Potions Are for Pushovers

by Tamara Berry

But my powers, alas, are lacking. Severely lacking.

  “Ms. Wilde. What a delight.”

  Standing on the doorstep is none other than Inspector Piper, who looks not the least bit delighted to find me installed inside Sarah Blackthorne’s home with a glass of viscous purple liquid in hand.

  “Inspector,” I reply with a tight nod. “Just the man I was hoping to see.”

  Then, before Lewis can turn around and put up a protest, I toss the contents of my cup into a potted plant behind me. The action doesn’t reach Lewis’s eyes, but Inspector Piper definitely notices. His nose twitches as he makes note of possible poisons in the soil.

  “Am I? Now that is a delight.” He turns his attention to Lewis, his sharp expression softening to something approaching humanity. “If I could have a few minutes of your time, Mr. King? I have a few follow-up questions I’d like to go over with you regarding our conversation yesterday. But I can come back when you don’t have, uh, company.”

  “Who? Eleanor? I don’t m-mind if she’s here. She already knows most of it, anyway. Did you know she sees things? Mystical things?”

  Inspector Piper coughs. “I’ve heard something to that effect, yes.”

  “Right.” Lewis hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “If you don’t mind, I’d l-like to get dressed and have a quick shave first. Will you . . .?”

  “I’ll entertain the inspector,” I promise. “Take your time.”

  Lewis lopes obligingly up the stairs, leaving a wake of that same heavy scent behind him. It’s not an unpleasant smell—not precisely—but it’s not one I’d like to linger over, either. There’s something almost loamy about it, like he rolled around in the dirt before answering the door.

  Reading my mind like the psychic I know he isn’t, Inspector Piper pulls a small bag from the pocket of his overcoat. I watch, amused, as he approaches the potted plant and starts spooning some of the dirt in.

  “You don’t object, do you?” he asks as casually as if we’re discussing the weather.

  “On the contrary, help yourself.” I step back and allow him to do his work. “But it’s just my elderberry cordial. If your office is as strapped for cash as you say it is, I can save you the trouble and write down the list of ingredients.”

  “Let me guess—elderberries and vodka?”

  He’s not too far off. There’s also a vast quantity of sugar and a few cloves thrown in for fun, but I doubt he’d appreciate the difference.

  He finishes his task with a neat efficiency I can’t help but admire. He also tucks the bag of dirt carefully in his pocket, which doesn’t bode well for the conversation to follow. Nor does the fact that he remains standing perfectly still. My own inclination is to start rummaging in as many drawers as I can while Lewis is occupied upstairs. This kind of preternatural calm can only signal an incoming storm.

  It does.

  “It’s just as well that you’re here,” the inspector says after a lengthy pause. “It saves me the trouble of tracking you down for questioning.”

  “Questioning?” I ask, all politeness.

  “Yes. Mr. Worthington filed a rather . . . interesting police report yesterday.”

  I groan and pass a hand over my eyes. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “I imagine it’s those psychic abilities kicking in.”

  The inspector’s rare show of humor startles me into a laugh. The feeling it evokes—of having the ground pulled out from under me—doesn’t go away when he relaxes enough to reach in his pocket once again. This time, he extracts a red lollipop that crinkles as he takes it out of its cellophane wrapper.

  “Geez. How deep does that pocket go?” I ask as he sticks the lollipop in his mouth. It pushes one of his cheeks out like a squirrel hoarding walnuts.

  “Not nearly deep enough. I only have one more, so let’s make this quick, shall we?”

  Understanding creeps over me, and with it, a smile. “Did you know that the average person gains between six and ten pounds after quitting smoking?” I ask.

  He doesn’t miss a beat. “Did you know that before the police used fingerprints to catalog criminals, they used a system of facial measurements?”

  I did know that, actually, but only because I went through a phrenology phase during my early paranormal studies. “Well, did you know there’s a disproportionate number of clinical psychopaths who enter the law enforcement field?”

  In true psychopath style, that factoid doesn’t garner me so much as a blink. “Did you know that pig carcasses and human carcasses decompose in almost the exact same way?”

  “Okay. You win.” I fall into the same kitchen chair I was seated in before. “That’s really gross, by the way. How do you know that?”

  Instead of sitting down, he leans on the edge of the table. “They use pigs in forensic studies all the time. They’re easier to get hold of than human remains. Cheaper too.”

  “Poor Mr. Worthington. What did they end up doing with Regina?”

  “Right now, she’s being held in the morgue pending further investigation.”

  “Really?” I shoot up in my seat. “Why? Did you find something?”

  “You mean other than the badly mauled remains of an animal in the exact location where you’ve been sending your clients to plant flax seeds?” He shakes his head. “No. Not yet. Tell me about this spell you put on the pig.”

  I groan and slink back down. I should have known better—it was only a matter of time before he figured out that bit about the crossroads.

  “I didn’t put the spell on Regina,” I protest. “I put it on Mr. Worthington.”

  When Inspector Piper’s brows raise, I rush to add, “And it wasn’t really a spell. I gave him some, uh, artisanal water to drink and said a chant. I also repaired his fence in all the broken places. You could say that was where the real magic happened.”

  He swishes his lollipop to the other cheek and blinks at me. “That shows how little you know. That pig has been eating—”

  “Yes, yes. I know. She’s been eating her way through that fence for years.” Why hadn’t anyone seen fit to tell me about Regina’s taste for fence posts before I took on that sorry job? “But that wasn’t how she escaped this time. You can check for yourself. The fence is still fully intact.”

  “Hmm,” he says. Just that, just hmm.

  “What kind of animal could have done that to her?” I ask.

  “A tiger would be my first guess.”

  I laugh. “A tiger? Roaming around Sussex? Are there any circuses traveling through the area I haven’t heard about?”

  He doesn’t answer my question. Instead, he crunches on the last of his lollipop and tosses the empty stick on the table. I can’t decide if it’s better or worse than when he used to fling his cigarette ashes everywhere. “Is there a reason you’re paying a visit to Lewis King less than twenty-four hours after he arrived in the village?”

  Here, at least, I’m standing on firm ground. “Actually, there is. I’ve been sent as envoy.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Annis asked me to.”

  His “Oh?” this time is much more genuine. Everyone loves Annis.

  “She’s decided to give half the proceeds from the spring fête to a charity in Mrs. Blackthorne’s name. She wasn’t sure which charity to choose, so she put me in charge of finding the best one to honor her.”

  Inspector Piper closes one wary eye.

  “I know. It sounds ridiculous to me, too. But it was her idea.”

  “Of all the people in her parish, she felt you were the best candidate for the job?”

  I shrug. “I thought it was a strange request, but what can I say? She sees the potential in me. I figured talking to Lewis was the best way to go about it.”

  He doesn’t buy any of it. “We’ve already made a thorough search of the place,” he warns. “So if you’re hoping to find bottles of poison in the bathroom cupboard . . .”

  I think of that canister of rat poison above the sink and sigh. It seems Winnie was righ
t. “You already confiscated them. Got it.”

  “Did Eleanor offer you some of her c-cordial?” Lewis appears at the entrance to the kitchen in much more presentable form. His clothes still don’t look as though they’ve recently seen an iron, but at least he’s washed and freshly shaved. All signs of the beard—neck or otherwise—have disappeared, leaving a slightly cherubic visage I’m not sure I’d have recognized if it weren’t for those topaz eyes. “I think there’s a tin of Nescafe somewhere around here, but I can’t vouch for how old it is.”

  Inspector Piper shakes his head. “I’m good, thanks. I only came by to ask if your aunt has a garden out back.”

  “A g-garden?” Lewis looks a question at me. His faith in my understanding of the local police force and/or his aunt’s horticultural tendencies is touching but misplaced. “Not really, no. N-none of the houses in this row have much of a yard. There’s only enough room out back for the rubbish bin and a few old cement blocks.”

  “Mind if I take a look anyway?” Inspector Piper doesn’t wait for a response. “You can lend me a hand, Ms. Wilde. I assume you’re familiar enough with the aconitum plant to recognize it on sight?”

  I start, my head in a sudden whirl. “Excuse me?”

  “Aconitum napellus,” he echoes as one reciting a prayer. “Aconite. Monkshood. Devil’s helmet. Queen of poisons. Let me think . . . I’m missing a few.”

  I don’t need him to keep reciting the plant’s common names. I already know the most important one. “Wolfsbane,” I say.

  He snaps his fingers. “That’s the one. So you are familiar with it?”

  Only in the sense that it’s one of the most dangerous poisons known to mankind, and no witch worth her salt would be unaware of its powers. Even accidentally brushing against the plant can cause death within a few hours. By all accounts, the death isn’t a pleasant one. In fact, it might look a little something like a woman having a violent, heaving heart attack on the floor of a church basement.

  “I’ve come across it in my studies a few times,” I say carefully. “Is that what . . . ?”

  “Aconitum poisoning.” Inspector Piper nods once and turns his attention to Lewis. “Administered sometime in the hour preceding her attack. That’s what we’re writing as your aunt’s official cause of death. I’m very sorry.”

  “Oh. Er. Right.” Lewis casts another one of those wary looks around the kitchen, eventually landing it on me. “It grows in backyard gardens?”

  I’m not sure how wise it is for me to start spouting off everything I know about aconitum while the inspector is watching to see what I give away, but I’ve never been able to resist a chance to show off. Besides, I’m practically thrumming over here.

  Wolfsbane. A poison commonly associated with—you guessed it—wolves, werewolves, and other creatures known to howl at the moon. Some legends say it’s the only way, short of the ubiquitous silver bullet, to kill a werewolf.

  Lenora and Rachel are going to freak out.

  “It’s not really native to these parts, no,” I say. “It can grow in this climate, but it’s rare to find it in the wild, since most of it has been eradicated for safety’s sake.”

  A noise escapes Inspector Piper’s throat. It sounds like admiration. Well, either that, or he’s disappointed that he didn’t think to grab a tape recorder ahead of time. This does sound an awful lot like a confession.

  “It’s most common name—monkshood—tells you pretty much everything you need to know about what it looks like,” I add. “It’s purple and weirdly lumpy and looks like, well, a monk’s hood. If we’re going to search for it out back, we should probably wear gloves. You don’t want to mess around with this stuff. It’s very potent.”

  Lewis takes me at my word. He grabs a pair of yellow rubber gloves from the sink and pulls them over his hands. I opt to tuck my bare limbs inside my shawl, but Inspector Piper doesn’t take any precautions other than to fish the last lollipop from his pocket and stick it in his mouth.

  “Lead the way,” he says to me. “Seeing as how you’re our resident expert.”

  Having never been in Sarah Blackthorne’s backyard before, I’m not sure what I expect when I push open the door and step out. True to Lewis’s suggestion, we find ourselves in a small patch of a yard that’s barely big enough to hold the three of us. There aren’t any cement blocks, but it’s easy to imagine them stacked and crumbling. A garbage can tipped over on its side and a rusted bicycle leaning against the back of the house set the tone for a space that’s as different from the tidy house front as you could possibly get. Plant life, if you can call it that, is limited to a few patches of grass and dandelion weeds nodding at us from a crack in the house’s foundation.

  “Aunt Sarah never came back here much,” Lewis says by way of apology.

  Inspector Piper crouches by the garbage can and begins poking at the contents with the end of a pen. I’m not sure what he hopes to find—all I can see from where I’m standing is an awful lot of microwavable dinner packages for one.

  “I’m no botanist, but I don’t think you’re going to encounter any aconitum back here,” is my contribution.

  Sighing, Inspector Piper rises to his feet. “No, it appears not. I don’t suppose you have any growing in your garden, do you?”

  I take a wide step back, stumbling against Lewis as I do. His hands come up to steady me, and I’m struck by how strong he seems. The quick press of his muscles is enough to convince me that despite his short stature and cherubic face, there’s more to him than meets the eye.

  “My garden? Uh, no. I have quite a few herbs out there, but nothing poisonous.” At least, not to my knowledge. I’m going to have to give that well-tended patch a good going-over when I get home. “I have a cat. I wouldn’t want her to get into anything dangerous.”

  “Ah, yes. A cat.”

  “You can come look, if you want,” I offer. “I’ll give you the grand tour.”

  “I’ll do that, thanks.”

  I can’t decide if it’s a promise or a threat, but Inspector Piper takes his leave shortly thereafter. I’d like to stay and talk to Lewis some more, especially since I haven’t yet broached the subject of his aunt’s favorite charities, but he, too, appears to be disinclined to continue enjoying my company.

  “It’s t-true, isn’t it?” he asks as he escorts me to the door. We can still see Inspector Piper walking off down the street, pausing every few steps to examine the plant life at his feet. “She was murdered? Someone k-killed her?”

  My heart goes out to the poor guy. It doesn’t appear that Lewis is unduly wracked with grief at his aunt’s passing, but no one likes to hear that their relative was done off on purpose. That’s the sort of taint that never goes away.

  “It could have been an accident,” I say. “It’s potent stuff, wolfsbane. One touch is sometimes all it takes.”

  He pulls the rubber gloves more firmly over his hands. “I’ll b-bear that in mind, thanks. And thank you for the cordial. I have the feeling I’m going to need it.”

  “Don’t worry—any minute now, you’re going to be bombarded with villagers come to pay their respects. And none of them pay their respects empty-handed.”

  Even as I say the words, I’m struck by how eerily empty the front porch seems. I’m not kidding about the usual deluge of villagers—these are people who will roll out any excuse to share baked goods, homemade liquors, and hours of gossip. Last month, the tailor’s wife was diagnosed with gout, and they raked in enough casseroles to last them through Easter.

  “They’re probably just waiting until a more polite hour of the day,” I add.

  “I’m s-sure you’re right,” Lewis agrees, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me. For whatever reason, people are avoiding both this house and the man inside it.

  Remembering what the general said about Sarah Blackthorne, I can’t help but wonder if the community dislike of her really runs that deep. Or, I think, recalling all too clearly the reaction both Nicholas and Annis had to Lew
is’s appearance on the scene, perhaps it’s the nephew they’re avoiding?

  Either way, this isn’t a family anyone will miss.

  The thought is more depressing than I’d like to admit. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past few months, it’s that gaining a foothold in this community isn’t an easy task. If a woman who lived here her entire life couldn’t manage it, what chance is there of someone like me making it work?

  Chapter 8

  No one assembled inside the vicarage for Monday’s fête planning committee looks capable of murder.

  To be fair, murderers, like beauty, come in all shapes and sizes. There’s no reason why the gentle widow with the fluffy white perm and a Pomeranian in her purse couldn’t slip some wolfs-bane into a cup of tea and serve it out of her great-grandmother’s china. In fact, from the way she keeps trying to tuck the purse—and the puppy—underneath her chair, she seems rather hard hearted as a whole.

  The same could be said of the rest of the villagers gathered in the dark semicircle of Annis’s living room. The ceiling is low and the lights are dim. The throw pillows, which usually make everything seem so much cheerier, are squashed under bottoms and behind backs. And everyone, from the respectable, upright MacDougals to the general, watching everything through his half-closed eyes, bears a look of mistrust.

  They can’t help it. Like me, they’re all thinking the same thing: Someone in this room may have killed Sarah Blackthorne. Someone in this room may be willing to do it again.

  The silent, accusing air is broken by what has to be the worst opening sentence known to man- and witchkind.

  “I’d like to start today’s meeting by giving the floor over to Eleanor.” Annis speaks with the calm cheer that never seems to fail her. Although no one goes so far as to gasp their outrage, there is a low hum of discontent. “She’s come up with the fantastic idea to donate half the fête proceeds to a charity in Sarah’s name. Isn’t that right, Ellie?”

  I can hardly refute the beloved local vicar to her face, so I plaster a fake smile and adopt the air of the magnanimous benefactor she’s making me out to be. It becomes easier when the hum of discontent transforms to a low-murmured approval. The sound is rather melodious, if I do say so myself.