The Lost Apothecary(28)

Disheartened, I approached the end of the alleyway. But then to my right, I spotted a steel gate, about six feet high and four feet wide, cracked and warped with age. Beyond the gate was a small square clearing, roughly half the length of a basketball court, unpaved and overgrown with shrubs. Discarded equipment littered the clearing: rusted pipes, metal sheeting and other trash that looked well suited for a colony of stray cats. The clearing was surrounded by the timeworn walls of the brick buildings around it, and I found it strange that a lot in obvious disuse was situated in such a popular commercial area. I was no real estate developer, but it seemed like a waste of perfectly good space.

I leaned into the gate, held in place by two stone pillars, and pushed my face up against the bars to better see the clearing. Though two hundred years had passed since the apothecary might have lived, my imagination grasped at the possibility that the tucked-away, abandoned clearing in front of me had remained unchanged. Perhaps she had walked this very ground. I wished badly the area wasn’t so crowded with shrubs and weeds, because the walls surrounding it looked ancient, too. How long had these buildings even existed?

“Looking for a lost cat?” came a husky voice from behind me. I jerked my head away from the gate and turned around. About fifteen feet away, a man in blue canvas pants and a matching shirt stood watching me, an amused look on his face. A construction worker, possibly. A lit cigarette dangled from his lips. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he offered.

“Th-that’s all right,” I stammered, feeling ridiculous. What good reason could I possibly give for peeking through a locked gate in an inconspicuous alley? “My husband is just around the corner,” I lied. “He was going to take a picture of me in front of this old gate.” Inside, I cringed at my own words.

He glanced behind him as though checking for my invisible husband. “Well, don’t let me stop you, then. Creepy place for a picture, though, if you ask me.” He snickered, taking a pull from his cigarette.

I appreciated that he kept a safe distance away, and I glanced up at some of the windows around me. Surely I was safe; as secluded as the alley felt, it was within sight of plenty of people in the buildings.

Feeling slightly more at ease, I decided to use this stranger’s arrival to my advantage. Perhaps I could glean some information from him. “Yeah, I guess it is creepy,” I said. “Any idea why this clearing even exists?”

He stamped out his cigarette with his foot and crossed his arms. “No idea. A few years back, a biergarten tried to set up shop. Would’ve been perfect, but heard they couldn’t get permits. It’s hard to see from here, but there’s actually a service door over there—” He pointed at the left end of the clearing, where a few bushes stood taller than me. “Probably just leads to a subcellar or something. Guess the folks who own the building want to keep this area clear in case they ever need to get in there.” A buzzing noise suddenly came from his pocket, and he withdrew a small walkie-talkie. “That’s me,” he said. “Always a pipe to install or fix.”

So he was a plumber. “Well, thanks for the info,” I said.

“No worries.” He waved while walking away, and I listened closely to the steady sound of his footsteps as they faded out of earshot.

I turned back to the gate. Using a dislodged stone on one of the pillars, I pulled myself up a few inches to get a better look over it. I directed my gaze to the left side of the clearing, where the plumber had pointed. From this higher vantage point, I squinted, trying to see past the branches.

Behind one shrub, I could make out what appeared to be a large piece of wood set into the aged brick building; the base of the wood piece was partially hidden amid tall, thick weeds. A rustle of breeze moved the branches ever so slightly, and then I caught the crumbling, reddish protrusion of something halfway down the wood. A rusty door handle.

I gasped, nearly losing my footing on the stone pillar. It was most definitely a door. And by the looks of it, it had not been opened in a very, very long time.



13

Nella


February 8, 1791

As I opened the door for the woman whose arrival I’d been dreading, shadows threw her figure into silhouette, and her features were masked behind a sheer veil. I could make out only the width of her skirts and the delicate lace trimming around her collar. Then she took a hesitant step forward into the shop, a breeze of lavender floating behind her, and candlelight illuminated her form.

I covered a gasp; for the second time in a week, before me stood a customer unlike any that had been in my shop. First it had been a child, but now it was a grown woman who, by mere appearances, seemed more suited to the airy parlors of Kensington than my lowly, concealed shop. Her gown, a deep green edged with golden embroidered lilies, seized nearly a quarter of the space, and I feared a single turn may send half my vials to the floor.

The woman removed her veil and gloves, setting them on the table. Eliza seemed unsurprised by the visitor, taking the gloves immediately to the fire to dry them. The gesture was so obvious, and yet one that had not crossed my mind as I stood, stunned, observing the lady poised before me. If there was any doubt about her wealth, her status, it was gone now.

“It’s so dark in here,” she said, her cochineal-painted lips turned downward.

“I will add more wood to the fire,” chirped Eliza. It was only her second time in my shop, and yet in some ways, she had begun to outwit me.