I myself have sometimes wondered what force could have put so many kinds of life on the earth, and made us need each other so, and hurt each other so, but I have not yet conceived of an answer. Still, to church I go, three miles on foot in the hot August haze. It is for my own protection. A woman who knows how to heal will always be suspected of witchcraft in these parts. The witch laws were struck down before I was born, but the people fear what they fear.
This is the north of England, after all; it is beautiful and raw here, and the land, the wind, and the sea have minds of their own. The people do, too. The north is not London, where the latest fashion is always best. In the north, the new is suspect, and the old ways die hard.
Like an apparition I glide silently into the chapel, so that everyone may see I am a virtuous and God-fearing young woman, and that my powers, such as they are, are drawn from nothing more sinister than a sprig of feverfew, a tisane of camomile, or a paste of crushed garlic and cloves.
“Good morning, Miss Luxton,” the people murmur as I pass. “Good day and good health to you.” When they ask about my father, and wonder why he no longer goes out, I say he is busy with his apothecary garden, or studying ancient cures at the Duke’s library at Alnwick Castle. The truth is that since my recovery, his frequent dark moods have knitted themselves into a ceaseless gloom. He works day and night, in his study or in the garden. At mealtimes he is silent; when we pass each other in the hall, he barely looks at me.
I thought I was alone before, before Weed came and I had only Father’s stern presence for company. Now Father is as lost to me as Weed is.
I sit stiff-backed in a pew, not far from the church doors. I stand when the preacher asks us to stand. I kneel when he tells us to kneel. When it is time to sing hymns, I raise my voice with the congregation, not so loudly that I draw attention to myself, but with enough force to be heard.
When the service is over I linger, my head bowed. Those who would beg my help approach me in turn: “Miss Luxton, the baby won’t stop coughing.” “Miss Luxton, a week’s come and gone and the wound won’t heal.” “Miss Luxton, it’s near my time, I need something to ease the birth pangs, will you come right away if I send my girl for you?”
One after another they tell me their aches, their pains, their worries. I nod in sympathy and promise to come when needed. Then I follow my fellow worshippers through the door, stepping from the cool, damp air of the church into the merciless noonday sun.
The preacher speaks to each one of us as we exit, gazing into our eyes, clasping our hands. He tells us to believe, so that we may be saved. “Hellfire is a thousand times hotter than this,” he warns, shaking a finger to the sky. “A thousand times a thousand! But you must believe!”
Outside the church the people gather in small, frightened groups and whisper, “The end of the world is nigh.”
They are righter than they know.
There – it has happened again. The words appear in my mind as if someone spoke them aloud. But there is no one here. It is as if my thoughts are not entirely my own.
And the voice – it chills my blood to admit it – but I have come realise that I know that voice. It is the voice from my nightmares. The voice of the evil prince.
He calls himself Oleander. The Prince of Poisons.
Shaken, I walk home from church, lay down my light summer shawl, eat a simple lunch of bread and cheese, alone. The cottage is quiet. Father must be out wandering the fields, or brooding behind the tall gate of his locked garden.
Once I thought of it as his apothecary garden, but now I know better. Those plants are poison, and the garden is something unnatural – a living weapon. Weed told me as much.
Your father has done me a great service, planting that garden. I hope he is not fool enough to think he is its master.
The words snake through my head, slow and inexorable, like oil spreading over water.
If so, he will pay the price someday, for that garden already has a master. One who will allow no pretenders to the throne.
There is a rap at the door.
I startle. Am I losing my mind? Is the dark prince of my nightmares standing outside my cottage this instant?
A charming thought, lovely. But I have no need of doors. All the locked gates in the world could not contain me. I enter when and where I wish. I hold the key to every poisoned heart.
The rap comes again, insistent. I remember the woman at church, the one who was heavy with child. Perhaps her pains have started. Trying to shake off this strange bout of madness, I grab my shawl and my medical bag and hurry to the door.
“I am ready,” I begin to say, but two men stand before me. Local men, both farmers. I have seen them before, at market day. Their awkward bulk fills the doorframe and blocks the slanted afternoon light.
“Miss Luxton?”
“Yes.”
The taller man glances at the bag in my hands. “Might we come in for a moment and speak with you? It won’t take long.”
I bid them enter and show them to the parlour, but I remain standing. “I would ask you to sit, but as you see I was just on my way out,” I say, gesturing with my bag. “I trust you are not ill? That is the usual reason for strangers to appear at my door.”
The men shake their heads and glance uncomfortably around the room, with its vaulted ceiling and tall, arched windows. Long ago this cottage was a chapel. Now it is our home. Is that why I am being curse with this strange madness? I think. Can the echo of a thousand unanswered prayers ever truly fade? Can a chapel be haunted?
My uneasy visitors wring their hats in their hands. The tall man speaks. “Sorry to detain you, Miss Luxton. We’re from the Association for the Prosecution of Criminal Acts and Undesirables. Me and Horace, here, we’re making enquiries in the neighbourhood, regarding the matter of – well, a missing person, you might say.”
“Dead person, he means.” His companion scowls. “Don’t drag this out, Ned, I’ll be wanting supper soon, and it’s a long way home on foot.”
Missing person – dead person. Surely they cannot mean Weed? I bite my lip hard, and use the pain to steady myself.
The one called Ned swallows and nods. “Miss Luxton, there was a travelling preacher who came and went through these parts. ‘Repent, repent,’ you know the type – anyways, the man hasn’t been seen for some time. A week ago his Bible turns up near the crossroads, buried deep in a hedge of bramble. A farmer from Alnwick found it. One of his lambs got tangled up in the thorns, see, and he had to cut out the branches to free it. It was a bit worse for the rain and sun – the Bible, I mean – but you could still read the name on the flyleaf.”
Ned pauses and wipes his face with a simple cotton square he extracts from a pocket. “Forgive me, miss. There’s more, but it’s not an easy story to tell to a young lady like yourself. Not far from the Bible was… was…”
“A pile of bones,” Horace interrupts. “Human bones. Picked so clean you’d think they’d been boiled for soup.” He cleans his teeth with his own dirty fingernail, as if to demonstrate.
His words bore into me, releasing a gush of dread from some deep reservoir inside. “The ravens of Hulne Park do their work swiftly,” I say, masking my fear. “I hope you will follow their good example, gentlemen. Why are you here?”
“The truth is, miss, we don’t much care what happened to this fellow. Good riddance, one might say. Who wants to hear all that gloom and doom? But as it turns out, the preacher had a wife, and they both were members of our association. Dues paid in full.” Horace shakes his head in disappointment. “Which means that we two are stuck with the job of investigating.”
“Couldn’t