Weed!
I call, but he does not look up. Can he even see me, I wonder? He stands at the edge of a field, facing a copse of hackberry trees. There is a sheep, a ewe, alone in the shade of the branches. She lies on the ground, struggling to rise, but cannot. I wonder if she is injured?
As if reading my mind, my black-feathered steed flies closer, dipping down to get a better view. No, I can see everything now: She is lambing, and not easily, judging from her cries. The babe dangles from its mother, half born, still in the glistening wet sac. Something else is there too, something that also glistens, black and bloodred—
No!
Oh, if I were there, I would fight the wicked bird! I would kill it myself!
Weed! Can you hear me?
Why do you not save the lamb?
In terrible silence I trudge through the silver mist. Moonseed’s voice guides me, and soon I am back in the poison garden. Moonseed, Dumbcane, Snakeweed, and Larkspur quiver expectantly in the garden beds.
I do not wait to be addressed, for I am sick at heart at what I have been forced to watch, and wish this to be over with quickly. “I have completed the task you sent me to do,” I say flatly, throwing Moonseed’s torn leaf on the ground.
“Poor Weed,” Snakeweed purrs. “You must feel so guilty.”
“I did not kill the lamb. The raven did.”
“But you did nothing to help.”
“No.”
“You watched without flinching. You did not turn away, and you did not intervene.” Dumbcane guffaws. “So there is no difference between you and the raven—except the raven got to eat, ha ha!”
“Truly, you are cold and heartless, just as your beloved Jessamine said!” Larkspur sings out. “A freak with no pity for any life that is not green!”
“I did as you instructed.” I struggle to contain my anger. “Now give me a cure for Jessamine.”
“You have not earned a cure. Not yet.” A small bundle wrapped in leaves and tied with braided grass rolls through the mist toward my feet. I loosen the tie and look within: It is a mixture of leaves, twigs, seedpods, and roots. Some are familiar to me; some are not. “Brew this into a tea,” Dumbcane instructs. “It will ease her suffering for a while.”
“Only a short while, though,” Larkspur says gaily.
“It will keep her alive,” Dumbcane adds, “long enough for you to perform your second task.”
Oleander? Is that you?
I have been here all along, lovely. We have been flying together, you and I.
These are your wings, then, which bear me aloft?
Of course. Do you think I would entrust you to anyone else? Tell me: What do you think of your beloved Crabgrass now? Surely you could not marry a man so cruel and heartless, so lacking in feeling as he is? Why, he did nothing but watch as that evil bird feasted on the poor—
Please, do not say it.
But he did nothing. You admit that.
He must—he must have had his reasons.
He is shockingly ignorant, you know. He only knows what his leafy little friends tell him. And it is so easy to mistake one plant for another. Monkshood root for horseradish. Hemlock for carrots. Tragic errors, but they happen. Frankly, I am surprised he has lasted this long. If you married him, you would doubtless be a widow within a fortnight.
Are you threatening to trick him into eating poison if I marry him?
I merely state a hypothetical probability. Although … if I could be absolutely certain that this absurd engagement were called off, I would be rather more inclined to give Mr. Lamb Killer the cure for your condition. The only thing worse for Weed than you dying would be if you survived, only to reject him. His suffering would be exquisite!
Why do you wish him to suffer?
Call it professional interest. You see, Jessamine, love is a kind of poison; one of my favorite kinds, in fact. It infects the blood; it takes over the mind; it seizes dominion over the body. It amuses me to think of him pining for you. Aching for what he cannot have. The loneliness in his soul festering like a wound. There is nothing I could do to him that is worse than what you have already done, my lovely. And I assure you, in his case there will be no cure.
And what of my suffering? My loneliness?
Immaterial. You will have me.
But I do not want you!
My sweet, sheltered flower, how could you possibly know what you want? If you stay with me, I will keep you wrapped in the pleasantest dreams. You will remember nothing that pains you. You will exist in a state of perpetual delight. I will adore you, Jessamine. I will shield you. I will intoxicate you.
And if I resist, what then? Will you punish me?
You will not be able to resist. That is the beauty of it.
Yes, I will—
Shhhh. Soon you will know what I mean. Come, it is time to fly. They are trying to take you back from me now, and they will—but only for a brief, little while—
We soar through a storm, my black-winged tormentor and I. I cannot control his flight, I can only hang on his strange, waxy feathers with all my strength and pray that I do not fall. He ascends steeply through the churning gray clouds, faster and faster, as if pursued by some invisible, demonic predator.
Then, with no warning, he plummets. The air is so dense with fog I cannot even see the ground racing up to meet us. I open my mouth to scream, but a cold wind blows my cries inward. My mouth fills with an icy, foultasting rain.
After a moment I hear voices.
“Henbane. Mandrake root. What else was in the tea?”
“Mallow and feverfew.”
The scratch of a pen. “Fascinating. This information is priceless, priceless.”
The cold, hard edge of a metal spoon presses against my lip.
Now I lie in darkness—true, simple darkness, the kind that comes from having one’s eyes shut against the light. The firmness beneath me is not the feathered bed of a raven’s back, but the length and breadth of my own straw-stuffed mattress.
The word emerges from my lips with a will of its own. “Weed—”
“Look! She wakes.”
I open my eyes. The first thing I see is Weed’s face. I seize his arm and dig my fingers into his flesh.
“Do not go back inside that garden,” I beg. “Promise me, Weed. You must not go near it!”
“Jessamine—my darling—you are alive—”
“There is evil there, the Poisons will destroy us all—swear to me, Weed! I will not release you until you swear it!” I clutch him harder. My nails pierce his skin like talons until the blood flows. He cries out in pain, and the spoon that was in his hand clatters to the ground.
“Yes, of course I promise—I swear.”
I let go of him. He cradles his wounded arm and stares at me as if I have gone mad.
“Better to let me die like the lamb—than to go back there,” I manage to say, before collapsing back on the bed.
30th June
Jessamine is awake. She knows me, and has been able to speak a few words. My heart fills with hope, yet I must remember what the Poisons told me: This is no cure, merely a respite. She could slip away from us again at any time.
Better to let me die like the lamb. That is what she said.
How did she know about the lamb? She, who lay silent and icy lipped on the bed the whole time I endured that wretched task? While her body fails, what strange journeys does she take in the fevered prison of her mind?
If she were a healing herb or even a blade of grass, I would hear her very thoughts. But she is flesh—frail and all too mortal. A blank to me.
I wish I could heed her warning about the poison garden. I wish I knew what she fears, and why. But the Poisons say there are two more tasks for me to perform before I have earned her cure, and I cannot flinch now.
Even Mr. Luxton agrees. He was seized with joy when he saw the bundled remedy the Poisons provided. Even as I boiled the water to brew the mixture into a tea for Jessamine, he carefully copied into his book
a faithful rendering of every leaf, twig, and seed in the mixture the Poisons had given me.
“If we are to save Jessamine, we must learn everything we can,” he said, blotting the pages. “You must keep up your courage, and go back, as many times as is required. Her salvation lies within the walls of that garden. Her life is in your hands.”
Now she sleeps. I pray this remedy will give her at least one night of peace and badly needed rest. I do not know how many hours she has before her illness returns in full force. There is no time to waste. I will enter the poison garden at dawn to face the second task the Poisons have set for me.
I fear this task will be even more difficult than the first, for the moonflower vine outside my window is weeping, and will not tell me why.
17
THE EARLY MORNING IS COLD and dark as Mr. Luxton leads me to the poison garden. We walk in silence except for the jingle of his keys.
Silence for him, at least. I choose not to hear the sobs, the warnings, the cries of fear that accompany our journey. Every blossom, tree, and blade of grass in Northumberland seeks to prevent me from arriving at the very place I am hell-bent on going.
“If Jessamine wakes, do not tell her where I am,” I say as Mr. Luxton and I reach the gate. “She would be distressed if she knew I had returned here.”
“I doubt she will wake soon. She slept fitfully, and called out during the night.” Once more he slips the key into the iron lock. Then he turns to me. “I have come to believe that you possess a kind of genius about these plants, Weed. What I must painstakingly accomplish with years of study, you seem to perceive in a flash—like Isaac Newton and his apple! Be resolute. Learn what you can. I will be waiting.”
I step through the gate, and the mist envelops me once more.
“Welcome back, lamb killer.” Snakeweed’s voice coils around me, and I shiver with disgust.
“Don’t be offended, Master Weed; I am sure she means it as a compliment.” Dumbcane chuckles. “Your second task may suit you better than the first. Tell him, Larkspur.”
That piping voice trills, “Oh, it is a very heroic task. You must defend the weak against the strong. Are you willing?”
“I am.”
“Tear off one of my stalks, then, and I will tell you what to do. Choose the one with the prettiest flowers, please! I do so love to be admired….”
I do as the plant tells me, and follow its singsong instructions to walk through the shrouded air. Finally I burst through the silver fog into blinding sunlight. I stand on the footpath that leads to the crossroads, the one that winds like a ribbon through the fields and hills of Hulne Park.
“You have memories of this place, don’t you?” Larkspur asks.
I nod. “In happier times, Jessamine and I walked here every day.”
“But did you not once see a killing here?” The childlike voice is suddenly harsh. “Did you not once stand by and do nothing? ‘The stoat should say grace.’ I believe that was all the noble Master Weed had to say on the subject.”
I startle at the accusation, but then my cheeks burn with shame. “A stoat killed a rabbit here,” I admit. “I remember. At the time I thought only plants could suffer so keenly. Not animals. Not humans. Now I know differently.”
“Really? How?”
“Because of the suffering I have seen. And because I am human,” I answer in a choked voice. “Because I, too, suffer—when I watch Jessamine in pain—I suffer keenly, too.”
“How interesting!” Larkspur’s high laugh fills my ear. “I wonder: If such a thing happened again, how would you behave now?”
As if commanded by the tall wand of blue blossoms, a stoat emerges from beneath the hedge. Sniffing and jumpy, it is on the hunt. It skitters and zigzags along the edge of the path in search of its prey.
I see the rabbit before the stoat does. Fat and oblivious, it chews a patch of clover and hunkers low to the ground. The stoat is instantly alert. It crouches, preparing to leap at the back of the rabbit’s neck.
It is exactly as it happened before—except this time I am ready. A broken branch I snatch from the ground waits in my hand. Before the stoat can pounce, I strike it hard, once to the back of the head. A single shudder runs through its long body, and then it lies still.
Whether or not the rabbit is grateful I cannot say. It looks at me blinkingly for a moment, then hops away to safety.
“That was heroic, indeed!” Larkspur exclaims. “Did you enjoy it?”
“I did not. But the rabbit lives. Are you satisfied?” Disgusted, I let the bloodied stick drop to the dirt.
“Too bad. I thought you might have enjoyed it, a little. But you must walk a little farther now, ten paces up the path. I have something else to show you, something very dear, and now very sad, too.”
Grudgingly I walk ten stride lengths up the path, to a dense growth of forsythia. Beneath the shrub, nestled among leaves of ivy, a litter of newborn stoat kittens lies cuddled in a pulsing, ivory-colored heap.
“Poor mama stoat,” Larkspur remarks. “With no mother to nurse them they cannot survive, of course. It will be a slow, pitiful, mewling death, of cold, and hunger, and thirst.”
I tremble with fury and frustration. “But was that not the task you set me? To defend the helpless against the strong?”
“Indeed it was, Master Weed. But who is to say who is helpless, and who is strong?” The strength of the evil child’s voice is fading now. “If you seek the power to alter fate, you must also bear responsibility for the consequences. For you cannot change the fate of only one being; all fates are intertwined.”
“I performed the task,” I protest. “I did what you bid me do.”
“You defended the weak from the strong.” Larkspur speaks as if from far away. “But who will defend these poor weak infants against you?”
When I return, the Poisons are waiting for me.
“That didn’t take long. But I wish to ask you, Master Weed: Why did you not kill the stoat kittens as well?” Snakeweed’s voice cuts like a blade. “It would have been a more merciful death than leaving them to starve by the road.”
“Heartless Snakeweed! You think killing is the solution to everything. And since when have you cared about being merciful?” Dumbcane’s bass voice rumbles the earth beneath my feet. “Well done, lamb-killer Weed. Mighty stoat-killer Weed! Your second task is complete, and your reward awaits. Or, in the heat of all your killing, have you forgotten about saving the life of your sweet Jessamine? She is weak, so weak, poor girl. Not long for your world, I’m afraid.”
“Give me the cure.” How I wish I could pull them all up by the roots and tear them to shreds, I think, and then, No—that is what they want—to make me think as they do, with no reverence for life, no pity, no mercy—
Moonseed uncurls a large flat leaf, and presents another bundle of herbs and leaves.
“Will this cure her?” I ask.
“No. Not yet.”
“Will it rouse her again, even for a short time?”
“On the contrary—it will plunge her into a deep sleep, almost unto death,” Moonseed explains. “Her heart will scarcely beat. No power on earth will be able to wake her. But you must give her this mixture nevertheless, if she is to have any chance of surviving.”
The thought of giving Jessamine a medicine that will bring her one step closer to death fills me with dread. “Why must I?” I demand.
“She nears the end of her strength. This will conserve what life is left in her. It will give you more time.”
“And you need time.” Snakeweed’s voice seethes with scorn. “Time to perform your third, and final, task.”
“Final it shall be, for I grow weary of your evil games.” Bitterly I take the packet of herbs and begin walking in the direction of the gate.
“A word to the wise, Master Weed,” Dumbcane calls after me. “Next time you want to kill something, use a little poison. It’s so much easier—and less messy—than bashing in heads with a stick.”
H
is laughter increases and grows out of control, until it becomes a rolling, rumbling, sickening sound, like the fall of an avalanche. “Use a little poison, why don’t you? Ha ha ha ha ha!”
Mr. Luxton hovers near me as, with trembling hands, I spoon the mixture between Jessamine’s lips. As the potion trickles down her throat, she shudders and gasps, as if this would be her last breath. Before our eyes, she sinks into a blue-tinged stillness it would be all too easy to mistake for death.
“Fascinating,” Mr. Luxton says, gazing at his daughter’s lifeless form. “Does she feel any pain, I wonder? Is she aware of us at all, or has she been sent into some mysterious, twilight sleep, in which she has no knowledge of the passage of time?”
“I hope she feels no pain,” I say softly. My heart breaks as I look at her. Will I ever hear her voice again? I think. Will we ever again walk together through the fields and forests? And her lips—how alive they were, once! How still and cold they are now.
I tuck the blankets snugly around her. Her chest barely rises. The pulse I seek in her wrist is slow and so faint as to be nearly imperceptible. I knew nothing of love before meeting Jessamine, and now I am left to wonder: Is this how it works? A teardrop’s worth of happiness dissolved in an ocean of loss?
I would do anything to save her, no matter how base or cruel. I know that now. The Poisons have taught me that. For the love of her, I did the one thing my beloved—my betrothed!—made me swear not to do. And now she lies before me, all but dead.
“You must try again, Weed,” Mr. Luxton urges. “You must go back to the garden. You must learn everything you can, so we can save her from this curséd, nameless disease….”
He talks on and on in this insistent way, as he scribbles away in his book of cures. Gazing down at the lifeless mask that now stands in for my dear Jessamine’s face, I fear it has all been a mistake. I should never have listened to the Poisons, or gone to them for help.
The Poison Diaries Page 12
