Hester(7)

The crowd cowers as Marshal MacGreggor raises an arm.

“Go ye, look into your souls and upon your friends and neighbors and do not dither to look into your own hearts and hearth as well, for the Devil can be anywhere—the Devil is clever and may be disguised even as your most beloved.”





THREE





I married well—or so it seemed at first.

Our courtship began in Glasgow on St. Andrew’s Day, when Pap’s new wife crowded me against the cookstove while I was preparing the roast, and I badly scorched my hand on a hot iron poker. I tried not to blame her, for she was bulky with the coming babe and careless of everyone.

Our regular apothecary being closed for the holiday, I ran to the finest shop at the top of the road and pounded until the door opened. My hand was throbbing, the burn already pulsing into oozing blisters.

“Edward Gamble at your service, my lady.”

The apothecary’s voice carried a hint of Ireland, and he spoke without a trace of annoyance. He held my wrist longer than seemed necessary, then told me to wait on a wooden bench. After a few moments he returned with a pot of cream that smelled of flax, honey, and something rancid.

“There now.” He rubbed the lotion with a gentle touch and the pain began to seep from my hand. “The salve will heal the wound to nothing but a small mark.”

His words and voice might have belonged to a mesmerist, so soothing and reassuring were they. When I looked down, the blistering on my hand had faded and the throbbing soothed to the pulse of a tiny timepiece.

“Like magic,” I murmured.

I’d been taught to fear anything that hinted at witchcraft, but magic in medicine seemed an admirable and desirable quality, and I told him so.

“Yes.” He looked up in surprise and I felt a strange thrill, as if I had found someone who understood me. “That’s exactly right, young lady.”

Edward charged me only half a farthing and told me to come back in a fortnight so he could see the progress of my healing. I was seventeen and Edward was upward of thirty years old, but he wore a refined waistcoat and vest with a silver pocket watch. Everyone knew the apothecary’s wife had died of a terrible cancer he’d failed to cure and that Edward grieved her terribly. I did not think he would romance me, but when I returned as instructed, he gave me a pot of scented lotion and admired the irises embroidered on my bell sleeves.

“The green ribbon is very nice against your red hair,” he added.

I asked about the glass jars in his shop and he told me that he’d spent much of his childhood with his father in the hills near Belfast collecting herbs and feathers and things dug from the earth.

“My father was a chemist in search of the secrets to life and death itself,” he said. “After my dear wife died, I took up his search.”

My eyes roamed about the shop and landed on a carved cross with Jesus Christ nailed to it, mouth open and eyes cast to heaven.

“And what did you find?” I asked.

“Many strange and secret paths lead to life and death’s doorway,” he said.

I felt a great tenderness toward him. I had lived a long time with my own grief and rarely spoken of it with anyone.

“My mother died when I was girl,” I said. “I would like to know the secret to life and death. I would like to see that doorway, if such a thing is possible.”

My mother had told me there are people who believe that we live in the realm between the faerie world and the world of God. Edward seemed such a man.

“You seem like a clever, fearless girl,” he said. “I am looking for a companion like you.”

I didn’t know if I was fearless, but I liked that he saw me so.



* * *



EACH TIME I visited Edward’s shop there was a gift for me: lavender soap wrapped in purple paper from Paris; gold myrrh for my father’s rheumatic complaints; fuller’s earth and cinnamon; an intricate silver spoon and a small ball for soaking teas or bath salts. Pap’s print shop had fallen on hard times and I’d recently begun working with his new wife in the fabric mills in the north of the city. Long days in front of a hungry loom paid little and I was longing for respite and beauty.

In a life where I had little, Edward’s gifts were a treasure of indulgence and luxury.

One day he pressed a jeweled canister into my hands. There were sapphires the color of my mother’s voice, and pink stones like the sound of the wind when I was a girl.

“Slaves and savages in America have knowledge that leads to the doorway between life and death,” Edward said. “Whatever it is, jungle seeds or African potions, a drink or a salve, I’ll find it and put it in that very amulet one day—it will make our fortune.”

He leaned across the counter and lifted my hair.

“People fear death,” he whispered in my ear. This wasn’t what I expected of our first intimate exchange, but I did not pull away. “They’ll pay dearly for a formula that helps save themselves and their loved ones. You understand this, Isobel. You know what this grief and hope is like.”

Then he asked for my hand in marriage.

“I will give you a sewing room of your own, and you will never have to work again.”



* * *



EDWARD INVITED PAP and me to his home above the apothecary shop and showed us the airy attic that would be my sewing room if we married. On the table by the window was a glorious black lacquer box of drawers, doors, and deep-hinged shelves inlaid with colored glass, shells, and beads.