This Wicked Fate (This Poison Heart #2)(33)

Circe winced. “She lived?”

“Yeah. She was jacked up for a long time, though.”

“I bet.” She stroked the leaves of the small plant that I held in my hand, fully grown from a single speck. The plant twisted toward her and then back to me. “The seeds are deadly if you ingest enough of them. How many did she eat?”

“Six.”

Circe shook her head. “Two or three more and she would have been dead.”

My stomach sank thinking about it.

“But if someone had known how,” Circe continued, “they could have used the stems, leaves, berries, and seeds of that same plant to raise her from the grave.”

I leveled my eyes with Circe’s, waiting for her to say she was joking. Instead, she glanced around the room and smiled.

“This work is unique, and there is so much more to it than the business of guarding the Heart. Running this shop used to be one of the greatest joys of my life. It allowed me to stay connected to my past and still serve my community, to provide them something they couldn’t get anywhere else.”

“That’s what everyone’s been saying,” I said, setting the yew plant on the counter. “Dr. Grant’s father came up here talking about alchemy, a woman in town who’s a root worker, even Marie—they all made it seem like there was another sort of community in Rhinebeck.”

“This place is like a beacon,” Circe said. “People are drawn here because of the plants, because of the poison. Most of them have no idea the Heart even exists. If they do, they don’t have any real interest in it. They know they could never wield its power. But yes, there is a community here whose interests are spread across all kinds of belief systems and practices, but they all require the things we provide here. The Colchis family’s knowledge of plants and poisons is encyclopedic.” She scanned the shelves and pulled down a jar of dried marigold. “Do you know what this is?”

“Tagetes erecta,” I said. “Four feet tall. Native to Mexico and Central America. They can grow in almost any condition, even drought.”

“And do you know what it’s for?”

I tried to think. “They’re edible. They repel rabbits. And you can co-plant them with tomatoes to keep away pests.”

“You’ve already got so much knowledge.” Circe set the jar down and scooped out a handful, letting the dried petals fall through her fingers and back into the jar. “Strung in a garland, straight from the garden, they ward off evil. Scattered under your bed, they’ll keep you safe while you’re sleeping. Walking over fresh petals with your bare feet will allow you to talk to birds. In November, we grow and stock hundreds of them for those in our community celebrating Día de los Muertos. The garden is a sea of sunset orange around that time. It’s magical.” She breathed deep. “We respect the practices and traditions of the people in our magical little community. That is where my heart lies.”

I could see how much this place meant to her and how much of it had nothing at all to do with the Absyrtus Heart. There was something comforting about that. “There is so much I don’t know. They don’t really teach you about the magical uses of all these plants in botany workshops.”

“I’ll teach you,” Circe said. She clasped her hands together in front of her. “If you’d like me to I can show you how to make tinctures and salves. I can show you how to harvest the plants in a way that maintains their potency, and I can show you how to hybridize them for specific purposes. There’s so much.” Her sentences started to string together as the tempo of her words picked up. Her excitement was contagious.

I searched her face. She believed every word, and if I was being honest, so did I. I’d just seen a giant griffin named Roscoe perched in the driveway. Walking on marigolds could let me talk to birds? Seemed like something not so impossible after everything I’d seen since I’d come to Rhinebeck. This is what Mo and I were talking about. Whatever was coming would require us to lean all the way into this.

I thought of spending my days in the garden, cultivating the plants, stocking the apothecary, and learning from Circe while Mom and Mo played aggressive games of Uno in the front room. A stab of pain nearly knocked me over as I pictured Mom’s face in my mind’s eye. I picked up my glasses and put them back on.

Circe pointed at one of the small jars in her case, and I turned my attention back to it. “To raise the winds, saffron.” She let her slender fingers dance over another row of vials. “Celandine to aid in escaping, euphorbia for protection, black hellebore and wolfsbane for temporary invisibility.”

I tried to take in everything she was saying. “Is this why people in town think y’all are witches?”

Circe smirked. “I mean, I do siphon the life from children to keep myself young.” She puckered her lips and blinked overdramatically.

I didn’t smile or laugh.

“Kidding. Just a joke.” She looked down at the floor. “Sorry.”

I exhaled and shook my head. “I can deal with a lot but probably not that.”

“Nothing like that goes on,” Circe said. “But I can see why some people might think something terrible was happening up here. People are nosy as hell and if they can’t get the info they want, sometimes they’ll just make it up.”

“Karter told me there were rumors that the women who lived here were into witchcraft.” I shoved my hands in my pockets to try and stem the anger, the rage. Suddenly, the window bounced open and a tangle of vines—ivy, Devil’s Pet, and stinging nettle—came slithering in. They wound themselves around my leg.