by Ami Diane
Shadows were growing long across the grass, and a tingle crept up her spine at the thought that a murderer had tread across that same lawn. Why had John been killed? And would the killer return?
She shrugged off these dark thoughts and scarfed down the rest of her food, both hungry and eager to return to the greenhouse. After setting her dishes in the sink, she topped off both pets’ food and water then returned to the greenhouse.
Not finding Arlene’s secret was a knife to the chest and a huge setback. Libby would have to make some major decisions soon about her next move. But that was a rabbit hole of melancholy she wasn’t ready to go down just yet. So, she was back in her happy place, breathing in the aroma of nature until she was ready to face the world again.
She strode the aisles between raised beds, assessing all the work that needed doing. Soon, Orchid joined her, sauntering in through the open door and licking her lips from her early dinner.
Libby held a notebook and slowly wound around the structure, making notes of the different plants. She’d have to get out her electronic soil tester later.
As she rounded the far corner, just below the fan, she heard the same rustling noise as the day before. Orchid crouched a few yards away, her pupils dilated and her ears back.
“Is there a mouse in here?” Libby shoved aside some of the vines of ivy, hoping to flush out the rodent.
One of the vines shivered, causing Libby to jump back and swear loudly as the notebook tumbled to the gravel.
The plant stilled.
She waited for several breaths to be sure whatever lurked beneath the curtain and carpet of leaves wasn’t coming out.
Once she was certain she wasn’t going to be some critter’s next meal, she bent to retrieve the fallen notebook, keeping a wary eye on the ivy as she did. Some of the vines that crept along the ground had been parted like hair in her quest to flush out the mouse.
There, nestled in the dirt, sat a rusty, steel manhole cover.
Frowning, Libby laid the notebook and pencil on a nearby raised bed. What on earth was that doing buried there?
No wonder Arlene had been struggling with her garden. Rust, on the whole, wasn’t harmful to plants because the molecules weren’t water soluble. However, rust leaching into the ground coupled with low pH could account for the issues Arlene had detailed in her messages to Libby.
She didn’t bother hunting down a pair of gardening gloves. Using her fingernails, she quickly found the edges around the rusty cover, and with a grunt that would’ve made a bodybuilder proud, she scooted the heavy plate away an inch at a time.
The sucker was heavy, and it had been a while since she’d been to the gym—close to three years. Her goal was to just get it out of the dirt and onto the gravel, then she could have someone help her move it. Possibly a certain strapping deputy who looked like he could bench press several manhole covers. She winced, the thought sounding dirtier then she’d intended.
The sound of metal scraping metal filled the greenhouse like nails on a chalkboard, making her skin crawl. After a final pull—and an extra grunt for good measure—the plate clattered to the gravel.
Libby stretched her back and massaged her biceps. “The Rock’s got nothing on me.”
She brushed her fingers down her jeans then froze. She’d been too busy grunting and squeezing her eyes shut against the strain to notice she’d uncovered a hole.
Her breath quickened, and she peered into the abyss. The darkness smelled of earth, must, and… a scent she couldn’t place. Smoke perhaps?
Pulling out her phone, she used the built-in flashlight to increase visibility. The weedy light couldn’t pierce the inky veil of night below, but it did reveal a ladder.
Libby glanced over her shoulder at Orchid who stood with her back arched, ears back.
“What do you say? Venture into the creepy hole?”
The cat hissed in response.
“Yeah, venture into the creepy hole.”
Carefully, Libby dangled a foot through the hole until it met a rung and lowered herself down. Her eyes drew level with whatever steel structure was beneath, and she spotted a light switch with conduit snaking off into the dark.
She flipped it. Light shone beneath her feet, warm and welcoming, although a bit too dim for her liking. After turning off her phone, she slipped it into her pocket and climbed down to see what horror awaited her.
Her feet hit the floor with a metallic clang. The floor, walls, and ceiling were made of corrugated metal like she was in a shipping container. Actually, exactly like a shipping container. She stood inside one large, oblong room that was two shipping containers side-by-side, complete with a shoddy welded seam adjoining them.
Lights, exposed conduits, and ductwork ran overhead like an afterthought. One of the bulbs buzzed, the only noise in what was otherwise an oppressive silence.
As she slowly turned, her breath seized in her chest.
“Holy meth lab.”
She was looking at an elaborate setup for cooking… something. She knew as much about drugs as she did about cricket, which was to say, nothing at all.
Bunsen burners and other warmers ran the length of a table, alongside a mess of tubes, coils, and beakers. She pulled her sweatshirt over her nose to breathe in case there were toxic fumes floating about.
Bypassing the chemistry lab, she hesitated in front of another table. This one was covered with herbs, dried plants, knives, mortars and pestles, and other shriveled bits she couldn’t possibly identify.
A piece of paper lay on top, covered in scrawling handwriting. It appeared to be a recipe, only with ingredients she would never want to ingest, such as newt tails or hippopotamus whiskers.
A footnote at the bottom denoted that the whiskers had to have fallen out naturally, otherwise they weren’t viable. Then a second footnote below that detailed pygmy hippopotamus whiskers were preferable as they were the most potent.
Frowning, she placed the parchment back on the table. A shelving system stood behind the table, full of liquids and stoppers. Squinting, she read a couple aloud.
“Lizard lips. Elephant tears.” Her voice echoed, sounding tinny in the cavernous room.
She tipped her head. How would one make an elephant cry? Of course, that was the least disconcerting question, but one she could grasp since she felt like she drowning in a deep pool, over her head.
Then came jars of preserved specimens. She shriveled back when she spotted a two-headed lamb. Her mind churned, piecing together bits and pieces from all of her and Arlene’s correspondences over the preceding months.
Arlene had said she had to do her research in private. A secret laboratory made sense.
All her searching, Libby had been looking for something small, a vial, some notes perhaps. Not a whole, freaking hidden bunker.
If the woman had a secret lab, then that meant the other part she’d told Libby was true. It was here.
Libby rotated on her heel, her eyes raking over the rest of the interior. Shelves upon shelves of vials of glowing liquids adorned the walls. Two more tables stood behind her.
On a lone table at the back, rested a book. She stalked towards it, her fingers trembling. Dried bits of plant littered the wooden surface, along with a cutting board and knife. But the rest was relatively clean, save for the book.
The yellowed crinkled pages smelled of time. It lay open to a recipe, its format similar to the one she’d found over by the ingredients table—which was what she had mentally dubbed the cluttered one near the front.
However, this recipe had been titled Fool’s Gold. Libby brushed a finger down the list of ingredients, reading some of the more exotic ones aloud.
“Midnight tears… oak bark collected during a spring sunrise… dried huckleberry from the tallest peak.”
Shaking her head, she scanned the rest of the ingredients which consisted of herbs, spices, and a few edible plants.
She hefted the book closed and inspected the cover. It was blank, made of faded leath
er. The first page was simply titled, The Art of Potion Making. Below it was a list of names, each one written by a different hand, the last being Arlene Castillo’s.
Potions? Libby had thought Arlene a scientist, an armchair chemist who dabbled in her spare time. But she made potions?
All the hope that had been building the past few minutes at the discovery of the room came crashing down. She had put all her faith in a crazy woman.
This was too much.
And that’s when her eyes snagged on the cauldron in the corner.
A cold feeling prickled the back of her neck, and she felt the room spin. She gripped the edge of a work table until the feeling passed.
Sinking to the floor, Libby sat on the cold metal until time no longer existed. When she finally collected herself, she stood and pushed her shoulders back.
She had come this far. Her mother had always taught her to keep an open mind, even when it came to the impossible. So, that’s what she would do: remain skeptical but keep an open mind. Arlene had said she’d been successful, and until Libby discovered otherwise, she would continue to trust what her virtual friend had said.
With renewed fortitude, she opened the potion book again. The pages made a soft, rustling noise in the silence as she turned them.
If you are reading this, congratulations! You are now a potionist. Not to be confused with witchcraft or sorcery, which scholars agree, do not exist.
The next few pages went into great detail about potion basics, how they were classified, and how ingredients were categorized. As she read on, it seemed potion making more in the realm of chemistry and horticulture, mixed with cooking.
She skipped these pages, for now, planning to return to them at a later time, and sifted through recipe after recipe, each one more intriguing than the last.
There was one for growing facial hair. Another for getting rid of facial hair. Stubborn Acne? Got a date? Get smooth skin in less than ten minutes. There was even one lowered the volume of kids’ voices, titled, Stressed Mother.
Each one had a box off to the side filled with pertinent information, such as the category of the potion (temporary, ingestible, etc.), side effects, interactions, shelf life, and decay time. All of this was over her head, but she guessed the latter meant how long until the potion wore off.
Libby’s head spun. She wanted to inhale every word in this amazing book, but she had to focus. These pages held the secret that she had come here for.
True, she hadn’t expected to find an entire potion book or a mad scientist-type laboratory. But this was why she’d upended her life: for one particular recipe.
Taking a deep breath, she gently flipped page after page in search. She was nearing the end of the book, her pulse thudding in her ears, when she stopped.
Pet Whisperer (a.k.a. Dr. Doolittle Potion).
Libby smiled.
CHAPTER 4
AFTER LIBBY LUGGED the heavy potion book back to the house, she stayed up late into the early morning hours devouring potion after potion. It still seemed so fantastical.
After a few hours of sleep, she awoke and stumbled down to the kitchen, hugging the book to her chest. She sat at the table, sipping coffee that probably consisted more of cream than brew as she stared at the page for the Pet Whisperer potion.
This was all just nonsense, wasn’t it? Did she really believe in magic potions? Perhaps this was all some elaborate prank set up by a lonely old woman.
Reaching out, she fingered the page dappled with stains. If it were a joke, someone had certainly gone to great lengths to make it authentic. There was only one way of knowing for sure, and that was to actually make a potion.
A problem immediately presented itself, however. She’d never been a great cook, and she’d only passed her chemistry classes on account of another student named Luke who was very receptive to her flirting.
The pet whisperer one seemed too complicated for her first go. So, she decided to search and find one with the least instructions and ingredients. Since she didn’t have much by way of plans for the day except unpacking and possibly searching for a job, she decided there was no time to test out a possibly-but-most-likely-not magic potion like the present.
A plan made, she pounded back the rest of her coffee, rinsed out the mug, and bolted upstairs to change into more appropriate potion making clothes. How hard could it be?
Libby stared at the charred surface of the table. That had not gone well, not unless she counted setting fire to what she thought should be a non-flammable liquid and wooden table. In which case, it had gone very well.
The fire extinguisher thudded to the ground, and she pulled down the safety goggles Arlene had smartly stocked in the lab.
“I didn’t think glass could burn,” she voiced aloud to the empty room. She knew it could melt, but burn? Physically, that should be impossible. “I broke physics.”
Her chest deflated as she took in the mess. No wonder it had smelled like the Fourth of July when she’d first come down here. Potion making was serious, set-your-house-on-fire business.
She let out a breath that pushed her hair aside. If she ever had any hope of figuring this potion stuff out, preferably sometime in the next century, she would need to enlist help. But who?
Even for a newbie, she had a feeling she couldn’t just advertise in the local Oyster Tribune. Despite her mood, she couldn’t help but snigger at the newspaper name.
Her snort died in her nose. Those Clark Kent wannabes had called Marge a witch. Could this be what they were referring to? She blinked and turned, taking in the row upon row of already-made potions. She’d seen similar ones at Mother Nature’s Apothecary.
Whirling on her heel, she marched towards the ladder, tossing the goggles onto a table and glaring at the smoldering remains of her first potion. Ironically, the first one she’d picked to make was a refillable cup of water. At least she’d had the foresight to bring the extinguisher.
As she climbed out onto the gravel, relishing the fresh air, the vines stirred behind her. Libby jumped and turned in time to see them moving. But it wasn’t caused by the random stirring of some creature. No, there was precise, intelligent movement like the long tentacles of an octopus.
Dozens of vines curled around the manhole cover and slid it into place, with far less straining and grunting than when she’d moved it.
Libby blinked once. She blinked again and considered running and screaming. Potions were barely within the realm of acceptance for her at the moment. Semi-sentient plants? No way.
The English ivy wasn’t finished. Several vines snaked around, grabbed a watering can, and held it aloft for her. Something between a scream and gurgle climbed her throat. It took several long moments of trembling, her rooted to the spot, before the very patient plant nudged her with the watering can.
“Why not?” she whispered, her voice cracking. She was already doomed for the looney bin. Why not see how deep the rabbit hole went?
She gave in to the delusion, watering the soil. The water itself had a strange, luminescent glow.
As she placed the can back where the ivy had grabbed it, she said, “Uh, thanks for the assist with, you know, that.” She pointed at the cover.
The vines moved, camouflaging the rusty steel.
“I mean, I could’ve really used that last night. And again this morning. Practically threw my back out. I had to take four ibuprofen, but whatever. I’m not bitter.” She was.
With one last glance over her shoulder at the now-still plant, she left. Within two minutes, she was turning the engine in her silver Honda and putting it into drive.
She hesitated, her seatbelt straining against the lurch, as she considered bringing the book along. What if her hunch about Marge was wrong? She could use the book as proof. Proof of what, though? That Marge’s best friend had been off her rocker?
Inwardly shrugging, Libby decided to go ahead without the book, figuring it was too valuable to be lugging around anyway. Worst case scenario, Marge would think Lib
by crazy, and that was something she was used to.
By the time Libby pulled up to the curb outside the apothecary, a light rain pattered her windshield. The drops freckled the glass, making her wish she’d thought to grab a jacket.
Inside, the smell of cinnamon mixed with lavender hit her like a train.
She smiled at Julie. “Is Marge in?”
“I think she’s in her office with a customer.” Julie’s eyes fell back to her nails, her feet resting on the desk. The phone rang.
On the fifth ring, Libby said, “You hear that, right?”
“Hm? Oh!” Julie lunged for the receiver, but by then, whoever had called had hung up. “Oh drat. I hope that wasn’t important.”
“I’m sure they’ll call back. I like your sweater, by the way.”
Julie stared down at the kittens standing on pizza slices with lasers in the background, nearly going cross-eyed before grinning. “Thanks. Hey, does it smell like a bonfire in here to you?” Her button nose sniffed the air.
“Nope.” Libby covered the smoke stains on her sweatshirt and scooted a few steps away so the clerk wasn’t downwind of her.
A moment later, a thin, frail woman came out of the hallway. A scarf covered her head, with straggly wisps of hair poking out. Her skin looked like paper.
Libby held the door open for her. As the woman drew near, Libby saw that the lady was only in her mid-forties, made much older by what appeared to be treatment for cancer.
The gal thanked her and stepped out onto the sidewalk. As the door closed, the customer muttered something about campfire season and how she wished they wouldn’t burn them so early.
“Libby? How nice to see you.” Marge stood in the hallway.
Libby snapped her fingers. “Sorry, I forgot your ginger root again. The deputy gave me back the use of my greenhouse last night, but the ginger completely slipped my mind.”
“That’s alright. Maybe I’ll stop by later.” The apothecary’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “You alright?”
