Agnes
I wait for them to come home, sitting in the dim of the kitchen, sipping peppermint tea, searching for calm. Which one of
them did it? The truth is, I’m not sure. They’re tricky. Both of them have The Knowledge now. I’m in a state of self-recrimination.
Maybe I taught them too much, too soon. It’s just that lately I feel an urgency to pass along what I know, so that it lives
on in our family. It’s a sacred practice that I don’t want to see lost.
Sadie didn’t want it. I don’t have any children of my own. Lisander, my best pupil and dear friend who I love deeply, doesn’t
have the strength she needs to take my place. She’s weak, swayed by emotion. She gossips, listens to rumor, is too concerned
with the opinions of others. I’ve seen her be small, vindictive. Also, she’s not family.
The girls, both gifted, are also powerful. Too powerful for their age.
I’m thinking about this when in the distance, the school bus rumbles and whines in the hot afternoon. The sky outside darkens
with an approaching storm, the trees bending in the sudden wind that’s kicked up. My sinuses ache in the barometric pressure,
and the windchimes on the porch start to sing. Storm song, I like to call it.
Ana’s the sensitive one, Sadie wrote in her final letter to me.
It’s doesn’t seem like it because she’s a tough talker, has that hard stare. But words, actions, hurt her deeply. She cares.
Has a terrible temper that passes quickly as a summer storm.
Vera’s colder, though on the surface she’s the good girl, the rule follower.
You think she’s the one to get her feelings hurt, to act from fear.
But her depths are icy. And she’ll do anything for her sister, though they’re at each other’s throats most of the time.
Like we were, remember? But I always knew you’d be there for me.
I hope you knew the same was true for me.
No, Sadie. I didn’t know that. I lost you to Mac. And before the night you called me to come get the girls, we hadn’t spoken
in years.
Vera and Ana come in the front door. They’re talking in whispers and it’s a sound that’s grown familiar in this house. I often
hear them at night, up late talking. Sometimes when their voices are low like this, it almost seems like they’re speaking
another language, something only the two of them understand.
They’re laughing as they come into the kitchen and find me sitting there. When their eyes fall on me, they stop short, almost
comically, exchange a look.
“What?” says Vera, flatly. “What’s wrong?”
“Mr. Danvers,” I say.
They both freeze, cast their gazes away, looking anywhere but at me. It’s Ana who finally steps forward.
“Okay, look,” she says, making her blue eyes wide and beseeching. “I’m sorry. I didn’t do the reading and got a D on the pop
quiz. I’ll make it up. Don’t worry. I can still end the semester with a B.”
Vera stands stock-still, gaze now locked with mine.
“Mr. Danvers has been rushed to the hospital,” I say.
If I didn’t know them as well as I’ve come to, I might have missed it. The twitch at the corners of Ana’s mouth. A smile fought
back.
“Oh, no,” says Vera, hand to her heart. Is she smiling just slightly? “What happened?”
“No one’s sure,” I say. “He collapsed after lunch, was rushed to the hospital.”
“Will he—be alright?” asks Vera.
“Maybe not.” I shake my head, put my cup down on the table. “Poor man.”
“That’s awful,” she says. A beat passes. Then, “But didn’t he have a bad heart?”
“Apparently, yes.”
“So, heart attack then?” Vera opens the refrigerator and peers inside; the light washing out paints her pale.
“Girls, take a seat.”
Vera lets the door close. They approach reluctantly and sit across from me. I let silence do the work.
“He was a lech,” says Ana finally, leaning forward. “He touched me when I stayed after class to talk about my quiz.”
“Touched you.”
“He touched my hair, moved too close to me. So close I smelled his breath. And I’m not the only one. He’s been doing this
for years, touching, saying inappropriate things, giving good grades to girls he thinks are ‘sweet.’ Punishing those with
opinions or those who don’t let him get close.”
“What are you telling me?”
“He’s a bad man,” says Ana. “If I’d been one of the sweet ones, he wouldn’t have given me a D on the quiz. He didn’t like
my opinions on The Scarlet Letter, that it’s misogynistic and facile. That it portrays women of power as witches.”
“Ana,” I say softly. “What did you do?”
She shrugs. “Nothing. Well, I reported him to the principal. Who said she’d look into it but didn’t. I saw them laughing in
her office. Old friends, I guess.”
I draw in a deep breath. It’s hard to tell if she’s being purposely obtuse. “That’s not what I mean.”
She frowns, then seems to get it. “Oh. No. I didn’t do anything to him. Seriously? No.”
Vera is looking at her sister, her face unreadable.
“Someone has been in The Kitchen,” I say. “I’m missing hemlock, mandrake, and henbane.”
“Deadly Trance,” says Vera, sounding almost like she’s in a trance herself. “Soaked in hot water to create a steam, it was the first anesthetic.”
“That’s right,” I say, glad she remembers her lessons. “But unreliable. Often causing the heart to stop altogether.”
There are other ingredients missing, as well. Any one of them might have done the job, creating a cardiovascular event that
looks like a heart attack. If I’d had to choose, it would have been foxglove.
“It wasn’t me,” says Ana.
“Then who?”
“Any one of the members of The Cove have access to The Kitchen,” says Vera coolly. “Lisander was here all weekend.”
Truthfully, I’ve heard whispers about Charles Danvers, but just that—rumors, a vague uneasy feeling women have around him,
that yes he stands too close, says inappropriate things, touches in ways that are uninvited and unwanted. There have always
been men like this, those that hover close to the line but don’t step over it. But that’s not reason enough to make a cure.
Just reason enough to make sure that girls aren’t left alone with him.
“Anyway, he’s not dead, is he?” says Vera, leaning back.
“He touched me. He gave me a D,” says Ana. “I don’t care if he dies or not. But I didn’t do anything. I swear.”
“There are rules, girls. We follow them for a reason. Too many incidents in too short a time span in the same area can call
attention.”
“Old men have heart attacks all the time,” says Ana easily, twirling a strand of her raven hair, blue eyes cool. “What’s for
dinner?”
Outside the sky is purple as a bruise, a storm threatening on the horizon.
The truth is that I’m just not sure what she’s capable of doing. Either one of them.