Potent Potions

by Ami Diane

  “And she’d remember moving stuff around?” Libby asked pointedly, her tone hinting strongly at the reliability of the employee’s memory.

  “Good point. But I was the last one to lock up the cabinet and the office that night. She left a half-hour early. And I keep everything precisely organized—unlike my files, apparently.”

  Libby’s eyes fell to the list of stolen ingredients from Caroline’s place, her mind churning.

  Leaning wearily against her desk, Marge sighed. “Looks like the AWC has stepped up their game to include theft.”

  “Looks like it,” Libby said, distracted.

  She craned her head around, studying the cabinet. There were no obvious signs that the thief had jimmied the lock which hadn’t been the case for the front door. Strange.

  Rearranging the order of the list of stolen ingredients in her head, she realized she’d seen them before. She just couldn’t place from which recipe. “Do you mind if I borrow this?”

  “Sure, Red.”

  With a rip, Libby freed the paper, folded it into quarters, and stuffed it into her pocket. She had some research to do.

  CHAPTER 9

  AFTER A QUICK lunch of soup and a grilled cheese sandwich that was more cheese than bread, Libby set off for the greenhouse.

  Outside, Orchid hunched low in the lawn, hunting. When she spotted Libby, her tail rose like a mast on a sailboat, and she bounded over, purring as she rubbed up against Libby’s legs.

  After paying the toll in the form of scratches behind the cat’s ears, Libby stepped into the greenhouse. An overwhelming to-do list washed over her at the sight of all of the greenery, and she realized she had yet to tackle the work above ground rather than below ground.

  Meanwhile, Orchid, who’d followed her inside, jumped up onto one of the raised beds and sniffed at nearby mint leaves.

  On her way to the back of the long structure, Libby stopped and checked the automatic timer on the watering system to be sure it was still working then paused a second time to check the dampness of the soil before finally reaching Ivy. Despite the plant’s anthropomorphic command of its vines-turned-appendages and its ability to generally understand her, she still struggled to think of it as more than an inanimate object.

  She shifted on her feet. “Um, open sesame?”

  The plant didn’t move. So much for understanding her.

  Putting out a foot, she nudged a leaf with one of her shoes. “Hey, Ivy. Wakey, wakey.”

  The plant didn’t so much as rustle. Her mouth turning down, she checked the soil. Damp, which meant the special watering potion was still in effect, leaving her to believe she was simply dealing with a sullen plant.

  She really didn’t want to move the heavy plate herself. Maybe it was time to consider alternatives for trapdoors. Something with a nicely greased hinge on it.

  “Are you pouting? Do you want plant food?”

  Slowly, a vine stretched out, causing Orchid to dive under the potting bench, hissing. Ivy pointed—as much as a plant with trailing vines could—at a pair of clippers.

  “Really? You want a trim?” Libby rubbed the back of her neck. She supposed it was like a haircut. Why not? The plant had overgrown the corner and had started to take over the back wall.

  Taking the pink-handled implement, she clipped away, muttering under her breath about how much time this was taking.

  It wasn’t the prettiest job and would probably make a gardener shudder, but when she finished, the English ivy had been properly pruned back.

  “There you go. Now can I get into my lab?”

  Ivy obliged, making quick work of the man-hole cover. As she descended, Libby mumbled, “I can’t believe I’m talking to a freaking plant.”

  She didn’t care what Marge said. This was magic to her, and it made her feel like her grasp of reality was tentative at best ever since she’d arrived.

  When her feet hit the corrugated metal, the first thing she did was peel open the potion book. Laying it side-by-side with the list Caroline had made, Libby flipped yellowed page after yellowed page, searching for a recipe that matched the list of stolen ingredients.

  Marge seemed pretty convinced the AWC was behind Caroline’s ransacked pantry, thinking it vandalism. But Libby wasn’t so sure. Why take the ingredients instead of destroying them? Wouldn’t that align with the coalition’s agenda to rid the town of “magic”?

  The suspect pool, she thought, should include other potionists.

  The crinkle of turning pages continued to break the oppressive silence. She was nearing the end of the book and doubting her hypothesis. When she reached the final recipe and discovered it, too, was a mismatch for the ingredients, she closed the book with a heavy sigh.

  It was still possible that the thief was another potionist and had stolen the ingredients at random. Or they’d been clever and had taken more than what they needed to cover what it was they were truly after.

  What was frustrating was she knew she’d seen the list somewhere. It would come to her eventually. Probably in the middle of the night as these things were wont to do.

  For the next couple of hours, she familiarized herself with the lab’s equipment—or rather re-familiarized herself with it after her brief stint taking two chemistry classes in college, both general and organic. After studying the large periodic table taped to the metal wall, she grazed over the myriad of charts and illustrations of plants and herbs, information she knew all too well.

  Next, she inspected the cast iron cauldron, wondering when it was used compared to the glassware setup on the other side of the room and how she would know when to use what if it ever came time for her to “innovate her own potions” as Marge had called it.

  It was a large cauldron, roughly ten gallons in volume. Below, in what appeared to be an attempt to modernize the setup or an avoidance at burning fires in a space with limited air vents, was a giant electrical burner. All of this was set on a sturdy, reinforced stainless steel table.

  After inspecting various glassware and utensils, terminology for items began drifting back to her. Test tubes. Erlenmeyer flask. Alcohol burner. Graduated cylinder.

  These proper names were much improved over the terms she’d dubbed them after her previous visit to the lab, such as round-tall things in the stand thingie, upside-down funnel-shaped thingie, and that-looks-dangerous-don’t-touch thingie.

  Above a table with an elaborate setup of round-bottom flasks, clips, tubes, and warmers was a hole in the ceiling, crudely cut. The blades of a fan peaked behind a grate in the home-made vent hood. This obviously was where some of the more dangerous, chemical reactive potions were mixed.

  Clever. She wished she’d discovered it sooner. Who knew what fumes she’d already breathed in?

  Mentally, she added brushing up on chemistry to her growing list of things to do.

  Her tour of the lab complete—due more from boredom and feeling overwhelmed—she duplicated the same Old Faithful potion Marge had taught her, following Arlene’s recipe once again. The fire extinguisher sat nearby, ready to be used at a moment’s notice. Grinding the beetle legs proved to be the worst of it.

  Soon, water bubbled over the lip of the flask, splashing onto the table and running in rivulets across the corrugated floor.

  “I did it!” She pumped her fist in the air, did a victory lap, then gave invisible high fives to pretend onlookers. She’d successfully created her first potion by herself. And without singeing off her eyebrows.

  Once she’d cleaned up, stored the ingredients back in their jars, and mopped up the Nile currently running down her lab, she climbed the ladder.

  With a whisper of rustling leaves and the scraping of metal against metal, Ivy replaced the manhole cover.

  Libby patted a leaf in appreciation before stretching her back then rolling her ankles. If she continued to make many potions as she planned, she’d need to get one of those foam mats intended for long periods of standing. The problems of a potionist.

  Since she coul
d sit on a gardening stool and still work, she decided to begin the monumental undertaking of cleaning and organizing the greenhouse. It wasn’t that it was dirty—far from it. Arlene had the soil weeded, blooms deadheaded, and there was nary a dry leaf to be found. But the horticulturist in Libby was itching to elevate the place so the plants really thrived.

  After a quick trip to the house to retrieve one of her many gardening boxes, she unpacked her soil tester. Just as she suspected, the pH was off. Way off. Like, above 7.5 off, which was too alkaline for her taste.

  A high pH didn’t affect plants that much (most were adaptable), but it did affect the uptake of phosphorous and other trace minerals. Why make it harder on the little guys?

  Next, she tested the nutrient levels of the different beds and found most of them to be deficient in nitrogen, calcium, and phosphate. Unfortunately, this included the bed with tomato plants and peas—both plants with a high calcium requirement.

  She pulled out the rough drawing she’d sketched of the layout of the beds with the plants current locations. On a new piece of paper, she sketched the footprint of the beds. Then, she wrote the plant names in their new, ideal location. She followed the concept of companion planting, such as putting tomato with garlic and basil.

  She also separated those in the nightshade family, Solanaceae, from fraternizing with each other, not because they were dysfunctional like many human families, but because if one caught a disease—as they were prone to do—it wouldn’t spread like a plague to the others.

  It was like a pre-quarantine. Or would that be a preemptive quarantine? Preventative quarantine? Whatever it was, it was smart.

  Pausing, pencil in the air, she eyed the Indian knotgrass, finally deciding to leave it in its place. She wondered why Arlene had chosen to grow it in the first place. She’d have to search for it in the potion book later to see what recipes called for it.

  Finished, she stretched her neck then massaged her hand. She now had a guide to follow, so she set to work. She found a pair of gloves and a trowel. Bending over the first bed, she stabbed the trowel into the dirt, breaking the slightly packed soil open like a wound. Softer, rich earth gushed forth. The scent hung heavy in the air, pulling her back to days spent bent in the garden with her mother under a blistering sun. Her back ached and her heart squeezed at the memory.

  The tomatoes had a bit of root rot that she ended up cutting off. As healthy as the plants seemed above the surface, beneath, beyond where eyes could see, it festered. It reminded her of people and the scars they bore on their hearts.

  But with so much death and pain in the world, was it naive to think one could go through life without them?

  Her life, broken into thousands of moments, shaped her. Including the painful ones, like the time her mother had forgotten to pick her up from school or the day her father left for good. They weren’t scars. They were… stains. Heart stains. They colored her and molded her into a new version of herself. Scars didn’t do that.

  As she hacked away another foul, mushy root, she realized that was the answer. Her roots had rotted, and she needed to cut away the darkness, let go of the anger, before the rot caused her to wither. She could already feel the beginnings of it. Maybe not during the day, but at night, when left to her thoughts and memories, it bled its poison into her heart.

  Her mother’s murder was an open wound, oozing for now, but someday, it would be a stain, and she would be a different person.

  There was just one problem. Letting go of the rage and bitterness meant releasing any hope of finding her mother’s killer. At times, that motivation had been the only thing that had propped her up, had kept her going.

  A voice called from outside the greenhouse, pulling her from her melancholy. Standing, she slipped off her gloves and stepped outside.

  The air, cool and refreshing, wicked away the sweat that had gathered on her forehead.

  “You ready?” Marge stood at the back door, hands on her hips.

  Libby’s mind went frantic. Had she set up plans with the woman and forgotten?

  “For what?”

  “Your next lesson.” A mischievous glint flashed in Marge’s eyes. “And it’s a doozy.”

  CHAPTER 10

  LIBBY’S MOUTH MOVED with silent words.

  “What are you whispering?” Marge asked.

  “I’m praying to the potion gods that this concoction doesn’t blow us to bits.” Libby stood five feet back from the bubbling, steaming, and glowing potion Marge was currently stirring.

  “Get closer so you can see what I’m doing.”

  “You know, I’m pretty good right here. I need to be near Casper—”

  “Jasper.”

  “—in case he needs me.”

  The bird fluttered in the library behind her, where the doorway had reappeared an hour before. Libby jumped at the noise then edged closer to the dangerous—possibly harmless, but definitely not—potion.

  “Closer, Red.” The potion lit Marge from beneath, making her appear every bit like a witch. All she needed was a good-sized wart on the end of her nose, and the likeness would be complete.

  With another hesitant step, Libby shuffled forward—and tripped right over a ceiling chandelier bolted to the floor that she swore wasn’t there a moment ago.

  Toppling forward, her hands stretched out to break her fall. As they did, they bumped the bubbling, Pepto-Bismol pink potion off the counter.

  The flask fell to the linoleum with a shatter, shards flying at her. The boiling hot potion exploded over every surface like a giant bubble of gum getting popped, sending searing drops spraying across her face.

  And then came the shrieking.

  The floor, the cupboards, and anything else touched by the liquid—including Libby’s clothes—wailed louder than a tsunami warning siren.

  Libby’s eardrums split with pain. She covered her ears and curled into the fetal position.

  “Make it stop!”

  Marge was shouting something back, her lips moving, but Libby couldn’t hear it over the apocalypse happening in her kitchen.

  Orchid crashed out of the room, getting momentarily hung up in the chandelier on the floor and scattering crystals everywhere.

  Meanwhile, Marge waved her hands like an air traffic controller then threw a towel at Libby. The older woman frantically began mopping up the goop.

  Libby sucked it up and pried one hand away from her ear, wincing. Slipping and sliding across the floor like a drunken ice skater, she mopped up what she could with the towel, but it seemed she was doing more smearing than much else.

  Her potion-stained clothes still screamed like a banshee, so she quickly stripped. In the sink they went. Turning on the faucet, she left the water to run over them while she continued to frantically scour the floor and counters.

  Slowly, the high-pitched, earth-shattering wailing dulled. As Libby tossed her last towel into the sink, the cacophony died altogether.

  An almost painful silence followed, save for a high-pitched ringing in her ears. Marge turned off the faucet before the sink overflowed then faced the interior of the kitchen.

  Together, they stared at the carnage in silence.

  Then Libby spoke. “Here’s a question, might be kind of silly, really, but why did my entire kitchen sound like the inside of a fog horn just now?”

  “Why are you shouting?”

  “What?”

  “What?”

  Shaking her head, Libby massaged her ears and indicated for Marge to do the same. Slowly, the ringing subsided, and a modicum of hearing returned.

  Libby repeated her question.

  “Because the effect of the potion was to make our voices high-pitched, like breathing in helium, only it’s intended to be drunk at room temperature. It wasn’t finished forming.”

  Now the name of the potion made sense. She’d been curious when Marge had told her they would be testing out her latest recipe, titled, Talk Squeaky to Me. When she’d asked Marge if that was a working title and
if she was open for suggestions, Marge had shot her down quicker than a Venus flytrap’s leaves snapped shut over an insect.

  The worst part was, it was going to take her until Tuesday of next month to clean this all up.

  “I’d get the mop, but I’m not sure where it is. So…” Libby stared at Marge in a way she hoped conveyed the hint, but might very well have come across as a deranged expression.

  “What?”

  “The mop?”

  “What about it?”

  Libby obviously needed to work on her body language. “Do you know where it is?”

  “Of course I do.” The staring contest continued another minute before Marge sighed, mumbled she’d get it, then stomped into the library.

  “You’re a peach!” Libby called after her. Several inappropriate phrases floated back.

  While the potionist retrieved the mop, Libby began gathering the larger chunks of glass from the flask, as well as a few crystals that had broken free from the chandelier after both her and Orchid’s encounter with the light fixture.

  She hoped it could be repaired. She also hoped she could find where it belonged. Safe bet was that it had come from above the entryway staircase, but she couldn’t really remember.

  A knock came at the sliding door, causing her to bolt upright. They’d closed the blinds for their lesson, but several chemical glassware and vials lay strewn on the countertop.

  The best option was to ignore whoever was at the back patio. Hopefully, they would think she wasn’t there… except both hers and Marge’s vehicles were parked out front. Crap.

  “Ms. Slade? Are you in there?” Deputy Jackson called out as he pounded again. “I heard an alarm.”

  Double crap. If he began to peer through windows, namely the library’s, he might spot Marge. Then, he’d know for certain they were inside. She changed tactics.

  “Just a sec,” she called out.

  Frantically, she scooped up the glassware, utensils, and vials as best she could, setting them into Marge’s purse. She opened the silverware drawer, and with one swipe of her arm, dumped the ingredients for the potion inside.