The Lost Apothecary(56)

The curse of jet lag.

Frustrated, I turned my body away from him. The pictures would have to wait until morning.

I woke to the sound of the shower running and a narrow strip of daylight searing its way through the curtains and onto my face. The bathroom door stood slightly ajar, steam rushing out of it, and on the sofa, James had folded up his blanket and set it neatly beside the spare pillow.

I picked up my phone—fully charged—and resisted the urge to dive immediately into the photos. Instead, I pushed my face against the pillow, trying to ignore my full bladder, counting the minutes until James left the hotel so I could begin my day in peace.

At last, he walked out of the bathroom, wearing nothing but a beige towel around his waist. It was so normal, the sight of my husband half-naked, and yet something inside me grew tense. I wasn’t ready, not now or anytime soon, for “normal.” I turned my face away.

“Late dinner last night,” he said from across the room. “Anything good?”

I shook my head. “Just grabbed a sandwich, took a walk.” It wasn’t like me to tell little white lies, but I wasn’t about to tell him—or anyone—what I’d really done last night. Besides, he’d lied to me for months about something much worse.

Behind me, James let out a raspy cough. He walked over to the couch, leaned down and grabbed a box of tissues from the floor. I hadn’t seen them earlier, but he must have had them next to him all night. “Not feeling a hundred percent,” he said, putting the tissue against his mouth and coughing again. “Throat hurts, too. Dry air on the plane, I guess.” He opened his suitcase and pulled out a T-shirt and jeans, then dropped his towel to the floor as he began to dress.

I kept my eyes off his naked body by looking at the vase of flowers on the table near the door, a few of which had begun to wilt slightly. With my hands on top of the duvet, I noticed last night’s dirt under my fingernails, and I shoved my hands under the covers. “What’s your plan for the day, then?” I pleaded silently that he planned to explore the city or go to a museum or just...leave. I wanted nothing more than to be here alone with my phone, the Do Not Disturb sign hanging from the door.

“The Tower of London,” he said, threading his belt around his waist. The Tower of London. The ancient castle was one of the sites I’d been most excited about—it was the home of the Crown Jewels—and yet it now seemed a mere children’s museum compared to what I found last night hiding behind Bear Alley.

James let out another cough, patting his chest with the palm of his hand. “Got any DayQuil, by chance?” he asked.

In the bathroom was my bag of toiletries, filled with makeup, floss sticks, deodorant and a few essential oils. I knew I had a few spare Tylenol, but I hadn’t thought it worth the added space to bring every possible medicine for any given ailment. “Sorry,” I said. “I’ve got eucalyptus oil?” It had long been my go-to remedy anytime I felt a cold coming on; as one of the ingredients in Vicks VapoRub, eucalyptus worked wonders on congestion and coughs. “In the white bag on the counter,” I said, pointing to the bathroom.

As James went in, a small chirp caught my attention: my phone, beeping about something trivial, an unnecessary reminder that last night’s discovery sat inches from my face. My heart began to thump hard in my chest while James rustled about in the bathroom.

He came out with a grimace on his face. “Strong stuff.”

I nodded in agreement; even from a few feet away, I could smell the pungent, medicinal odor of it.

Since he was dressed and looked ready to go, I did my best to avoid any chance of further conversation. “I’m gonna try to lie back down for a bit,” I said, kicking my feet around in the sheets. “Enjoy your sightseeing.”

He nodded slowly, a sad look on his face, and hesitated as though wanting to say something. But he didn’t, and after grabbing his wallet and cell phone, he made his way out of the room.

The moment the door clicked shut, I lunged for my cell phone.

I typed in my password and navigated to my photos. There they were, about two dozen of them. I opened the first couple; they were shots of the room—the table, the hearth—but I was disappointed to see that the photos were blurry. I cursed, fearing the entire set may be the same. But once I got to the close-up shots of the book, I breathed a sigh of relief; these photos were sharp. The air in the room had been dusty, and I supposed the camera flash had been unable to cut through the minuscule particles to focus on anything except the foreground.

I bolted upright at a noise just outside the hotel room door. I clicked off the phone and rushed to the peephole, just in time to see a hotel employee with a clipboard walking past. He wasn’t coming to my room, but it reminded me to put up the Do Not Disturb sign.

Once back on the bed, I opened the pictures again and studied the first photo of the book. Holding my breath, I used two fingers to zoom into the picture and move around the screen. I sat in utter disbelief at what lay before me.

The words in the book were, in fact, handwritten, with fat ink spots scattered and smeared on the page. The text was neatly lined in rows and each entry was written in a similar format, with what appeared to be names and dates. A log or register of some kind, then? I flipped to the next picture. It was similar in nature, though the ink was darker, heavier, like a different person wrote this page. I flipped to the next, and the next, my hands shaking harder with each swipe. I wasn’t entirely sure what the book was, but I felt confident that its historical value was immeasurable.