mark it POISON.

I do this even when I am alone, as I am now – one never knows when a vagrant might wander by in search of a cool drink. Even those who cannot read will know the sign POISON. If they ignore it, they do so at their peril.

Then I carry the discarded soaking water far from the cottage and drain it into a swampy, overgrown ditch. I choose one so thickly surrounded by bramble and gorse bushes that the duke’s sheep and cattle would never try to drink from it, nor any human either.

Last week I found a dead cat by the ditch. But I think it had died of something else. Even so, when I told Father, he dug a hole and buried the body right away, and Father is no particular friend to cats.

It was a deep hole, deep enough for a man’s grave. The cat was small, with soft orange fur. I know it was soft because I petted it to say good-bye, but the body was cold and stiff and Father told me not to touch.

I said a silent prayer too, as Father shovelled the dirt back into the hole. Soon the last glimpse of orange had disappeared; a slight depression in the muddy earth was all that marked the place. Within a fortnight that would grow over with brambles too.

“It is a rare beast that gets such a funeral,” Father remarked, sweating and leaning on his spade.” Lucky cat.”

Personally I think the cat would have been luckier had it lived. Then again, life for a stray, unwanted thing is not always pleasant, so perhaps Father was right after all.

And of course, we have other ways of keeping the mice away from our cottage.

Father laughs when I call Hulne Abbey “our cottage”.

“It is a ruin, a wreck, a pile of weathered, moss-covered rocks,” he always corrects me. But this is the only home I have ever known, and who can feel at home in a ruin? Anyway, Father exaggerates; where we live is no mere pile of rocks, though it is centuries old. It is not large, but it has a feeling of spaciousness; even, if you ask me, of grace.

That is no surprise. Father says our house used to be the chapel, in the long-ago days when the old monastery still stood on these lands. For miles around, the buildings and farms of the abbey stretched up through the hills until the distant spot where the planting fields end and the line of the forest begins. For five hundred years these fertile acres teemed with people and animals and life. No more though. Now Father and I live in the chapel; the rest of the monastery is rubble, and all the Catholics are in Ireland and France.

Sometimes, when the weather is fair, I lie on my back in the grass of a nearby field. I close my eyes and try to imagine that last, terrible day, in the hours before it was all laid waste. But even the grandfather of the oldest person in the town of Alnwick was not alive to see it. There is no one who can tell me what it was like to hide at the edge of the forest, as I imagine I would have done, watching in terror and fascination as the king’s soldiers smashed the ancient buildings to bits and then hunted down the fleeing monks like so many helpless rabbits.

Father often says he wishes they had torn down the chapel and left the monks’ library standing instead, but I like our home just as it is, a long, rectangular structure made of rough-hewn blocks of stone. Long ago Father divided the interior into rooms. My bedchamber is small and up a long flight of stairs, in the old bell tower. On the main floor is a bedchamber for Father, a study in which he does his work, and a front parlour where we take our meals. It is where I write my garden diary too, at the end of each day’s labours.

Of all these rooms, the parlour is the largest, and the one that still looks most like a church. There is a high, vaulted ceiling, and tall, arched windows that Father says once had stained-glass pictures in them. Now they are filled with thick, plain glass that is divided into many small panes. On sunny days the light slants through the panes and makes narrow, glowing pathways across the dark wood planks of the floor.

I used to play hopscotch with those paths of light when I was small – if I leap over the light without touching it, Mama will live, I would say to myself. But if my foot touches the light she will die.

My foot never, ever touched the light – to this day I will swear it – but Mama died anyway.

Oh, how I wept! I was only four, so perhaps the outburst can be forgiven. But I remember how Father’s voice stayed calm.

“That is the way of things,” he explained to me at the time, “All creatures die when their time comes. No matter what we do, or how we may feel about it, nature always gets her prize in the end.”

Father is always so strong and wise. Sometimes I wish I were more like him. I wish I could accept that the way fate has arranged things is both right and good, and that living here alone with him, sewing and cooking and tending the garden, and perhaps, when I am old enough – perhaps, in my mind I can hear him say it! – learning to help him with his work, as I am beginning to do now with the belladonna seeds, is exactly the way my life was intended to be.

But, other times, the scent of bread baking, a remembered, loving smile, or an especially lonely winter night, with no one to sing me to sleep, leaves me weeping in secret for Mama, and filled with a kind of fury I cannot name.

It happens less often as the years go by though.

Chapter Two

16th March

THE WEATHER CONTINUES DAMP AND COLD;

I built a strong fire in the morning and still could not get warm. Peeled potatoes and parsnips for soup. Cleaned and oiled all the boots. Changed the soaking water for the belladonna seeds.

Still no word from Father.

From the tower window in my bedchamber I can see quite a distance: over the crumbling stone wall that encloses the courtyard and cottage, past the quilt pattern of farmers’ fields marked by hedgerows, to the narrow path that snakes through the hills to the main crossroads where the four directions meet.

Down the road to the south is the town of Alnwick, where the duke’s castle stands guard over Northumberland. To the north, the Cheviot Hills and Scotland. The westbound road will carry travellers to Newcastle, if they are not murdered by highwaymen along the way. To the east lies the sea.

If I happen to be looking out of my window when Father returns, I will be able to see him coming two miles away, a lone, stoop-shouldered figure walking from the crossroads down the winding footpath that cuts across the sheep fields.

Even when the need for his services is urgent, Father prefers to walk. He likes to stop and examine whatever grows by the side of the road. There he might find a rare type of wildflower that he covets for our garden beds, or some creeping plant whose properties are unfamiliar to him, or a strange mushroom growing on the back of a rotted stump.

Many times he will return home from a journey with his satchel full of specimens. I always offer to sketch them for his plant notebooks. These notebooks fill many shelves in his study, but none of them contain the formulas for his medicines. That information is secret. The recipes for making his tinctures and tisanes, oils and ointments, smudge pots and poultices are recorded in a leather-bound volume he keeps in the locked bottom drawer of his desk. I have only seen it once, years ago, and then only because I walked in on him while he was writing in it – a mistake I have not made since –

I burst in without knocking and stood in the doorway to his study, a breathless, saucer-eyed girl with mud-spattered legs and a five-legged frog cupped in my hand.

“Look, Father! I found it in a puddle at the foot of the wall, that great stone wall that hides the ’pothecary garden! I ran straight back to show you. Have you ever seen such a freakish creature? Will it live? Should it live?”

As soon as he saw me he shoved the book away, locked the drawer, and pocketed the key.

“Set it free, Jessamine.” His eyes stayed fixed on his desk as if they would bore two holes in it. “The frog’s destiny is no business of yours.”

Now there are two men in the distance, but neither of them is Father. One is too short, and the other is too fat. They are the Wesleyan preachers, a loudmouthed pair from one of the nonconformist sects. They used to come to the door now and then, in their long coats and strange hats, saying, “The end of the world is nigh!”

I find them funny, to be truthful. “The end of the world” – what a notion! As if there were anything to be done about that. Surely it would be better not to know.

I do not think the preachers will pay a call today though. The last time they came, Father spoke to them very harshly, “That it will someday be the year eighteen hundred, rather than seventeen what-you-please, is a simple mathematical fact of the Gregorian calendar. It is a new century, not a harbinger of doom!” he bellowed. “Take your superstitions, and be gone!”

They have not knocked on our door since.

I watch through the window as the two figures disappear into the valley at the foot of one hill and reappear a short time later, as the path rises over the slope of the next. But there is no Father, not yet.

I awaken in Father’s chair, the one in the parlour nearest the hearth. I had not meant to fall asleep, but an hour’s sewing made me close my eyes to rest them. Now the cloud-veiled sun is low in the sky, and the skirt with the torn hem that I was in the midst of mending has slipped from my lap to the dirty floor.

Father is not home. Could some misfortune have befallen him? It makes my chest tighten to think of it, like a heavy rope has been coiled around my body and pulled hard, until I can barely breathe.

If something happened to Father, then I would truly be alone.

I would be alone with the cottage that once was a chapel, and the gardens, and the ruins, and whatever ghosts of dead monks still wander the fields. I might never have cause to speak aloud again.

Unless I left. I could leave, I suppose, if something happened to Father.

Why not? I could leave Hulne Abbey to crumble and the gardens to grow wild. Someday, after many seasons of snow and rain, the iron lock that seals the great black gate to the apothecary garden would rust and break open. The heavy chain would slip to the ground, and all the deadly plants would be loosed upon the world –

This is all more foolishness. I am used to being alone, and it is ridiculous to mind it. Father is fine, I know it. He is too clever and strong to let anything bad happen to him. And I have plenty of work to occupy me and keep my thoughts from straying into dark corners. I check my list:

I will turn over the empty garden beds and prepare them for planting.

I will spread a fresh layer of mulch over the strawberry patch.

I will cut back last year’s dead growth on all the kitchen herbs, right to the ground, so the new sprouts will have sun and room to grow.

Good health to Father, I think nervously. A quick recovery to his patient, whomever it may be. A safe and speedy return to the cottage.

But it occurs to me: perhaps there is no one sick. Perhaps Father is at Alnwick, at the castle library, lost in his research and the workings of his own mind, and that is why he has not thought to send word to me. Perhaps he has finally found the mysterious books he has sought for so long, among the duke’s many ancient and dusty volumes – the ones he believes may have been rescued from the hospital of the old monastery, before the soldiers came to burn what would burn and smash the rest.

Do these volumes even exist? Father believes they do. He believes passionately and without proof, the way other men believe in God. He often talks of these books in the evenings in our parlour, a glass of absinthe and water in his hand. When he speaks of them, his speech quickens and his eyes flash.

“The monastery hospital was famous throughout Europe,” he begins, as if I had not heard this tale from birth. “The monks’ power to heal the sick was so great that the people called them miracle workers, and sometimes even saints.” Then he laughs. “Anyone could be such a saint, if they had access to the same information as those long-dead holy men! Someone must have saved the volumes that contain all the monks’ wisdom. It would have been madness not to.”

He sips his green, liquorice-scented drink and continues in this vein until the fire dies and my head nods forward on my chest.

Sometimes I think Father’s hunger to know what the monks knew is a madness all its own. Once, long ago, I watched him dig up a ten-foot square in a distant field to twice the depth of his spade. He planted nothing, but visited the place daily for weeks, to see if anything unusual had sprouted in the freshly turned earth.

“Did you think your shovel might wake the bones of all those dead monks, until they rise and tell you their secrets?” I joked nervously as I watched him sift through the dirt with his fingers.

“The monks may be dead, but their medicines still lie sleeping in the ground.” There was an edge to his voice. “Hidden deep in the cold, dark earth, a seed can be nearly immortal. Even after so many years, if exposed once more to the light and air and rain, there is a chance some long-forgotten plant of great power may yet reveal itself.”

I had meant only to tease, but instead I seem to have stirred Father’s anger, for he kept muttering furiously to himself: “But what of it? Any discovery I make will be useless, unless I can learn the specimen’s properties, its uses, its dangers…”

“No one knows more about plants than you do, Father,” I said, to calm him.

He climbed to his feet, dirt clinging to his knees. All at once he was shouting, “Compared to the monks I know nothing! I dig blindly to rediscover what they took as common sense. The formulae all burned, the wisdom of centuries in ashes…To kill such knowledge is itself murder – it is worse than murder—”

Father raged on. I stopped listening and let his voice turn to a wordless buzz, a hornet floating near my ear. All I could think was, But how could a puny seed be immortal, when it was so easy for Mama to die?

Wait, I hear someone at the door – it must be Father home at last—

Chapter Three

17th March

WARMER TODAY, BUT A STEADY WIND BLOWS from the east, smelling faintly of the sea. The sun peeked through the clouds briefly after lunch. Then grey skies once more.

Made breakfast for Father, who ate little and said less. After the meal he went straight to his study and locked the door. I am alone again.

Changed the soaking water for the belladonna seeds – only one more day before they are ready for planting!

Father still has not told me where he was.

I try to busy myself with chores. I practise sketching, though I can find nothing of interest to sketch: a kettle, a chair, a ball of yarn.

After lunch I can stand it no longer. The fire is still in embers, so I am quickly able to rekindle it and put on a kettle of water for tea. As soon as the tea is ready, I set it on a tray and proceed to Father’s study.

Before I knock, I peer through the keyhole. What I see only fills me with more questions. Father paces around the room and mutters like a wild thing, grabbing volumes from the shelves and throwing them down again. His heavy leather-bound book of formulas, the one he keeps locked in a drawer, lies open on his desk. Now and then he comes back to the book and leafs through the pages, looking for something that he clearly cannot find.

I take a deep breath to calm myself and knock on the great wooden door.

“Father? I brought you some tea.”

Silence. Then:

“I did not ask for tea, Jessamine.”

“I want to speak to you.”

A thud, as of a large book slammed shut. The bang of a drawer closing, the click of a lock. Father opens the door, the small gold key still in his hand.

“Speak then. I am busy; I am sure you can deduce that from the state of my desk.” He looks down at the tray. “What type of tea is it?”

“Lemon balm. Made with leaves that I saved from last summer and dried in the storeroom.” I lift the tray higher, so he can catch the scent. “It is very soothing.”

“Lemon balm tea,” he echoes as I make my way past him and place the tray on his desk. The dark wood is pocked and crisscrossed with grooves from a few centuries’ worth of scribbling pens. “Such a simple, harmless drink. Made by your own sweet hands, I presume?”

“Of course.” I hand him the cup. Lemon-scented steam rises between us. As he sips I gather my courage to ask, “Where were you, Father?”

“In my study, obviously. I have been in here all day.”

“I mean yesterday. And the day before, and the day before that.”

He turns away. “I was where my services were required; that is all you need to know.”

“That is not an answer.” I too can be stubborn – I am my father’s daughter, after all. “I was left here alone for three days. Surely it is only fair that I know why.”

He looks angry at first. Then his face softens.

“I am sorry if you were anxious, Jessamine. I was called away to deal with an urgent medical matter. It took up all of my attention; if you had asked me how many days I had been absent from home, I myself

could not tell you.”

“Called away to where?”

“I have been in London.”

“London! Why? Where? Why did you not take me?”

He holds up a hand to stop my questions. “I have been to places I hope you never go, and seen things I hope you never see. I was in London. That is all I will say, and even that is saying too much. Now forgive me; I must get back to work.” He turns to retreat to his chair, then stops. “How are the gardens, Jessamine? Are you tending them well?”

“Of course. I have turned over all the beds, and planted the lettuce and radishes, and—”

He interrupts. “And the belladonna seeds?”

“I have changed the water every day, exactly as you showed me. Tomorrow they will be ready for planting.” On a foolish impulse I add, “May I plant the seeds myself? I have taken good care of them this far.”

“No. I will do it.”

“But, Father, why not?”

“You have already done too much.”

“Soaking seeds? I’ve done nothing! How I wish you would let me into the apothecary garden! I could help you with your research, your cures—”

“No! You must not. Swear to me, Jessamine. Even when I am not at home – and I may have to go away again, and soon – swear that you will not go in there.” Father walks towards me step by step, forcing me to retreat until I stand in the doorway to the study once more.

“You needn’t make me swear. The gate is locked, remember?” I sound sullen and sarcastic; I cannot help it. “For I am only a foolish child who cannot be trusted to have sense enough not to poison herself. Isn’t that what you think? But you are mistaken, Father. I am not a child any more.”

“You are a child,” Father says flatly, “until I say you are not. Now leave me. I will see you at supper.”

He steps back, and the ancient door shuts in my face.

Out of the front door of the cottage, through the courtyard, past the ruins and the outer wall, to the footpath, the crossroads, the world. I walk quickly, until my breath comes fast and my heart pounds.

I may not go back. No – I will not go back. If Father can disappear for three days, so can I. For three days, or three years, or three lifetimes.

You are a child until I say you are not.

Am I really? What child would leave home as I do now, with no destination except away from you, penniless and provisionless, with only the shawl around her head for shelter?

When I grow hungry I will find roots and berries to eat. Perhaps it is out here, in the wide, wild, unchained world, that I will finally taste all the forbidden fruit you keep under lock and key. Perhaps there are fresh mysteries growing in the woods, delicious, dangerous poisons that even you do not know exist!

In this way my spiteful, wounded thoughts circle round and round, erasing the passage of time. Am I a mile from the cottage? Five miles? Ten? I break into a half-run as the path veers into a downhill slope, and spread my arms like a sail to catch the wind. If only the currents of air could lift me and carry me! How pleasant it would be to fly on that wind, like the tuft of a dandelion. How much easier it would be to soar, weightless, than to trudge across the countryside dragging the bulk of my long skirt and petticoat, with my feet bound into heavy boots that seem to have grown too small again.

I pause to catch my breath and to still my whirling brain. My thoughts trip over one another, vying to be heard, like many voices in a shouting mob. My hair has come loose and the stinging tendrils whip into my eyes. The hem of my skirt is heavy with mud; my sleeves are damp with the tears I have been wiping away since I bolted from the cottage. I did not think to bring water with me – I was not thinking at all when I ran out in the heat of fury – and now my throat is raw and dry.

It would serve Father right if I sated my thirst from the ditch where I poured the belladonna water, I think bitterly. Let him find me dead under the gorse bushes. Let him bury me deep in the ground, my arms twined around the bones of that soft, orange-furred cat.

Exhausted, I let myself fall to the ground in the sheep meadow that borders the path. I lie with my back pressed to the earth and feel the dampness of the grass seeping into my clothes.

Above me, high in the cold blue sky, a black dot moves, first one way, then another, making wide, deliberate zigzags towards the earth. As it descends, it grows larger, grows wings, grows a voice.

It is a raven, and its raspy cry mocks my own dry sobs. It lands on a fence post by the path, ten paces up the slope from me. Proudly it flexes its great black wings; when fully open, they span nearly as far as I can spread my own two arms. Its sleek head gleams with an iridescent, oily sheen.

I lift myself up on my elbows. In answer, the bird cocks its head to the side so I can admire its lifeless black eye, set like a black pearl in the side of its skull. It repeats its raw cry – a terrible, merciless cry.

Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

The sheep bleat in fear and move away. The raven hunkers down into itself and gathers its energy to spring. It has decided on a target, chosen a victim – a young lamb that has wandered too far from the flock –

In a flash I am on my feet, a stone in my hand. With all my might I hurl it at the raven. My aim is low, and the stone hits the post with a sharp thwack. The bird flaps its wings clumsily in surprise and rises on taut, wiry legs. It swivels its head to look at me full on.

I hurl another stone. This time I hit the bird squarely, right on its oily black chest.

KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

The raven screams in fury and takes flight, circling around and swooping low over my head. I fall to the ground and curl in a ball, covering my face with the shawl.

Go ahead, wicked bird, I think, try to peck out my eyes if you can. Even blinded, I will grab you by the throat and never let go. I am that angry and reckless now, and I care nothing for what happens to me.

As if hearing my thoughts, the raven retreats, still complaining, until its furious cry fades into the sky.

I uncurl my body and look around. The sheep stare at me, their limpid, nearly human eyes wet with gratitude.

I shiver with cold and fatigue, and my knees weaken with the relief that comes when danger has passed.

It has passed for the lamb, perhaps. For now. But not for me.

Finally I let myself feel all the fear and sorrow in my heart, and my tears are set loose once more. I am easy prey, I think, a motherless lamb, alone in the world. No flock, no friends, no green field I can call home. And the skies are full of ravens.

I have no choice. I must go back to Hulne Abbey.

During my wild race from home, rage and hurt blotted out all sense of time passed or distance travelled – but now, on the shame-filled journey back, the movement of the clock resumes with vengeful slowness. It is a full three hours before I reach the cottage. For the final torturous hour I must pick my footing step by step in the pitch dark, for of course I have no lantern. Twice I stumble and catch myself on my hands, leaving my palms scraped bloody from the gravelly path.

Easy prey, my fear whispers to me with every step. Remember what you are.

The cottage is cold and dark when I finally cross its threshold, with only a few glowing remnants of a fire glowing among the ashes in the parlour hearth. If there has been a supper I have missed it, but with no one to cook or call him to the table, Father may well still be working, reading and muttering, oblivious to all that has taken place outside the locked world of his study.

I light a candle and rummage in the pantry until I find a leftover boiled egg and some cold cooked potato. I wrap them in a linen napkin to take upstairs with me. I will eat them in private and then go to sleep, to put the memory of this awful day behind me as quickly as I can.

The house is so quiet; perhaps Father has already retired to bed. Out of habit I pause to check the pail by the back door, the one marked POISON that holds the belladonna seeds. Tonight is their last night soaking in this watery womb. Tomorrow they will be planted, in the garden where I am not permitted to go.

I lift the lid and lower my candle so I can see inside.

The bucket is dry and empty. The belladonna seeds are gone.

My first, horrified thought: Has someone stolen them? Father will be furious!

But then I listen again: the cottage is silent, but there are noises coming from outside. Dull, digging noises. The sound of earth being turned.

Now that I no longer need its light, the moon has risen and bathed the courtyard in its soft glow. But I do not have to see my way. I know exactly where to go. Past the courtyard, past the fishpond, past all the garden beds, up the narrow winding path to the left that leads to the tall, locked gate.

I lay one hand on the rough metal chain; with the other I clasp the lock. I press my forehead against the cold iron bars, and peer through the dark forms and moving shadows of a mysterious world I will never be allowed to enter.

Father is at the north wall, bent over in the moonlight, digging. Whistling softly. Happy.

Silently I return to the cottage. I stand by the back door, my head hanging down in defeat.

Without my bidding, my foot lashes out and kicks over the empty pail.

Will everything I care for be taken away from me?

Chapter Four

23rd March

AFINE, CLEAR DAY, BUT A SHARP METAL SMELL IN THE air warns of a coming storm. I planted more radishes in the morning, also set bulbs of onions and garlic. The bulbs overwintered nicely in the cellar; they were dry and firm, with no sign of mould.

Took out my mending basket to repair torn stockings and found a

The sound of hoofbeats seems to come from nowhere, and gets louder so quickly I drop my pen to the floor in surprise. Father did not say that we would be receiving company, and now I cannot recall if the beds are made—

The hoofbeats get closer by the second. They must be headed here, for the nearest farm is two miles in the other direction.

“Father!” I call, as I half run to the kitchen to put away the breakfast things. “Someone is coming! Shall I prepare a meal? Shall I make tea?”

It has been almost a week since Father stole (for in my mind he did steal them) and planted the belladonna seeds. We have not spoken of it, nor have we spoken of much else in the intervening days. But the excitement of an unexpected guest makes me forget my resolve to punish him with my silence.

“Father!” I call more loudly. “Are you expecting company?”

We do not get many visitors at the cottage, only the occasional tradesman trying to sell us tin pots, or a matron from a neighbouring farm seeking a cure for the toothache. But every now and again the duke himself will appear, unannounced, with a small hunting party in tow. This land is the duke’s land, as is most of the acreage in Northumberland, and the fields and forests that spread over the site of the old monastery have long been the duke’s favourite hunting park. After an afternoon’s shooting, he and his guests have sometimes stopped here to gaze at the ruins, water their horses, and brag about the day’s kill.

Father lurches into the parlour with his hair standing every which way, as if he had spent hours running his hands through it in deep concentration. “I expect no one. And I do not wish to be disturbed, so whoever it is, bid them be gone.”

“But what if it is the duke?”

He listens. The hoofbeats are insistent, a hard gallop coming straight this way.

His face turns grim. “Whoever comes travels alone, and at reckless speed. It is not the duke, but it might be a highwayman. Stand back from the door, Jessamine.”

Father grabs his gun from the wooden box on the floor beside the entrance to the cottage, and unbolts the heavy arched wooden door.

He steps out into the courtyard. I am frightened, but my curiosity is greater than my fear, and I follow. We emerge just in time to see our visitor gallop up and pull his horse to an abrupt stop directly in front of our door, raising a choking cloud of dust.

The horse has been ridden too hard for too long; its mouth drips foam, and its neck and flanks are flecked with sweat. It whinnies and rears high in complaint at the brutal pull on the reins. The rider curses and yanks the horse’s head hard around.

I sneak closer behind Father so I can get a glimpse of our uninvited guest. He is a long-limbed, pock-faced man. Lashed to the saddle behind him is a large, shapeless bundle wrapped in a threadbare blanket and tied around with rope.

The man slips off the horse’s back and lands heavily on the ground. “Thomas Luxton?” he barks. “The apothecary?”

“I am he.” Behind his back, Father’s hand tightens on the gun.

“May I speak to you, sir?”

“You already have, sir.” Father seems to double in size until he fills the doorway. “What is your business? You arrive like a fire wagon racing to put out a blaze. But as you can see –” Father gestures in such a way as to reveal his weapon – “we have no need of assistance.”

At the sight of the gun, the man steps back. Then he sees me hiding behind Father. For a split second our eyes meet. I know mine are filled with fear.

He sighs and stamps the mud off his boots, then reaches up to remove his three-cornered hat. He wears a wig, as is the fashion, but when he takes off the hat he knocks his wig slightly askew. Suddenly I am no longer afraid, for how can one be afraid of a man in a crooked wig?

“Forgive me,” he says gruffly. “There is no need to defend yourself; I mean you no harm. My name is Tobias Pratt. I am sorry to disturb you and will not stay one moment longer than necessary. But I ask that you let me enter your home briefly, so that you and I may speak – in private.”

When he says “in private” , I think he must mean out of my hearing, for who else is here but Father and me? But the bundle on the back of Pratt’s horse stirs.

“Water,” it moans. Whether the voice is young or old, male or female, I cannot say.

“Shut your mouth, boy. You’ve had plenty of water today.” Pratt turns back to Father. “What I have to say will be of interest to you, Luxton, I swear it. Will you hear me out?”

Father says nothing, but stares at the pitiful, rag-swaddled creature on the horse.

“Water,” it moans again, but this time quite low and sad, as if it has no hope of being heard.

I would fetch the creature some water; what harm could there be in that? I am about to ask permission to do so when Father speaks.

“As you wish,” he says abruptly. “Come inside and say what you have to say. The sooner you are gone, the sooner I can get back to my work.”

“Father, ought I to get some water for…?” I nod my head in the direction of the horse and its strange burden.

“Leave the monster be for now,” Pratt interjects. “After you hear my tale, you may do with it what you will.”

“Tobias Pratt – your name is familiar to me; why is that?” Father and our visitor are seated at the table. I have already made the tea. Quickly and silently I put some biscuits on a dish, and stand aside to listen.

“I am the founder and proprietor of Pratt’s Convalescent Home,” Pratt says proudly as he shoves two biscuits at once into his mouth. “I imagine you’ve heard of it. It is a respected establishment here in the north.”

“Indeed I have.” Father waves away my offer of tea, so I pour a cup for Pratt and take my seat in the shadows. “You run a madhouse in the countryside, a few miles west of Haydon Bridge, do you not?”

Pratt shrugs. “Call it a madhouse if you will; I prefer to think of it as a safe and comfortable refuge for the mentally unhinged. Pratt’s Home has always been a well-run institution and, if I may say, a profitable business too. We take all comers, as long as their families can pay: lunatics, melancholics, would-be poets who’ve addled their brains with laudanum. We’ve seen quite a lot of that type lately, in fact.”

Pratt forces a smile that looks more like a grimace. One of his two front teeth is missing; the other is rotten and black, and the stink of his breath reaches even to where I sit, on my small stool near the fire. He pushes back his chair and stretches out his spindly legs. “So you see, you and I are both medical men, after a fashion, Luxton.”

The disgust on Father’s face is impossible to miss. “I consider myself a plantsman, first and foremost. And you sound more like a banker than a healer, frankly. But now I know who you are, and how you earn your keep. So I ask you again: what brings you to my door, Mr Pratt?”

“I have a story to tell you.” Pratt drains his tea and puts the cup down with so much force it rattles the dishes. “And a gift for you as well – although you may not want it, after you hear what I have to say.”

A thin blue vein throbs in a crooked line down the centre of Father’s forehead. “A gift I may not want?” he says coldly. “You are trying to intrigue me, Pratt. That alone is enough to make me show you the door, for I dislike being played with. If you have something to say, say it, and make sure it’s the plain truth while you’re at it. I have no patience for elaboration.”

For a moment Pratt looks as if he would try to argue; to his credit he thinks better of it. “Have it your way, Luxton. The plain truth it shall be. My tale is about a boy. A foundling boy, an orphan, no doubt. He’s a strange, half-grown lad. I don’t know how old; at a glance I’d say about as old as your daughter here – this is your daughter, is it not?” He jerks a thumb in my direction. “She’s a bit young to be a wife, to my way of thinking, but to each his own.”

I feel my cheeks redden. “The girl is no part of your tale; leave her out of it, if you please,” Father says harshly.

Pratt lifts his hands in apology and continues. “I meant no offence. This boy I speak of – he came to live with me nearly two months ago. Before that he’d been raised by a local friar; before the friar, God only knows where he was whelped. He’s not much to look at, a skittish, wild-eyed sort of waif. You know the type: flinches when you speak to him, never lifts his eyes from his shoes, a body so thin a strong wind could snap him in two like a dead branch.”

“The company of poets has taken its toll on you, Pratt,” Father says wryly. “Judging from your description, this urchin hardly seems a worthwhile addition to your household. Why did you take him in to begin with?”

Pratt squirms. “Well, you know how it is. There’s no end to the work in my business, and an extra set of hands is always welcome. And the scrawny ragamuffin scarcely ate, so he was no expense to keep. He never took any gruel or bread. Now and then I’d catch him eating a bit of rabbit or pigeon he’d caught on his own. I let him sleep in the coal bin and put him to work gathering firewood and doing errands for the cook.”

“So you took the child as an unpaid servant,” Father observes. “A slave, to put it bluntly.”

“Better that than freezing by the roadside!” Pratt retorts. “I could tell right off he was an odd one, but he did his work without complaint. After he got his bearings, one day he asks if he might start bringing in the afternoon tea for the patients. Like a fool I let him.”

“A fool?” Father interjects sharply. “In what way?”

Pratt wrings his hands as if he is trying to wring the words out of himself. “A fool, yes…I wonder what you will make of this, Luxton – the wretched brat cured my inmates!”

“Cured them – of what?”

“Of their madness! What else is there to cure a madman of?” Pratt rises from his chair and paces around the small room. “Mind you, these were hard cases. Babbling, gibbering maniacs who’d wrap their hands around your throat if you looked at them sideways. Women who cackled like hyenas and tore their hair from the roots. But within a fortnight after the boy arrived, the worst of the lot were lolling about the garden, reading The Times and exchanging pleasantries!” He leans close to Father. “Here’s the meat of it, Luxton: I’m convinced the brat put something in the tea.”

Silence, except for the crackle and sputter of the fire.

“Fascinating,” Father finally says, in a level voice. “What do you suppose it was?”

“Who knows? Who cares? Straightaway I told the witch boy, ‘Whatever tonic you’re brewing in that kettle of yours, I order you to put an end to it now. If England runs out of madmen I’ll soon go out of business, and that means you’ll be out of a home once more; how would you like that, you wretched pup?’Well, I thought I’d made my point clear as day, and that’d be the end of it – but the lad said nothing, just stared at his feet nodding.”

“And then?”

“That was two weeks ago. My inmates – those that are left – are docile as doves, but half the town has gone mad.” Pratt wipes the sweat from his forehead with his soiled sleeve. “Respectable matrons running unclothed in the streets. Grown men jumping off rooftops, screaming, ‘I can fly, I can fly!’ Now people are starting to look upon my business with suspicion. As if madness were contagious!”

It might only be the play of firelight on his features, but to me it looks almost as if Father is trying not to laugh. “Shocking,” he remarks, not sounding particularly surprised. “And did the boy have anything to say about this development?”

“I asked him, you may be sure,” Pratt says, clenching his fists. “I had to find him first; the guilty wretch had disappeared. I searched high and low, until I found him lying in a hayfield, happy as you please. I lifted him up by the shirtfront and shook him hard, and demanded to know what devilment he’d wrought this time! And hear what he says, in his smug, simpering voice: ‘I know nothing of devils, Master, but I did speak to an angel once.’ The cheek! So I shouted at him, right in his face so there’d be no mistaking my mood, ‘Don’t talk to me of angels! The whole town has gone loony!’And the imp shrugs his bony shoulders and says, ‘Business will be picking up then.’ You see what I’ve been up against.”

Exhausted, Pratt collapses into his seat at the table again, and props his head in his hands.

The light from the fire leaps and flickers. I burn too, with curiosity; what does Father make of this outlandish tale? He says nothing for a long time, and then gestures to me.

“I believe I am ready for that tea now, Jessamine.”

I leap up and pour. Father stirs his cup idly for a moment and then raises his eyes to Pratt.

“Who is this boy? Where does he come from?”

Pratt shakes his head. “No family that anyone knows of, or that he’ll admit to. As I said, he was living with a local friar when I came into possession of him. He answers to the name of Weed. It suits him, if you ask me.”

“And where is the friar now?”

Pratt glances at me, then looks away. “Dead. The friar died in his sleep, with no sign of illness as warning and only this boy as witness.”

Father stands. I can see from his face that he has had enough of this man. “It is an outlandish story, to be sure,” he says. “But I am confused; you mentioned something about a gift?”

“I mean the boy, Luxton. That’s him tied up on the back of my horse. I want you to take him off my hands.”

I bite my lip so as not to let out a yelp of surprise, but I bite too hard and the taste of blood fills my mouth. But Pratt called him “monster”, I think. Surely Papa will say no?

Father crosses to the fire. He does not warm his hands, but stands gazing into the leaping yellow flames. Without turning his head, he answers, “After all that you have just told me, what reason could I possibly have to give this Weed of yours a home?”

Pratt glances at me again, then turns back to Father and speaks in a low voice. “I know a bit about you, Luxton. People in my line of work, we talk to one another. I’ve heard about what your interests are, the research you do, your potions, your ‘experiments’—”

“Enough!” Father snaps. “I will not listen to this gibberish. Go, and take your miserable stray with you.”

Pratt rises and slaps his hat on his head. “The boy seems to know a thing or two about brewing a pot of tea. From what people say about you, I thought that might be reason enough to pique your interest.” He turns as he reaches the door. “Tell you what: you take him in and find out for yourself if he’s any worth to you. Then we’ll talk price. Once you’ve satisfied your curiosity, I don’t care what you do with him. Nor will anyone else; he’s a weed to be sure. Dispose of him as you wish.”

“A strange gift, indeed,” Father says, stroking his chin. “Very well. Only time will tell whether thanks – or payment – are in order, so you will excuse me for not offering either just yet.”

“You’ll take him, then?” Pratt seems both relieved and incredulous.

“For a while at least.”

“You’re not afraid?”

Father smiles. “From what you say, Pratt, he’s only a youth, and a dimwitted one at that. The deeds you accuse him of would require knowledge that few people possess, not to mention a deceitful and murderous spirit. The poor wretch hardly sounds capable.”

Pratt shakes his head. “For your sake, Luxton, I hope you’re right. But if you want my advice – keep him out of the kitchen.”

With that, Pratt strides to the door. Father and I follow him outside. The huddled figure still teeters and sways on the back of Pratt’s horse. Without offering so much as a word, Pratt unties the bundle from the saddle, lifts it off the horse, and heaves it to the ground.

As he does I catch a glimpse – a tangled mess of black hair above a pale, high forehead.

Pratt untethers his horse and swings himself up and astride. He looks down at Father and me, and then at the piteous figure in the dirt. For a moment it seems as if he might say some words of farewell.

“Hey-ah!” he grunts, then kicks his horse hard, and they are off.

Father and I stand wordlessly as the hoofbeats fade into the distance. A passing cloud covers the sun and sends a sudden chill across the courtyard.

“It is a shame your former master left in such a hurry,” Father remarks to the mysterious figure on the ground. “It seems he was eager to be rid of you. Yet with a few minutes of friendly conversation we might have persuaded you to tell him exactly what it was that you dumped in the village well.”

There is movement, wriggling. The mummylike wrapping loosens. First the dark, tousled hair emerges, followed by the high, pale forehead. Then two wide emerald green eyes appear.

My breath catches in my chest at the sight. I have never seen such beautiful eyes – like twin jewels. No monster could possess features of such beauty. All my fear of this new arrival dissolves in an instant.

Those hypnotic green eyes stare at Father, expressionless as glass.

“Was it monkshood, perhaps? Or angel’s trumpet? No matter; someone will figure it out eventually, though a few delirious villagers may leap to their deaths in the meantime. And you are called Weed, eh?” Father opens the door of the cottage and gestures for Weed to enter. “The perfect name for an unwanted sprout like you. Now unswaddle yourself from those rags, and come inside. I wish to discover exactly what sort of a gift you are.”

Chapter Five

25th March

THE WEATHER HAS SHIFTED. THE BREEZE IS WARM AND full of promise. No time to write more. I have to tend to Weed.

Today is the first day of a new season.

It is the season of Weed.

He is not much company yet. All day and all night he hides in the coal bin, hunched and silent. Father says it must be because that is what he was accustomed to at the madhouse, but I think Father may have frightened him with his wild talk of throwing poison into wells; it is no wonder he does not wish to speak to us. So far he has refused to eat most of the food I bring, though he will drink as much water as he is offered.

I will be patient. Any wild creature can be tamed, if you are willing to wait and be still. I have learned this from the feral cats that lurk around the courtyard. They stare like yellow-eyed demons; they bolt and hide if you approach, but sooner or later, when they are hungry enough, they come and take the food from your hand.

So it will be with Weed – but not yet. In the meantime I have decided that I will introduce myself to him, to get him accustomed to my presence. He may not answer me at first, but that is no matter. I have someone to talk to, at last! My words will be like sunshine and air. My voice will rain down on him, and then we shall see what glorious orchid may blossom from this shy, unwanted Weed.

I race through my chores in half the usual time so that I may spend the rest of the day taming my new friend. Since he will not leave the coal bin, I carry my small stool down to the cellar and sit as close as I dare.

“My name is Jessamine Luxton,” I say, as a way to begin. “I am sixteen years of age. My father is Thomas Luxton, the apothecary. You have met him already; he was the one that picked you up off the ground and brought you inside the cottage, after that dreadful man on horseback left you lying in the dirt like rubbish.”

While I speak he stays facing away from me, his body curved around his knees as if he were encased in the hard husk of a seed.

“So,” I say, nudging my stool an inch closer, “now you have met Father and me. That means you have met my whole family, for my mother is dead, and I am an only child. My father and I live here on our own.”

I see a finger twitch, flex.

“This place we live in, this house, which I call our cottage – it is very old. Some would say it is a sacred place. The Catholic monks used to live and worship here.”

He turns, and his mouth moves as if he would speak.

“Bells,” he breathes.

His voice is so soft it is not even a whisper. More like the rustle of a leaf.

“Yes,” I say encouragingly, in case I heard right. “Centuries ago, in this very place, there were church bells ringing, and Mass bells, and the call to vespers. When the monastery was here there must have been bells ringing all the time.”

“Bells.”

I am nearly sure that is what he said, but it was so soft, a mere flutter of air. “Bells?” I repeat gently. “Do you mean Canterbury bells? They are such pretty flowers, I grow them in my cutting garden.”

Weed’s whole face brightens. “Garden?” he asks, quite clearly.

His green eyes pierce me like emerald daggers. “Do you like gardens? We have many,” I say in a rush. “In the kitchen gardens I grow all our vegetables and herbs for the table, and there is a small orchard for fruit, and a bee garden so the bees will make delicious honey, and a dye garden so I can make dyes to colour the wool. And Father has his apothecary garden of plants that he uses to make medicines and cures – but we may not enter there, for Father’s work is secret, and many of those plants are poison—”

“Jessamine!” Father stands silhouetted at the top of the cellar stairs. “What on earth are you telling that boy?”

“Nothing—”

“Do not lie, Jessamine. I heard you speaking. A person cannot speak nothing.”

“I am sorry, Father. I should have said, ‘Nothing of importance’,” I reply with false cheer, to cover the shame I feel at being scolded in front of Weed. “I was telling Weed about us, and our home, and about the gardens – he ought to know where he is, and in whose care, oughtn’t he?”

Father ignores my reply. “Since he is ready to speak, bring the boy upstairs to my study. At once please.” Then he leaves, letting the door close behind him. The shaft of daylight coming down the stairwell is snuffed out.

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