Copper Ravens(20)

Once my hacking subsided, and I could see again, I took a good look at all that junk. The shop was packed from floor to ceiling with jars containing murky liquids and dull-colored powders. From the rafters, various things, some animal, some vegetable, and some unidentifiable, were hung up to dry. In the space not occupied by hanging and jarred dead things, rolls of parchment and dusty, cracked leather tomes were stacked in teetering piles. In short, if Shep were to ever visit the apothecary, he would have his work cut out for him.

Behind all the clutter, magical and otherwise, sat a hunchbacked crone. She was straight out of a fairy tale, complete with gray, stringy hair, skin crisscrossed with wrinkles as deep as chasms, and a shapeless robe in varied shades of used bathwater. She sat behind a wooden table, upon which lay a stack of pelts.

“Help you?” she croaked, glancing up from the pelts she was sorting. A few were still bloody, and one of them wiggled.

“I’m looking for something,” I said, my voice mostly holding steady. Now that I was really there, really doing this, I almost completely lost my nerve. “Something to keep me from having a baby.”

The crone cackled, the sound filling the tiny space of the shop and rattling my bones. “So, you like him well enough, but not too much?” I opened my mouth, whether to protest or explain how much I really did like him I didn’t know, but she waved it away. “I’ve some extract of Queen’s Lace in the back,” she said, creakily unfolding herself from her chair. “I’ll be but a moment.”

“What is Queen’s Lace?” Sadie demanded, once the crone was out of sight.

“It keeps you from getting pregnant,” I whispered. Sadie drew back, shaking her head.

“Micah won’t like this,” she warned.

“What makes you think I haven’t told him?”

“If you had, you’d be here with him instead of me.” Good point. Thankfully, before Sadie pointed out the rest of the holes in my argument, the crone reappeared bearing a blue glass bottle.

She set the bottle on the counter, and for a moment I just stared at it. I was surprised at how small it was, based on how drastically the contents could—would—alter my relationship with Micah.

I touched the cork stopper, and then the glass itself, unable to suppress a shiver. It was nothing to be scared of, nothing to be intimidated by. I mean, it was only an herbal extract, just like the vanilla I would add to cookies, or the peppermint oil that kept away pantry moths. Still, if I took this innocent little bottle back to the manor, my life would take a decidedly different turn.

I swallowed and made my choice. “How much?” I asked.

“For Lady Silverstrand?” the crone sneered. Obviously, if I used the extract I’d never be Lady Silverstrand. All I would ever be was a freeloader in Micah’s home. “Take it, with my compliments.”

Despite her words, I was still fumbling with my purse. “I’d rather pay—”

“And I would rather a friend in my lord’s home,” she finished.

“I’ll be your friend,” I said, firmly placing a few coins on the pile of stinking pelts, “but I’d rather not owe anyone.”

The crone cackled again, this time with her head thrown back and spittle flying. “How quickly you’ve learned our ways!” She swept the coins into a fold of her robe. “But do me this, dearie—don’t tell my lord where you obtained this.”

“And you, dearie, won’t tell anyone that I purchased it.” She nodded, and with that Sadie and I exited the shop. My hands were shaking, and I was coated in a cold, clammy sweat; though he wasn’t even here, I felt like I’d just lied to Micah.





7

Just as I’d promised, once my business at the apothecary was done, Sadie and I immediately left the village and returned to the manor. She didn’t even give us time to walk through the nicer side of the village, not even to visit the bakery. And here I’d thought that cookies make every day better.

Still, Sadie was in a surprisingly adventurous mood after surviving our sojourn to the village, not to mention our encounter with the crone, and she agreed to return to the manor by way of the metal pathway, instead walking on the much safer, and much longer, road. She must have realized that I only suggested traveling by metal because I was trying to distract her (I am a firm believer in the Shiny Object Theory), but whatever. I would take what I could get.

We landed, if that’s what you want to call it, in the gardens that stretched behind the manor. No matter how many times I had set foot in the gardens, the lush beauty never failed to take my breath away; every flower and shrub always seemed to be in full leaf and covered in flowers, and, more often than not, also laden with ripe, juicy fruit. Surrounding the gardens were acres and acres of orchards, the trees carefully maintained in orderly rows like so many wooden soldiers. Beyond the orchards was a deep, dark forest.