Potent Potions

by Ami Diane

  “It’s not here.”

  “Liar. I watched Arlene come in here. I waited for hours, but she never came out. When I finally looked inside, she was gone. I know the entrance is here somewhere.”

  Marty had taken his hat off and was massaging it in his hands like a washcloth. Richard stalked towards Libby, and she backpedaled, her right hand moving towards the defense potion in her pocket.

  The tip of the barrel lit, and the air exploded. Libby screamed and waited for searing pain, but it never came. Her eyes were screwed shut, and she slowly peeled them open.

  “That was just a warning,” Richard growled.

  She looked down, patting her body to be sure it was all intact. Then, she whirled to see where the shot had hit. “You shot my greenhouse!”

  Richard roared, “And I’ll shoot you next if you don’t hand over that potion!”

  Behind him, Marty’s expression morphed from fear into determination. He licked his lips, dropped his hat, and sprang at Richard.

  As he flew through the air, Libby marveled at his bravery. His coat billowed behind him like a cape, making him look every bit like a superhero.

  Unfortunately for both her and Marty, the small reporter had miscalculated the distance to the gunman—a lot. By at least three feet.

  He bellyflopped onto the gravel and rolled. His head cracked against the side of a raised bed with a sharp thud that made her wince. His eyes rolled back, and he stilled.

  Both Libby and Richard stared at the man’s prone body.

  “Huh. Wow.” Libby clicked her tongue against her teeth. “He really misjudged that. I mean… wow.”

  “Yeah,” Richard said, conversationally, “even through high school, he was always terrible at sports.”

  “Really? I mean, seeing that I completely believe it. But I’m more concerned about his depth perception being so off. He should probably see an optometrist.”

  Richard nodded in agreement before facing Libby fully again, and the gun continued to point at her center mass.

  She sighed. “Look, I don’t have the potion. At least, I don’t know if I do. I wasn’t lying about still sorting through her stuff. But I do have the recipe.”

  “Then take me to your lab.”

  “It’s not in my lab.” She pointed at her pocket. “It was lying on a table. That’s the absolute truth. I think she was working on it right up until she—until she died.” Because you killed her. “It wasn’t titled, and I didn’t know what it was, so I folded it up and put it in my pocket to ask Marge about it.”

  Her right hand lowered slowly. Richard’s grip on the weapon tightened. “I’m going to reach into my pocket and get it.”

  This is a terrible idea.

  She could just retrieve the recipe instead, but then there was nothing to stop him from killing her. He’d also know where the secret entrance to her lab was located.

  Her hand slipped into her pocket and, with trembling fingers, she unstoppered the vial on Marge’s defense potion. She had no idea what it was, what it would do, nor how much to use.

  With a hand movement that rivaled Bruce Lee’s speed, she whipped the potion from her pocket and threw it at the ground in front of Richard while simultaneously diving to the side.

  As she’d expected, the gun fired. The polycarbonate wall behind her splintered, sending shards flying.

  The potion’s milky puddle frothed then became a milky gas that expanded, filling the greenhouse equivalent to ten bug bombs going off at once. Libby sputtered and hacked as she gasped for air, sure that her inside lungs were becoming outside lungs. Richard was lost in the fog, but his coughing up of lung tissue told her he was still nearby.

  A tingle spread through her body, then pain as she’d never experienced seared in several places. She dropped to her knees, trying not to black out from the agony ripping through her body.

  She was going to die. Faced against a gunman, Marge’s stupid potion was what was going to do her in.

  Overhead, the industrial-sized fan whirred, rapidly filtering out the white cloud. When she could see again, her eyes flew to the predator hunting her, and she gasped.

  CHAPTER 25

  ARMS.

  LEGS.

  RICHARD had sprouted dozens of the suckers. He flopped around like a giant sunflower sea star learning to walk for the first time. His face was frozen in horror as he stared at his many hands.

  “What have you done to me?!” he shrieked.

  Libby stumbled back from the nightmare only to discover her legs weren’t working properly. She looked down and choked on a scream.

  Where two legs should be were at least six, and her arms, she stopped counting when she reached seven. She scrambled back, but her feet would not work in concert. She hit the ground hard.

  Richard cursed at her and crawled over the gravel like a centipede. “I’m going to kill you.”

  Her eyes raked for the gun which had fallen when he’d sprouted his many limbs. He didn’t seem interested in locating the weapon as he continued to crab walk towards her. He was going to choke her with his bare hands, his many, many hands.

  Her back hit the greenhouse. To her right was the gaping hole from the shattered panel. Could she make it through? The teeth from the broken polycarbonate would probably rip her skin apart, but that might be preferable to being choked to death.

  She fumbled closer, crawling over vines of English ivy.

  A hand grabbed her foot, and she looked back into Richard’s sneering face. Several more hands wrapped around her feet, a hand for each of her many feet.

  She kicked—all of her legs—but he held fast like a barnacle. How he’d figured out so quickly to coordinate each limb, she’d never know.

  A grotesque smile plastered his face.

  “You’re dead—” His voice was cut as vines wrapped around his mouth, a veritable gag.

  He was ripped back, his grip on her legs wrenching loose. He flew through the air like a rag doll as Ivy walloped him against the ground.

  Richard’s body went limp after a particularly sickening crunch.

  Eventually, Libby found her voice. “That’s enough, Ivy.”

  The plant released the journalist who slumped to the ground, all limbs and trench coat, looking very much like a dead bug.

  It took a long moment of watching his static form before she caught the movement of his chest. He was still alive.

  It was over.

  Tears of relief stung the back of her eyes, but she blinked them away. An emotional numbness took hold where fear had been.

  Fishing her phone out of her pocket, she found she was all thumbs—literally.

  What she was dubbing her primary hands grasped the phone, but the others seemed to want to get in on the action. It took her twice as long to dial Marge’s number than it should’ve.

  The apothecary came on the line after the fourth ring, sounding breathless. “Not a good time, Red. I just spilled a cold medicine elixir, and the shop now smells like a dairy—”

  “Richard just tried to kill me, and I used your defense potion. And now I have…” She still couldn’t count all the arms. “Can you please get here with the anti-potion before I call the police? If Jackson sees this, I don’t know how I can explain it.”

  “On my way.”

  “Need a hand?” Marge snickered at her own joke.

  “Hilarious.” Libby flipped more birds at one time than she was sure anyone in the history of the human race had. Then, she tried to grasp the older woman’s outstretched hand only to discover, once again, that the other hands didn’t like being left out.

  “Uh, maybe you should just stay there for now.” Marge plopped her purse onto a nearby garden bed and shoved bottles inside around, glancing sideways at the two prone figures on the rocks. “You sure know how to have a good time. That defense potion’s supposed to be an immobilizer. How much did you use?”

  “I threw the bottle at him.”

  Marge’s mouth fell open, and she stopped searching for
a moment to stare at Libby. “All of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “All of it?”

  “That’s what ‘the whole bottle’ implies, yes.”

  “You’re lucky you’ve only got a few extra hands and feet out of the deal.” She whistled, shaking her head, as she extracted a vial from her handbag. “I think this is it. I’m not sure how much it’s going to take to reverse this—” she waved a hand at the arms and legs that now constituted Libby “—mess.”

  Pulling out the eyedropper, she squeezed out a quivering, yellow drop. And then another. And another.

  With each successive drop of potion, a limb disappeared with a pop. First, Libby’s arms, then her legs, leaving her with two of each.

  When the potionist finished, Libby let out a long, shaking sigh. “Thank you. For a moment there, I thought I was going to have to become an exhibit at Ripley’s Believe It or Not!”

  Marge moved over to Richard and began squeezing out the anti-potion, one drop at a time.

  With the correct number of appendages on hand again, Libby dialed 9-1-1. After she hung up, they waited outside of the greenhouse in the cool breeze for the police to arrive, and she filled Marge in on what had transpired.

  “So, he killed Arlene?”

  Libby nodded, scraping hair out of her face.

  “I should’ve left him looking like a freak then.” Marge sighed. “Love causes us to do strange things.”

  It was obvious from her tone that she was no longer referring to Richard and his wife but something deeper and more personal. That was a different conversation, for a different day.

  Silently, they listened to the wind whistling in their ears and the crash of the waves far below as they watched the world move.

  “Hey, Marge?”

  “Yes, Red?”

  “If I’d kept all those legs and learned how to run with them, do you think I could’ve become the next Flo-Jo?”

  The apothecary didn’t bother to respond.

  It seemed to take forever before a string of sheriff’s vehicles arrived. Jackson was the first to march across the lawn. Beneath his dark brows, his clear-blue eyes spotted Libby and Marge overlooking the beach and redirected his gait their way.

  Taking a breath, Libby launched into a recount of her encounter. This was made harder by the fact that she had to leave out the bit about growing arms and legs and how Ivy had pummeled the man.

  She took creative liberty in explaining how she’d managed to knock him out, not sure if his injuries would line up with her story, but hoping the officers wouldn’t look too closely.

  As far as the Everlasting elixir and Richard’s motive for killing, she left it closer to the truth. Maybe if Jackson thought the reporter touched in the head, he wouldn’t believe Richard if he babbled about potions, secret labs, and semi-sentient plants.

  “So, he thought Arlene had made some kind of special medicine that would help his wife?”

  Libby nodded, and Jackson jotted notes. Turning towards the house, he whistled at the handful of deputies patrolling the yard and directed them to the greenhouse.

  “It’s my fault,” Marge was saying. “I may have insinuated to Mrs. Hayward that Arlene had been fiddling with a supplement that would help manage her pain.” Her spiky silvery hair quivered in the breeze like a sea urchin in a rising tide. “I never thought she or her husband would take it seriously as a cure.”

  Libby added in how the Journalist had confessed to breaking into Marge’s shop for ingredients, had stolen the potassium chloride, and had planted the syringe at Stacy’s. “He said he’d found the cabinet key in Julie’s desk.”

  Marge’s mouth turned down as she cleared her throat. “Yes, well, she and I had a nice long chat today, and as it turns out, she got tired of having to ask me for the key every time she went to open the cabinet. So, she took the liberty of making a copy that she kept in her desk.”

  “That explains a couple of things.” Libby watched a gurney carve two thin lines across her lawn. “Richard took the spare from her desk to get into the cabinet.”

  “So, my sister’s off the hook, then?” Jackson asked.

  “Off the hook, in that, it wasn’t her fault, yes,” Marge said. “But she shouldn’t have made a duplicate without asking. Nevertheless, I’m going to keep her around. I’m not sure what I’d do without her.”

  “Really?” The word slipped out of Libby’s mouth before she could rein it in. “I mean, really. She is lovely, and it would be a shame to lose her.”

  Some of the tension in the deputy’s face eased.

  “Wait,” Libby said, “what about my place? How did Richard get in?”

  Jackson shifted on his feet, slapping his notebook closed. “That was Stacy, actually. She confessed. She refused to tell me why she broke into your house in the middle of the night with you home, only to say that it wasn’t to hurt you. She also refused to tell me how she gained access.” He studied Libby as if waiting for her to fill in the blanks.

  She only nodded. The woman was after Arlene’s potion book, no doubt. How far she would’ve gone to get it, Libby would never know.

  “Do you want to press charges?”

  She exchanged a glance with Marge before saying, “No. I think this incident probably scared her straight enough. If she pulls a stunt like that again, though, I’ll absolutely press charges.” I’ll also be armed with several defense potions.

  All questions answered, Marge excused herself, saying she’d call Libby later.

  Libby and the deputy remained at the edge of the fence, overlooking the coast. The wind whipped her hair around as she watched the steady, dependable rhythm of one wave after another rolling in.

  “Something came out during my investigating that I think you should know.” In that moment, Jackson’s voice was as deep as the crashing waves. “Because I think you can help Marge.”

  She waited for him to continue.

  “Arlene was dying. She only had four to six weeks left.”

  The wind stole Libby’s breath, and her heart broke all over again for the apothecary. That was why Arlene had been working on that everlasting elixir, not only for Mrs. Hayward but for herself, as well.

  Marge had to know her best friend was dying. Why hadn’t she told Libby?

  “I don’t know how I can help, but I’ll do what I can.”

  “Just be there for her.”

  She had her own open wound to contend with, but she would do the best she could.

  After she said she would, Jackson floated back towards the greenhouse. How long she stood there, she didn’t know. The sky turned to a deeper slate, and the clouds continued to roll in, bringing in a drizzle that set her shivering. Yet still, she remained.

  When her thoughts had dried like her tears, she walked across the lawn. Instead of going into the house, she found the path that led to the sand below, to a past full of memories.

  Her shoes sank in the grayish tan sand before she kicked them off. After ripping off her socks, she let her bare feet feel the day’s last warmth. The dull roar she’d heard above had grown into something more. A crescendo of nature’s music and something bigger than her.

  Libby sank to the ground, felt the ocean spray on her face and let the saltwater mix with her tears as she finally allowed herself to see the stain on her heart.

  CHAPTER 26

  LIBBY STOOD ON her circular driveway, staring up at her house with its sagging porch, broken gutter, and peeling paint. It was time to fix it and make it shine anew.

  It was Wednesday, two days after her face-off with Richard. Marty had survived with a moderate concussion and a whopper of a headache, but he would, otherwise, be fine. For better or for worse, the Oyster Tribune was only out one hard-hitting journalist.

  Richard was in jail, charged with first-degree murder, and Stacy had been released. For that reason, Libby was not looking forward to the PMS meeting that night where she might encounter the frizzy-haired potionist again.

  The police had
come and gone, clearing the scene, with the sheriff himself putting in an appearance. They never discovered the hidden laboratory, and it seemed, for the time being, the local potion masters’ secrets were still safe.

  Yesterday, Libby had called Mother Nature’s Apothecary only to find out from Julie that Marge had gone MIA, saying she needed some time off. Concerned, Libby had gone to the woman’s house to check on her, but the craftsman-style home had been dark. On top of that, all her calls went straight to Marge’s voicemail.

  Libby took the hint and let the older woman be. These things took time for the pain to dull.

  Setting her jaw in determination, Libby flipped on the power washer beside her. The motor turned and broke the peaceful surroundings with its godawful roar. Stabbing in earplugs, she waited for the psi needle to climb in the gauge before testing the sprayer on the ground. The hose jerked in her hands, and a flat jet of water shot out, peeling away rocks in her gravel driveway.

  Yep. That’ll do it.

  Next, maybe she’ll take it inside and strip her floorboards down so she didn’t have any more wandering items in her house. It had been rather confusing to wake up this morning with a mixing bowl in her bed.

  She hesitated as she stared up at the house. Who was she kidding? The disappearing and reappearing objects were part of the old Victorian’s charm, a mark left behind by Arlene. She’d keep it as is, for now, and pray the potency of the potion degraded soon.

  With that decision made, she charged forward and attacked the peeling exterior with a jet of water.

  Several hours later, after she’d changed into dry clothes, Libby sat on her front porch, petting Orchid. Water dripped from the roof, remnants of the house’s encounter with the power washer. It would take a week of working like this to strip all the old paint away.

  Her thoughts turned to Arlene and the potionist’s final actions. She’d been so desperate to finish the Everlasting potion that she had risked the community’s exposure. However, Libby couldn’t blame her, and part of her wondered how she, herself, would’ve handled the situation.