Ben placed his hand across my bare abdomen.
“Do you want a boy or a girl?”
“I think I’d like to have a boy. Then our family would be complete.”
He traced around my bellybutton with his finger, sending shivers through me. “You don’t want a daughter of your own?”
I turned to look at him. “Sophia couldn’t be more my own if I’d had her myself.”
He kissed my lips ever so gently. “I’m glad you feel that way because I feel the same. I think choosing her was one of the best decisions I have ever made.”
“One of the best?”
He smiled. “Marrying you was the very best decision I’ve ever made.”
He moved closer; kissing me. His warm breath covered my neck with soft kisses until I felt the weight of his body delightfully resting on mine.
After a quick breakfast at home with Sophia, Ben left for work. Hillary agreed to stay for a little while longer since Sam had agreed to take their kids to school. I kissed Sophia and promised Hillary I wouldn’t stay long at the manor.
When I arrived at the manor, I could sense that something was different. Ice had formed on the worn, brass doorknob at the front door, and ice crystals decorated the glass on the windows. It wasn’t that cold outside, which meant something inside the manor had to be causing the extreme cold. I used the sleeve of my jacket to turn the frozen doorknob, and pushed hard with my hip to get the door open. As I did this, little shards of ice broke free from the door and slid across the floor like shattered glass.
I stepped inside the foyer, wondering if it was safe to go in since I could see my breath like rolling puffs of smoke as it left my throat. The icy air froze my nostrils, and assaulted my lungs like little stabbing icicles. My lips were numb, and I constantly blinked my eyes to prevent my contacts from clouding up. Something was wrong, and I had to get to Amelia, but I feared for my own safety in the icy, permafrost that had settled in the manor.
I swung the door open wide, hoping it would warm things up inside. Then, I grabbed my gloves and scarf from the back seat of the car and braved my way up the stairs to the nursery. The room was filled with an icy fog, and all three of the Blackwell children were situated around the table as though harvested and frozen in time. The frosty air filtering around them was the only movement in the room. The children, neatly arranged, stiff like corpses, looked as though they’d just escaped the grave.
The sub-zero temperature permeated my bones; caused stiffness in my joints and disorientation of thought. I couldn’t help the Blackwell children anymore, though I wanted desperately to warm them and bring them back. Suddenly, it hit me that it was just like the setting of my dream.
I knew I couldn’t stay in the manor any longer, fearing that if I did, I could end up like the children. My only intention at this point was to get the journal and leave as quickly as possible. I carefully broke free Amelia’s journal from the ice-covered table, not wanting to tear its binding. Pulling it close to my body, I immediately felt heat radiating from it. I no longer felt the cold and I momentarily wondered if it was because I’d gone completely numb. But when a warm glow filled the room, it quickly defrosted the children.
Suddenly, familiar movement from the children began as if carefully choreographed. Amelia poured tea, while Lizzie wiggled impatiently in her seat. Fredrick drank from the teacup in front of him with his usual blank stare. I didn’t interrupt their routine; the same routine I’d seen before that ended with the three of them nestled in their beds. There had to be some significance to the children’s repetitions, but I had no idea why this event replayed for me now.
I stood aside, waiting nervously for the ritual to play out, hoping for an intermission so I could interact with Amelia, but the break didn’t come. Wondering if her journal held any significance to the happenstance, I opened it and skipped ahead until I came upon an entry that caught my eye and choked my heart. I was so shocked by the written words, I read them out loud.
Sunday, August 25, 1901
MOMMA IS GOING TO DIE AND DADDY CAN’T STOP IT. I’M SO SAD I WANT TO DIE TOO.
A lump forming in my throat, I looked up from the page, and Amelia snapped her head around as though suddenly aware of my presence in the room. My heart beat so hard, it felt like it would burst from my ribcage, but I held my breath as I held her stare; unsure of what would happen next.
As though to defy the permanence of the statement, she resumed her tea party with her siblings. Instead of reading further and encouraging another reaction from her, I concluded that this was a significant finding.
As though trapped in this one event, doomed to repeat it for all eternity, the children continued to replicate the series of play until each was secure in their beds.
After watching them carefully, I concluded that the tea party must have been the last thing they did before they died. But why was having tea so important to them? Perhaps the journal could shed more light on the disturbing gathering. Hadn’t the newspaper archives mentioned the children were possibly poisoned in their sleep? Could it be that the poison was in the tea? Feeling positive I was on the verge of discovering some truth to the story, I opened the journal and resumed reading from the previous entry.
Monday, August 26, 1901
Last night I sat outside Momma’s bedroom door listening to Daddy cry. Momma must have been asleep, for she didn’t say a word to him for over an hour. All I could hear was Daddy crying and telling her how much he loved her, and begging her not to leave him. For a while, I was so worried she was already dead, that I nearly unlocked the door with the key Daddy still doesn’t know I have hidden. When I finally heard Momma speaking quietly to him, I felt like I could breathe again. I don’t know what I would do without Momma. I feel guilty for asking her to play in the flower garden with me the last two months because Daddy said she was exerting herself too much. I wish she was stronger, but I fear she never will be again.
I briefly looked up from the page to see if Amelia had returned to the nursery, but she hadn’t, so I turned to the next entry and resumed reading.
Tuesday, August 27, 1901
After sneaking in to see Momma last night after Daddy went back to his apothecary laboratory, I couldn’t get rid of the bad feeling I had about my visit with her.
She looks very pale and her hair is nearly all gone. She made up a story, telling me that she was shedding like the cat and her hair would grow back soon, but I didn’t believe her. I could see the sadness in her eyes, especially when she made me promise that I would never forget how much she loves me.
I asked her if she was going to die. She told me she was ready to go to Heaven, and I would see her there someday. I tried not to cry, but I couldn’t stop myself.
Wednesday, August 28, 1901
Fredrick refused to sneak in to see Momma with me last night, so I took Lizzie instead. She tried to look happy to see us, but I think she was in pain. She asked about Fredrick, but I lied to her and said he was sleeping. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her the truth. I nearly cried when Fredrick said he didn’t want to see her because he didn’t want to watch her die. His selfishness makes me angry. All he thinks about is his own feelings, when we should be thinking of Momma’s feelings now.
We had a very nice talk, though Lizzie kept whining that she was tired. When I let her out of the room to go to bed, Momma’s talk with me became very serious. I tried not to listen to what she was saying, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to hear that she was tired of fighting and just wanted to be left alone. I especially tried to ignore her when she asked me to get her a big box of sleeping powders from Daddy’s apothecary lab so she could sleep forever in Heaven.
Tears stung my eyes while I struggled to breathe. I felt sorry for Amelia for having to endure so much at only ten years old. Her writing made her seem far beyond her years, and it was hard to believe that so much emotion and maturity could come from someone so youn
g. As I thought about her now, I realized she must have been an old soul by the time she’d written these passages. I looked for her, but still saw no sign of her or the other children so I resumed reading the pages of the journal I just couldn’t seem to tear myself away from.
Saturday, August 31, 1901
I’ve tried to avoid seeing Momma for the past few days, hoping she would forget asking me for Daddy’s sleeping powders. I don’t want her to sleep forever because I would miss her terribly. I know she would probably be happier in Heaven if it’s as nice as Reverend Hargrove says it is when he gives his sermons. But I still don’t want her to go without me and Fredrick and Lizzie.
Oh no! All I could think about was the newspaper archives that accused Dr. Blackwell of killing his wife with his unorthodox methods of treatment and untested medicines, along with the accusations that he poisoned the children in their sleep and then ran off. I hated to think of the other possibility. The possibility that it could have been Amelia that had…no…it was too awful to even think about. Yet I couldn’t seem to tear myself away from the pages of her journal.
Sunday, September 1, 1901
I went to see Momma late again tonight since Daddy won’t let us go in to see her anymore. He says we need to let her rest. He says he almost has her new medicine ready. The one he says will make her well again. Momma says she doesn’t want to experiment with anymore medicine because they make her so sick. I heard Daddy pleading with her to try one more, but she refused. I know it upset him because he went straight to his apothecary lab when he left her room, and I could see he’d been crying.
I was thankful Momma didn’t ask me for the sleeping powders again.
Monday September 2, 1901
Momma made me promise her I would bring her the big box of sleeping powders when I came to visit tomorrow night. I didn’t want to disobey her, but I don’t want her to leave me and go to Heaven without me. I found Daddy’s hiding place for the key to his apothecary lab in the bookcase in the library. I made sure he was in bed before I went in there to get the box. I put it under my pillow until I could give it to Momma.
Amelia appeared in the nursery and stood in front of me, a sullen look on her face. Somehow she looked a little different. Almost a little more life-like, if that was possible. I couldn’t resist talking to her.
“Did you obey your momma and give her the box of sleeping powders?”
Her head sunk low, her chin touching her chest. I knew then I couldn’t expect the child to admit the mistake she knew she’d made. My eyes drifted back to the journal’s final pages, knowing Amelia’s story was about to conclude whether I wanted it to or not.
Tuesday September 3, 1901
Tonight, I brought Momma the big box of sleeping powders just like she told me to. She poured half the box into her teacup and told me to put the box back and return to her room with Fredrick and Lizzie. I obeyed her even though my heart was breaking with grief because I knew she was going to Heaven tonight, and I would never see her again until it was my turn to go there one day.
She hugged each of us and made us promise to mind Daddy and listen to our academic instructors and to follow the Reverend Hargrove’s lessons. After kissing each of us (goodbye), she made us leave the room before Daddy would catch us and reprimand us for disobeying his orders to let Momma rest.
When Daddy went into her room to visit with her, I sat outside the door and listened to them talk. Momma told him she loved him, and thanked him for trying so hard to cure her illness, but she didn’t want any more medicine because it was making her too weak. Daddy tried to argue with her, but Momma can be a stubborn woman.
I nearly lost my breath when I heard her asking Daddy for her cup of tea. When I heard the teacup drop to the floor and break, and Daddy crying, I knew it was at that moment that Momma had gone to Heaven like she wanted.
I looked up from the page with tears in my eyes. Amelia was tying a black satin bow on her black dress, then, picked up her child-size black parasol and left the room. I closed the journal, tucking it under my arm as I followed her. She went out the open door and followed the path through the woods to the family graveyard. I watched closely as her mother’s funeral played out before me just as I’d gotten a glimpse of it before. But this time, I witnessed Amelia standing over the fresh grave after the family had gone back to the manor. She knelt in the dirt and whispered to her momma “I’m sorry Momma, but I’ll see you in Heaven soon.”
Panic rose up in my throat at the sound of her private words. Then, suddenly, she turned to me, the angle of her brow showing anger at my presence. She lifted a finger to her lips the same way she had before, but this time, it appeared as a warning for me to keep silent about her secret confession. Then, she was gone, and I was standing alone in the graveyard in its current, time-worn condition. I ran back to the manor and up the stairs to the nursery, fearing what she was up to next.
Then I saw it.
The large bottle of sleeping elixir labeled with Dr. Blackwell’s signature, and a large box of sleeping powders. It was the one element that had been missing from the sequence of events the previous times I’d watched it play out. I tried to stop her from pouring the contents of the bottle and the box into the teapot, but I was helpless to prevent something that had already taken place more than one hundred years before.
I followed her to the attic and watched her lock away the nearly empty bottle along with the empty box of sleeping powders in the steamer trunk, then, hide the key behind the brick in the wall of the fireplace.
When she suddenly disappeared, I ran as quickly as possible to the nursery, but I was too late. The children were already gathered around the table drinking the poison-laden tea. She had used both methods of sleeping agents; most likely to be certain of its strength to deliver the outcome she wished for. I stood by helplessly watching them as they tipped the bottom of the teacups, emptying the contents into their unsuspecting bodies. Strangely, Amelia had only sipped her tea, but then I remembered her taking her cup with her to bed after carefully putting Lizzie to bed and placing a loving kiss upon her forehead. It was after that when she settled into her bed that she emptied the contents of the teacup down her throat.
She turned and looked at me then, as if to say “It’s finally over.” I knew there was nothing I could do but tell the truth to the world and salvage her father’s good name by proving his innocence of the murders. I knew Amelia was a scared and confused little girl, and had meant no harm. That she’d only wanted to be with her mother in Heaven. She wasn’t any more a murderer than her father was. Now her journal would be an advocate for her father’s innocence.
I opened the journal to read the conclusion to the young lives I’d just witnessed leaving this world.
Wednesday, September 4, 1901
Today was Momma’s funeral. I tried to be happy for her that she was finally in Heaven, but all I can feel is sad and jealous. I don’t want the angels to play with Momma when I can no longer play with her. It isn’t fair to me or Fredrick or Lizzie.
After I changed out of my wet muddy clothes from the funeral, I eavesdropped on Daddy and Reverend Hargrove. I overheard him promising Daddy he would arrange for me and Fredrick and Lizzie to be put into the orphanage on Friday so Daddy could travel and sell his medicine. He told Reverend Hargrove we were low on money and he needed some time away to think about his life. What about my life and Fredrick’s life and Lizzie’s life? Daddy lied to us and told us we would be staying with Aunt Lucinda for a while until he’s done traveling. I know it’s a lie because I overheard Aunt Lucinda say she was too old to care for children anymore. I don’t want to go to the orphanage. I would rather go to Heaven with Momma.
My heart caught in my throat. How could Amelia bear such a burden? How could she make such a decision at such a young age? I supposed it was because of her age that she had not thought of the consequences of her actions. I read the final passage, though I already knew what it would contain.
Thursday, Sep
tember 5, 1901
Tonight I will have a tea party with Fredrick and Lizzie. We will drink sleepy tea and go to sleep just like Momma, so we can go to Heaven to be with Momma. We will NOT go to the orphanage.
I could see the relief in Amelia’s eyes that someone beside herself knew what she’d done. I wanted so much to comfort her, but was surprised when I saw the rest of her family from the corner of my eye. I could see them assembled on the lawn from the nursery window, and I knew they were waiting for her. As much as I regretted having to let her go, I encouraged her to follow me outside to meet up with them. When we exited the front door, Dr. and Mrs. Blackwell were playing on the lawn with Fredrick and Lizzie, and they had never appeared so life-like to me. I watched as Amelia raced across the lawn and jumped into her mother’s arms. Her father embraced them in a family hug, then, they all joined hands and walked toward the woods. I wondered if I would ever see them again as Amelia turned to wave goodbye to me, a bright smile spread across her life-like face, and an audible “Thank you” escaped her lips. She was with her family now, and even Jingles ran happily after them. I would miss Amelia and Jingles, but I was happy that she was finally free, and with her family just the way she’d longed to be for more than one hundred years.
It was her deed that had bound her to the manor, forcing her to repeat what she’d done. If the truth had not freed her, she would have continued to haunt the manor with her disheartening act of obedience to her mother.
After the holidays, we finally had the party to celebrate our marriage. Ben strutted around the manor proudly, introducing me to his colleagues, and patting my belly to show off our soon-to-be new edition to our family—a boy.
The Apothecary's Daughter (Romance/Mystery/Suspense) Page 15
