The Lost Apothecary(60)
Lady Clarence nodded and made her way out, leaving Nella and me alone.
Nella set the jar on the table and sank into a chair, the necessity of her organizing and packing efforts now removed. I glanced to Tom’s magick book, still on the floor; the candle beside it had expired at last. “Well,” Nella began, “there is no immediate crisis now. You may stay here tonight on account of this fortunate event. In the morning, I do suggest you consider the idea of visiting Lady Clarence. It may be a good post for you, should you remain fearful of the Amwell house.”
The Amwell house. The very words reminded me that not every curse upon me had vanished with the return of the jar. My error that had put Nella at risk might be gone, but that left me in the same spot I’d been earlier today. And I had no desire for a post with the Lady Clarence; I did not trust her and her manner was cold. I desired only to return to the service of my mistress. This meant returning to the Amwell house, so the importance of the Tincture to Reverse Bad Fortune still existed. Of the hundreds of spells I had read in the book, it was the only one that, with a bit of imagination, seemed able to vanquish Mr. Amwell’s lingering spirit.
Grateful for a place to lay my head, my heart now thumped in hopeful anticipation about the tincture. But if I intended to attempt the spell, then I must either tell Nella of my plans in the hope that she would permit me the use of her vials, or I must think of a way to gather the ingredients without her knowing—like Frederick did, so very long ago.
Yet even if I chose the first option, this exact moment did not seem the wisest; we were both tired, Nella so much so that her eyes were pink. For now, we both needed a few hours of sleep.
Tomorrow would come soon enough, and then I would find a way to try my hand at this thing they called magick. I tucked the book beneath my head and used it as a makeshift pillow. And as I fell asleep, I could not help but fall into an easy dream of the boy who’d given it to me.
23
Nella
February 11, 1791
If the poisons I dispensed, and the deaths they subsequently caused, were indeed rotting me from the inside out, then I felt sure the death of Lord Clarence hastened the decay. Was it possible the consequence upon me increased with the renown of the victim?
It was of only some significance that the Lady Clarence returned the damnable jar, for the immediate crisis of the gallows was averted, but the slow rotting within me did not cease. A thick, bloody trickle in my throat had plagued me the last day, and while I would have liked to blame it on the late nights in the beetle field, I feared something worse: that whatever plagued my bones and skull had moved into my lungs.
Oh, how I cursed the day that Lady Clarence dropped her rose-scented letter into the barley bin! And how maddening that none of my own concoctions could resolve this. I hadn’t the name of the disease, much less the remedy for it.
I could not sit in my shop another moment, turning to stone, and I needed a block of lard besides. And although I had not the heart to send Eliza away immediately after Lady Clarence’s visit, the next morning I had no choice. As I prepared to depart for the market, I told Eliza, once and for all, that it was time for her to leave.
She asked me how long I planned to be gone. “No more than an hour,” I said, and she begged me to let her rest another thirty minutes, claiming a deep ache in her head on account of yesterday’s anxieties. Admittedly, I suffered a bad headache myself, and so I gave her an oil of herb prunella to rub into her temples and told her she could rest her eyes just a few minutes more. We said goodbye, and she assured me she would be gone by the time I returned.
I gathered my tendrils of strength and made my way to Fleet Street. I kept my head down, fearing as always that someone might look into my eyes and discern the secrets I kept within, every murder as clear as the crystal glass from which Lord Clarence drank to his death. But no one paid me any mind. Along the avenue, a hawker woman offered lemon confections, and an artist sketched lighthearted caricatures. The sun began to peek out of a cloud, its heat wrapping around my tired, sore neck, and around me floated the safe, relaxed din of conversation. No one seemed interested in me; no one even noticed me. I could not help, therefore, but think it a good day, or at least better than yesterday.
As I passed a newspaper stand, I found myself tangled up with a small boy and his mother. She had just bought a newspaper and now attempted to wrestle him back into his coat as he ran in circles around her, making a game of it. Since my head was down, I could not properly see, much less avoid, the chaos, and I found myself stepping straight into the little boy’s path.
“Oh!” I exclaimed. My market bag flew forward and gave the boy a good knock in the head. Behind him, his mother lifted her newspaper and gave him a firm smack on the bottom.
Under attack from two women, including one stranger, the young boy relented. “Fine, Mama,” he said, and stuck his arms out like a featherless bird, waiting for his coat. The mother, victorious, handed the newspaper to the person nearest her—which happened to be me.
Yesterday’s evening newspaper, headlined The Thursday Bulletin, fell open in my hands. It was thin, unlike the stacks of The Chronicle or The Post, and I glanced down at it with disinterest, expecting to return it to the woman as soon as she had a free hand. But an insert, a hastily printed advertisement, had been stuffed within, and my eye caught several words toward the bottom.
Like black, inky beasts, the words read “Bailiff Searching For Lord Clarence’s Murderer.”