The Lost Apothecary(36)

Then my eye caught her name again. Just several days later, on December 11, she’d returned to the shop.

“This time, I sold Ms. Bechem nerve-root for her mother,” Nella explained. “The poor woman had just lost her son, and quite unexpectedly at that. Nerve-root is entirely benign, not harmful in any way. It is meant for hysteria.”

“Poor lady. I do hope it worked.”

Nella motioned to the register, urging me to finish the page. “Nerve-root is quite effective,” she said, “though the truth about her son and his plot would have been the best remedy. Alas, I don’t know if her daughter revealed it. No matter, her secret is safe in here.” She ran her finger along the edge of the book, toying with the pages.

I understood, now, why Nella sold medicines in addition to her poisons. People like Ms. Bechem needed both.

Except I still did not know why Nella sold poisons at all. During my first visit to her shop, she’d said the hidden room didn’t exist when she’d worked at the shop as a child with her mother. Why did Nella build the secret room and begin to brew terrible things behind it? I resolved to find the courage to ask her, and soon.

After I finished the entry, Nella flipped the pages again, landing on 1789. The year stood out in my memory; it was the year my mother had left me in London to work for the Amwell family. Only, the entries on this page appeared in good condition. I could not see any that needed work.

“Why, this was just before I arrived in London,” I offered.

“I think you might like this page,” Nella replied. “There is a name on here you should recognize.”

At once, it became a game. I scanned my eyes over the entries, doing my best to ignore the dates and ingredients, searching instead for a name I knew. My own mother, perhaps?

Then I saw it: Mrs. Amwell.

“Oh!” I gasped. “My mistress!” Quickly, I read the rest of the entry. Had my mistress poisoned someone once before? “Indian hemp?” I asked Nella, pointing to the register.

“One of the most powerful drugs in my shop,” she said, “but like the nerve-root, there is nothing harmful about it. Indian hemp is especially useful in the case of tremors or spasms.” She looked at me, waiting. When I did not respond, she explained, “Eliza, your mistress came to my shop when the shaking in her hands first began. I’d forgotten about her visit, until you mentioned earlier today that you write her letters for her.” She ran her fingers over the entry, a faraway look in her eyes. “The gentlemen’s doctors could do nothing for her. She’d paid visits to a dozen of them. She came to me when she felt she had no options left.” She briefly set her hand over mine. “Your mistress had never been here before. She only knew of it from a friend.”

A sense of overwhelming sadness fell over me. I’d never considered that Mrs. Amwell had sought help from so many doctors. I’d never considered at all how she felt about her impediment.

“Did the Indian hemp help?” I asked, glancing again at the entry to ensure I repeated the words correctly.

Nella paused and looked down at her own hands as if ashamed. “Remember what I told you, Eliza,” she finally said. “This is not a shop of magick. The gifts of the earth, while valuable, are not infallible.” She lifted her head, shaking herself from her reverie. “But it’s all right. For if the Indian hemp had worked too well, then your mistress would not need your help writing letters. And you would not be sitting here now, helping me with my register. And you remember what I said about the importance of the register, right?”

Aiming to impress her, I recited what she’d said a few minutes ago. “The register is important because the names of these women might otherwise be forgotten. They are preserved here, in your pages, if nowhere else.”

“Very good,” Nella concluded. “Now, let’s do a few more. The sun is falling fast.”

How did she know? Without windows, and without glancing at the clock, I certainly could not tell the sun was falling fast. But I could not ask her, for Nella had already turned to another page, hovering her hand over an entry that needed attention.

I got back to work, eager to please my new tutor.

After sundown, I gathered my coat and pulled out my gloves, which had never sifted through shrubs or dirt or wherever it was that beetles made their home, and eagerly pulled them on.

My hands were sore already—the careful tracing had left them stiff—but I could hardly wait for the next adventure.

Seeing the spark in my eye, Nella raised her brows. “Don’t expect your gloves to be so clean when we’re done,” she said. “This is dirty work, child.”

We walked for more than an hour, eventually making our way to a broad, quiet field separated from the road by hedges that were taller than me. The air grew unbearably cold as darkness spread across the sky, and I could not help but think that if I were a beetle, I would have traveled south long ago to the warm, humid air of some seaside village. And yet, Nella assured me that the beetles liked the cold—that they preferred starchy root crops, like beets, where they could nestle in to dine on the sugar and then sleep.

There was only a sliver of moon to see by. Nella and I each held a linen sack, and I watched her closely in the dark as she got onto her hands and knees, located a bundle of green, veiny leaves, and brushed aside a thin layer of hay until she reached the shoulders of the beet bulb underneath.