Chapter 4 #2
“It would not be so very bad,” Keriah protested.
“Our relationship is sour enough as it is. Kidnapping him would cause it to stink like our dog kennels.”
“But the Citadel?—”
“—is well aware that we are on the outs with each other, now that the story has likely spread throughout all of society.” Phoebe stabbed her trowel a bit sharply into the bag of compost. “It would be impossible for me to convince him and his new wife to leave town.”
“Which is why I suggested that we kidnap him!” Keriah looked at her with wide eyes, her expression saying, Isn’t that the most obvious solution?
Phoebe lifted her eyes to the glass panels above and sighed deeply. “I have no desire to plan such a difficult action for a man who is likely not in any danger.”
“I would have very much liked to knock him out and cart him away,” Keriah muttered.
“You only want to kidnap him so that you have the perfect excuse to inflict temporary bodily harm upon him.”
“It would not be bodily harm.” Keriah looked up at her with an innocent expression. “I assure you, I can guarantee no lasting damage would occur from a strong blow to the jaw right here.” She lifted her chin and pointed with unerring precision.
“You will not pop my father in the jaw.”
Keriah sighed mightily and continued shoveling soil into the pot in her hand.
At last, all the pots were filled. Phoebe reached into her own reticule and removed several packets of seeds.
The sweet, grassy aroma seemed to assault her the moment she removed them from her bag. Her eyelids fluttered, but, mindful of Keriah’s gaze upon her, she forced her eyes open immediately.
The scent of the pollen from Jack’s hybrids had not affected her quite as strongly as the faint grains of pollen clinging to the packets of seeds from Bianca’s notebook.
But even with the plants that she had been growing previously, there would be strange moments where she thought she heard a voice calling to her, bidding her to reach out and touch the plants, to bury her face in a blossom, to pluck a leaf and crush it in her fingers.
The temptation had not always been there.
It only occurred once in a while, and usually when she was alone.
But the call from the plants had been fascinating, alluring—and, she somehow knew, unholy.
She now understood the temptation of the fruit in the Garden of Eden, if the smell had been like that of the Goldensuit plants.
“Phoebe, are you well?” Keriah’s voice was sharper. She had seen Phoebe’s eyes flutter.
“I am well. Be certain your mask is secure. There are perhaps pollen grains clinging to the outside of the packets.”
“Phoebe—”
Whatever she had been about to say was interrupted when the door opened and Aya returned carrying a bucket of water.
“Thank you, Aya,” Phoebe said. “Please remain by the door, for there is some pollen on the seed packets.”
She began planting the seeds, two for each little pot.
She knew that some seeds germinated more successfully when several were planted together, but she simply did not have enough to be able to experiment.
She had more hybrid seeds from Jack’s plants, but she wanted to be careful with those as well, since she was unlikely to acquire more.
“Are you planting different types of seeds?” Keriah glanced down at the three packets on the table.
“I am planting seeds harvested from Apothecary Jack’s hybrid plant, and I also found a packet of seeds from the original Goldensuit plant in the back of one of Bianca’s notebooks.
” She had been fortunate to find those, for the Goldensuit plants they had acquired from Jack had been sickly, and they had only just started to flower when she and Mr. Norton moved them from the storage hut at the top of the secondhand shop.
“And the third?” Keriah pointed at the paper packet. “Was that also from Bianca’s notebooks?”
“I am attempting to grow one of Bianca’s hybrids, which she called Snow.”
“She wrote most extensively about that one,” Keriah said thoughtfully. She had been the one to translate the encoded portions of the notebooks. “It was her most successful hybrid, the one that supposedly healed a child from a comatose state.”
“She collected seeds of the other hybrids that she created, but she had more seeds of Snow than any of the others. I am still uncertain of my ability to grow these Goldensuit plants, and I did not wish to risk failure when germinating some of them.”
“How long before they flower?” There was an urgency to Keriah’s voice as she asked the question.
“I am uncertain. If this were a flower like a lily or poppy, it would take five or six weeks.”
“Five or six weeks?!” Keriah’s voice rose, echoing off the bare walls of the conservatory.
“I collected pollen from Jack’s hybrid plants and from my few Goldensuit blossoms only yesterday.
” When they were forced to move them, she would have collected the pollen regardless, to prevent it from escaping into the air, but now she was also glad she had done the job thoroughly, for it was the last pollen she would be able to harvest for many weeks.
“And do you not still possess some pollen from a previous batch of Jack’s hybrid plants?
In truth, we have quite a large amount in stock. ”
Keriah was only slightly mollified by the reminder. She looked down at the tiny pot of soil in her hands. “Mr. Coulton-Jones has needed the pollen more often as of late.”
Phoebe’s hands stilled for a moment, but then she continued planting seeds. She had overheard Keriah speaking to Uncle Sol and Aunt Laura about it a week ago.
It had pained her to hear of it, but after the kiss, which occured only a little more than a day ago, the reminder of his mortality held a more poignant note. They had not been alone together since, and Phoebe was not certain what she would even say to him if she had the chance.
She had heard often enough that a man’s feelings were different from a woman’s, but she had felt his sincerity when he kissed her.
And yet, what could come of it? She knew him well enough by now that he would not want to burden anyone.
He would leave them before he could harm anyone—or before he could cause anguish to those about whom he cared.
Keriah continued, “Soon, I shall need to increase the amount of pollen in each dose.”
And when there was no more pollen? Or when the amount of pollen that Phoebe could grow and harvest was overtaken by the amount Mr. Coulton-Jones required in order to remain alive?
Phoebe felt quite energetic at the moment, but what would happen when headaches and muscle spasms assaulted her, and she also needed to partake of their reserve of pollen? What if she needed the pure Goldensuit pollen rather than Jack’s hybrid? What if it turned her into a?—
She remembered the sight of Mr. Coulton-Jones, wild and uncontrollable in his rage. He had not harmed anyone, but was that because he attempted to harness himself, or simply coincidence? Would Phoebe harm her loved ones?
“I have Bianca’s notes now,” Phoebe said, injecting some false heartiness into her tone.
“The Goldensuit plants grew much better once I implemented her recommended compost and watering schedule. The plants seemed to grow quite quickly once they recovered. We may have pollen in as little as four weeks.”
Keriah’s eyes were looking off into the far corner of the room, and her pupils twitched back and forth, indicating that she was doing calculations in her head. “I believe we have enough pollen for you both,” she said at last.
Phoebe knew that her decision not to take the Blood Nectar or the Root potion again had pained her friend deeply, but she also knew that Keriah understood the reasons why she would not partake of that evil concoction ever again.
Her life, and these abilities, were not worth the sacrifice of innocents required for the Blood Nectar.
Nor did she wish to be dependent upon a plant like the Goldensuit, which both drew her and made her deeply uncomfortable.
They planted and watered the pots, each one marked with a colored stone—black for the Goldensuit, gray for Jack’s hybrid, and white for Bianca’s hybrid, Snow. They placed the pots in the area where Phoebe guessed the most sunlight would fall.
As they were about to leave the conservatory, Aya appeared from where she had been wandering about the house. She nodded toward a small table by the door, where Phoebe realized a brass key lay. “It was there when we entered, and I tested it. It locks the door to the conservatory.”
“I suppose Sir Harvey would not have wished to accidentally leave the key at his country home,” Phoebe said.
Aya also handed her a ring of iron keys. “I know that Mrs. Rook hides a spare set of household keys, so I searched for something similar in this house. I found these in the linen closet, hidden under some folded sheets.”
Keriah grasped the keys eagerly. “Now I need not attempt to lock the door again behind us using my lock-picking tools.”
“Were you so uncertain that you could accomplish the task?” Phoebe asked. When she had asked Keriah earlier, she had seemed quite confident of her ability.
Keriah’s eyes slid to the side, and she grimaced. “Not uncertain, exactly …”
And so, they were able to secure the doors to the conservatory, to the house, and to the mews as they exited Sir Harvey’s residence.
They walked to a nearby hackney stand and rode back to the edge of Rasken Hill, which was where the cabdriver dropped them off, refusing to enter any further into that dark and dingy area.
Aya was incensed and inclined to argue with the man, but Phoebe dissuaded her.
She remained aware of their surroundings as they walked the narrow streets, and at one point, she thought that they were being followed.
Phoebe turned to boldly confront the man following behind them, and when his heartbeat pulsed and he pulled a knife from his sleeve, she made a fist and punched him solidly in the nose.
His cry of pain as he dropped to the cobblestones echoed off the buildings on either side. Even better, it accomplished what she had intended—two other men who had been lying in wait several yards ahead of them on either side of the road abruptly withdrew.
The three women were not accosted by anyone else on the way back to the tannery.
When they entered the house, they were surprised to find Mr. Coulton-Jones slumped on a seat in the drawing room. Aunt Laura was sitting on the sofa next to him, patting his hand in a consoling way.
“Whatever has happened?” Keriah asked.
“By your expression, I suppose you were unable to convince your mother to leave town?” Phoebe asked.
Mr. Coulton-Jones looked like a puppy that had been kicked. “We had a terrible row, and then she ordered me out of the house.”
“Isn’t that your house?” Phoebe asked.
He nodded glumly.
“Perhaps you need to kidnap her,” Keriah said.
Phoebe kicked her in the ankle bone, which Keriah had once told her could cause a great deal of pain with only a light tap. Her friend yelped and hopped a step away from her.
Uncle Sol entered the drawing room with two earthenware cups of tea, one of which he handed to Mr. Coulton-Jones and the other to Aunt Laura.
“Cheer up,” Uncle Sol said to the young man. “I sent Mr. Verling for help.”
Mr. Coulton-Jones looked up at him with raised eyebrows.
“I’m certain your sister is as clever as any decorated general, and she shall rout your mother from her home.”
“Mrs. Coulton-Jones is hardly an army, Sol,” Aunt Laura said reprovingly.
“She is certainly entrenched as deeply as one,” Mr. Coulton-Jones muttered.
Phoebe knew that Isabella was quite close to her mother, and she was certain she would succeed in convincing her to leave town for her safety, even if the full truth could not be revealed.
“One of the neighbors looked at us strangely as we entered through the back of the house,” Phoebe told Uncle Sol.
He nodded grimly. Although each of them had attempted not to be seen entering or leaving the residence, and they did not venture out unless necessary, it was still difficult to conceal their presence here. “We shall leave as soon as I arrange for a new place where we may be safe.”
“And where might that be?” There was an archness to Aunt Laura’s tone, and Phoebe wondered if perhaps she had asked Uncle Sol this question more than once.
“I am attempting to contact an agent whom I trust.”
“An agent with the Ramparts?” Aunt Laura asked. “How do you know that this person is trustworthy?”
Uncle Sol’s eyes flickered to the side for a moment, and something about the set of his body made Phoebe tense. But his voice was calm as he replied, “I would trust this agent with my life.” He glanced around the room at all of them. “And with all of your lives. I would not take this risk lightly.”
Laura did not look completely reassured, but she did not press him.
Phoebe could tell that, despite Uncle Sol’s calm demeanor, he had been nervous during the questioning. What was he hiding?