Ana #2
Poison. Healing Teas. Broths and Teas for Common Ailments. Botanical Curses and Poisons. Curative Plants. Natural Pain Relief.
Agnes had no formal education after high school, but her knowledge of plants for medicinal and nefarious purposes would put
most PhDs on the subject to shame.
I swivel again in her chair.
Someone has been in this room. I feel it, see it in things left just slightly out of place. The crystal paperweight on her
desk, a book on herbs pulled out from its spot and replaced. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Vera. She’s meticulous. She would
never leave Agnes’s book open, the door unlocked. The leather-bound volume, fully three inches thick, is crammed with generations
of study, recipes, anecdotes, antidotes, and advice. Agnes called it “The Knowledge.”
“It’s only for those who know their place on this planet, who understand the truth about nature, and our relationship to her,” she told me before my first lesson.
“The Great Mother with all her whims and moods, her fury, her grace, her power, protects us, destroys us at her pleasure. Do you understand, Ana?”
I did and I didn’t then. Like all human children, and most adults, I was a bit ignorant of my place in the ecosystem.
I close the book, a vein throbbing in my throat.
The dust motes dance and the couch over by the fireplace still has an Aunt Agnes–sized dent in one of the cushions. How many
hours did she spend here reading and writing, drawing? I can almost see her sitting there, looking up to peer at me over her
wire-rimmed specs, frizzy hair wild, when I interrupted her for this or that.
“Who was here?” I ask her.
She doesn’t answer. But the ideas come just the same.
The other members of The Cove know about this place, but each of them has her own books, her own recipes and ways, special
skills. Lisander, Agnes’s mentee, often joins us here to work on the garden. Who else? Another name comes to mind.
I rise and shut the heavy volume. The smudge stick has burned out in the shell, a final thin line of smoke snaking up in a
twist, then dissipating.
I grab the shell, exit the room, and lock the door behind me.
Down in the mudroom, I don one of the beekeeper suits we keep there, kick off my heels, pull on a pair of rubber-soled boots.
Outside, I walk the path to the garden.
It’s winter so when I unlock the heavy wooden door and push inside, there’s little to see.
A dormant garden in winter, though it appears dead, is a promise of what’s to come in spring. Beneath the surface, there is
life gestating, just waiting for its moment to burst forth. One of my favorite Agnes-isms.
Vera and I came in the fall together and cleaned and mulched the beds.
Some of the other members of The Cove were here, as well—Lisander, Camille and Bree, of course Vera’s little helper, April.
We harvested leaves, flowers, and berries to be dried and stored, composting what wasn’t needed out behind the greenhouse, pruned branches, and covered the beds to protect the roots from winter chill.
Lisander and Vera had words after the work was done. There’s always been tension there, a kind of love triangle between Lisander,
Vera, and Agnes. Lisander worshipped Agnes. Vera was Agnes’s star pupil, the one she wanted to pass The Knowledge to as her
heir apparent. Vera rejected the life completely, refusing Agnes’s seat in The Cove.
The Cove doesn’t even exist, Vera likes to say. It’s a fantasy.
Lisander and many others disagree.
I linger on the path.
This is not a garden like other gardens, though it has its share of roses and snapdragons, hydrangeas, other spectacularly
colored blooming plants, leafy green ferns, and climbing ivy. And if you come here in the late spring, early summer, when
nature’s color show is at its most audacious, you will marvel at its beauty. Surrounded by a tall stone wall, it’s a peaceful
place with a gurgling fountain and tidy white graveled paths. We keep this place as pristine as Agnes did, fully operational.
We provide herbs, seeds, flowers, petals, and stems to many of the area practitioners. It helps with the cost of keeping this
place.
In spring or summer, you might not even notice the hemlock growing white and pretty in the shade of the oak. Or the oleander,
slender and elegant as a debutant at the ball. The flowering rosary pea is long and thin, a climber, her berries as pretty
as ladybugs. Lovely purple belladonna with her ball gown blossoms seduces. Deadly nightshade sprouts fat blue berries so similar
to the harmless fruit in your fridge. At the far end of the garden, a tall tree with plump leaves offers small green apples
that are sweet to the taste, its sap milky white—the manchineel tree. Not native to this region, it takes some work to keep
it alive.
All of these plants can harm, burn, blind, or kill you. Some can heal you. Often both—depending on the dose, or on which part of it you ingest or come in contact with.
Girls, Aunt Agnes used to tell us, often the only difference between poison and medicine is the dose.
But today, the garden is fallow, waiting for spring. Winter is a time of paucity, of fearful shortfalls, where once upon a
time, animals and humans alike might have despaired as their winter stores dwindled and hunger was the constant companion.
Hence the name for the upcoming January full moon, the Wolf Moon, so named it’s said for the wolves howling in the bitter
cold of winter, lamenting the lack of nourishment. But it’s also a time of reflection and looking forward to the rebirth of
spring just weeks away. It’s a time of gathering, of coming together to help each other through.
I think about this as I move through the garden. There will be a great deal of work to do here soon. Vera and I will take
turns preparing for the season. Making a loop along the gravel paths, I’m satisfied that everything is undisturbed.
As I look at the hard, cold earth, I think of Paul in his shallow grave.
His body was so warm; he gave off so much heat. He was a copious sweater. Turned red if he ate too much spice. At night, he
was like sleeping next to a space heater.
Not anymore. I allow a tear to fall, wipe it away.
Vera doesn’t believe me.
But I did love him.
In my way.
At the west wall of the garden, I stop. Another door that should be locked stands ajar.
I study the handle. It does not appear to have been pried or forced.
Whoever opened it, did so with a key. Maybe someone picked it?
There are only two keys to this place, as well, again mine and Vera’s.
I know myself to be sloppy, distracted, and often careless.
But my sister is a machine. There is no way she left the door to this place unlocked.
It would be like leaving a gun cabinet open wide.
I stare a moment longer and then exit, thinking as I turn the key that we need better security.
Who has been here?
I keep walking west up the path, tromping clumsily in my boots and this ridiculous beekeeper suit that Agnes loved. She was
always wearing it.
The dead branches around me whisper, desiccated. I’m not alone.
A sound behind me causes me to turn quickly. I grip the tiny silver switchblade I only occasionally remember to carry with
me in my pocket. A woman must always be ready to defend herself, psychologically and physically. Another Agnes-ism.
She stands in the trees staring, frozen.
A doe. She is still, watching, so close I can see the gleam of her tawny fur, hear her breath. We lock eyes. On another day,
I might be the hunter and she the prey. But not today. Today, we are just two creatures in the forest, each up to the business
of existing, surviving. And truthfully, I’ve never hurt anything or anyone who didn’t deserve it.
After another moment she bolts, startled by something I didn’t hear, and I continue down the path to the greenhouse. Past
that is a small stone house with a chimney and mullioned windows. It has stood on the property for a hundred years at least,
the original house before my grandfather built the house where Agnes and my mother grew up. Inside it’s been gutted and thoroughly
modernized. Agnes called it “The Kitchen.”
An accomplished herbalist, Agnes used ingredients from her garden and some she had to import from other countries. She was
a sought-after purveyor of teas, tinctures, salves, and cures. She spent hours out here—chopping, cutting, drying, mixing,
storing, experimenting, developing recipes. Below the house is a cellar, where there are even more stores.
On the door to The Kitchen there’s a thick modern lock with a keypad. I’m relieved to find it firmly closed. I key in my code and push inside, greeted by warmth and the heavy scent of sage.
Something about this place always soothes me.
Maybe it’s the shelves of books, journals, and bound handwritten recipes left by my aunt, mother, grandmother, her sisters,
and their mother, reaching back generations. The enormous maple apothecary chest built by my great-grandfather, topped with
a marble work surface. There’s a brand-new industrial-size stove and oven, thanks to moneybags Brad. There’s a bright green
herb garden on the windowsill, a long wooden table in the open space. Stacks of well-used pots and cauldrons hang from a ceiling
rack. I used to think this place was magic and that Agnes and my mother were witches.
But what happens here isn’t magic. It’s science. Nearly fifty percent of modern medicines were derived from the work of indigenous
healers.
Plants and their powers to heal and harm have a long, largely ignored and unknown history. It was the sap from the manchineel
tree, dipped on the tip of an arrow, that killed Ponce de León when he returned to settle Florida; the Calusa tribe had other
ideas about his returning to pillage their sacred land. Socrates was executed for his ideas by being forced to drink hemlock
tea. Penicillin is derived from mold, a fungus that grows on plants. Its discovery has saved untold millions of lives.
I don a mask and gloves, then kneel in front of a drawer labeled “Hemlock” and open it, careful to lean away. The drawer is
empty, the sprigs we dried and stored last season are gone.
My heart is thumping a little, as I close the drawer, discard the mask and gloves, wash my hands thoroughly with charcoal
soap. Outside a crow alights on the windowsill, looks inside then flits away.
Someone came here, looked up a recipe in Agnes’s book, then came to The Kitchen to gather ingredients. My brain clicks through
options, none of them good.
Using Agnes’s big copper kettle, I brew myself a cup of peppermint tea, the way she used to when we were upset. Peppermint calms the nerves, an agitated stomach; its oil can ease a headache. It’s an antibacterial, an insect repellent, a performance enhancer.
But as I sit at my aunt’s big table drinking, it’s just a way to comfort myself, thinking about Paul, and wondering who was
in the house and the garden.
I think I might have an idea. I sip my tea, then thumb out a text. Someone has been in the study, the garden, and The Kitchen.
Have you been at Agnes’s place?
I wait, but as usual there’s no answer. She’s difficult, reticent, unpredictable. At least she comes by it honestly.
When my phone finally pings, it’s not in answer to my most recent text.
Ana, don’t ignore me.
I stare at the bubble, which seems to throb with menace. I almost delete and block. My go-to move. The ultimate modern day
fuck off. Instead, I bite.
What do you want?
Let’s meet.
Am I really going to do this? What would Vera say? She’d tell me I was crazy, reckless, not considering consequences. But
there’s something tugging at me, something thrilling and familiar, an almost magnetic draw to danger.
Where and when?
The sender drops me a pinned location.
Now.