Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Lettie
Athens, Texas...
“VIOLET!”
The sound of my mother’s voice cut through the afternoon heat like a dull blade—irritating, predictable, and entirely unnecessary.
I didn’t pause in my inspection of the tomato plants.
The leaves were yellowing at the edges, a sign of nitrogen deficiency.
I made a mental note to adjust the soil composition.
“VIOLET FOSTER, WHERE ARE YOU?”
I continued my work, fingers gentle as I pruned away the damaged leaves. There was no medical reason for her to hole up in her room. Just laziness wrapped in entitlement and served with a side of manufactured helplessness.
She knew exactly where I was. She could see me from the window if she bothered to look.
But that would require effort.
I moved through the rows methodically. Flowers first, then vegetables. Each plant received the attention it deserved. Some needed water. Some needed pruning. Some needed to be left alone to grow in their own time.
Unlike my mother, plants responded to care with gratitude. They didn’t demand. They didn’t manipulate. They simply existed in the space I gave them, thriving or dying based on what I chose to provide.
“VIOLET!”
The screaming continued.
I let it wash over me like white noise, background static to the real work happening in my hands.
The nearest neighbor was the motorcycle club almost two miles down the road.
With their music loud enough that I could hear the bass line thrumming faintly through the air, I knew they couldn’t hear her theatrics.
She would wear herself out eventually. Her voice would crack and fade, and I would have blessed silence again.
I picked a few onions and carrots, lifting the front of my skirt to cradle the vegetables against my stomach. The fabric was already stained with dirt and plant matter, evidence of a productive afternoon.
My eyes caught on the gate to my secret garden.
Persephone’s Garden.
It was what I’d chosen for the name of my business. Persephone was the Greek goddess of spring growth and vegetation.
I glanced over my shoulder at the house. She was still screaming, her voice hoarse now but no less insistent. I looked at my watch. One-fifteen. I had time.
The gate opened with a soft creak, and I stepped into the space I’d cultivated with far more care than anything else on this property. The plants here weren’t for eating. They weren’t for beauty.
They were for justice.
I walked directly to the second row and stopped in front of the jimsonweed. The flowers were beautiful. White and trumpet-shaped, opening with the morning sun and closing tight by evening. They reminded me of morning glories, innocent and delicate.
Deceptive.
Just like me.
The plant itself was a masterpiece of natural lethality. Every part of it was toxic. The leaves, seeds, flowers, even the roots. Ingested in the right quantities, it caused hallucinations, seizures, coma.
Death.
In smaller doses, it worked as a sedative. A sleep aid. A way to buy myself a few hours of peace.
I pulled a small pair of pruning shears from my pocket and snipped a single leaf from near the base of a flowering bud. The leaf was young, tender, potent. I held it up to the light, examining the veins that ran through the green tissue like a roadmap to oblivion.
Too much and she won’t wake up.
Too little and she’ll just be irritable.
The dosage needed to be precise. Two to three hours of sleep. No more, no less.
I slipped the leaf into my pocket and locked the gate behind me, checking twice to make sure it was secure.
My mother never came outside. Her world had shrunk to the den, the bathroom, and the occasional trip to the kitchen when I refused to serve her.
But I couldn’t risk her venturing out one day. Couldn’t risk anyone wandering in.
Not the neighbors. Not the men from the club. Not the animals that lived in the wild. Not anyone.
This garden was mine. My work. My purpose.
I stepped into the kitchen to another one of my mother’s howls.
“I’m right here,” I called, my voice pleasant and measured. “I’m making your tea as we speak.”
“Well, hurry up!”
I rolled my eyes, knowing she couldn’t see, and crushed the jimsonweed leaf between my gloved fingers.
The bitter oils released immediately. The scent was faint, earthy, with an undertone of something darker.
Something that promised sleep and silence.
I added the smallest amount to her tea, watching as the crushed leaf dissolved into the amber liquid.
The first time I’d used jimsonweed, I’d miscalculated. She’d slept for sixteen hours and woken complaining about the aftertaste and strange dreams. After that, I adjusted the dosage, added shortbread cookies to mask the bitterness, and refined my technique until it became an art form.
Now she slept exactly as long as I needed her to. No more. No less.
I arranged the cookies on a small plate and carried the tray into her room at the back of the house.
When my mother had refused to continue climbing the stairs to her bedroom, I’d converted the den into her personal domain.
It was easier this way. Fewer trips up and down the stairs, less effort required to keep her sedated and compliant.
“What took so long?” she snapped.
Glancing at my watch, I replied, “I’m right on time, Mother.”
I placed the tray on the table beside her recliner and let my eyes drift to the television. The news droned on. Her daily ritual: tea, news, sleep. Predictable as the sunrise.
I’d just reached the doorway when the announcer’s voice stopped me cold.
“That’s right, George. Professor Halston has passed away.”
My hand tightened on the doorframe. I kept my face neutral, my breathing steady.
“Trinity Valley won’t be the same without him. How long had he been teaching there, Gladys?”
“Almost forty-five years, George. Professor Halston was an institution unto himself.”
Forty-five years.
Forty-five years of preying on young women who came to him for education and left with scars they’d carry for the rest of their lives.
Not anymore.
“Such a shame,” my mother said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. “You had him, didn’t you?”
“I did. Three years ago.”
Professor Halston had been a good teacher. Knowledgeable. Engaging. He knew his subject matter inside and out, could make even the driest health sciences topic come alive in a lecture hall.
He also had a habit of cornering female students after class. Of offering ‘extra credit’ that had nothing to do with academics. He used his position and authority to take what he wanted from women who were too young, too scared, too conditioned to say no.
“Did they say how he died?” I asked, keeping my voice carefully curious.
“Heart attack.” My mother clicked her tongue. “You know, I had him as a professor too.”
My eyes snapped to hers. “You went to college?”
“Of course I went to college. And Professor Halston was one of my favorites.”
I’ll bet he was.
“I didn’t know you were from Texas.” My mother never talked about her past. Never shared her history with me.
“I’m not,” she replied. That was it. Two words, no explanation. My eyes drifted back to the television as the newscaster droned on about Professor Halston.
I realized then that he’d been hunting for years. Decades of young women who’d suffered under his hands, his words, his power.
Wolfsbane worked quickly. Irregular heartbeat, difficulty breathing. By the time anyone thought to test for plant-based toxins, the body had already metabolized most of the evidence.
Wolfsbane was a gift from nature to women like me. Fast-acting. Deadly. Nearly undetectable if you knew what you were doing.
And I always knew what I was doing.
“Well, he was in his seventies,” I said, my voice carrying just the right amount of false sympathy. “Maybe he wasn’t as knowledgeable about health as he thought.”
My mother didn’t catch the edge in my tone. She never did.
I left her to her tea and her news and moved back to the kitchen. Warm water sloshed over my hands as I washed the vegetables, scrubbing away the dirt and grit, then chopping them to add to the pan with the roast I was making for dinner.
It was more than my mother and I needed, but it would keep for lunch tomorrow. Waste not, want not.
I glanced at the clock. One-thirty. Just enough time for my own cup of tea.
I added a little sugar to my cup and stepped out onto the front porch. The air was stifling, thick with heat that pressed down like a physical weight. Most people compared Texas in September to the fires of hell.
I liked the heat. I loved the warmth.
It was a comfort to know that when I died, hell would probably feel like home.
I sat on the porch and watched the chickens peck around the yard, their movements jerky and purposeful. When I’d first brought them outside to their coop, keeping them away from the garden had been impossible. The advice online had been unanimous: Pen them up.
I couldn’t bear to lock them up. They had a coop to disappear into at night, but during the day I wanted them to roam freely. To scratch and peck and exist without bars.
Of course, that meant I didn’t always find the eggs they laid, but with just my mother and me, I didn’t need many. I’d added a second, smaller garden near their coop filled with vegetables they could eat without destroying my work.
There was no reason for them to search out my garden if they had their own.
I checked my watch again. One-forty-five. My mother would be asleep by now, the jimsonweed doing its work. I slipped inside to confirm, peeking into the den to find her snoring softly in her recliner. The news had ended and switched to a sitcom I knew she hated.
I let it play. Maybe she’d hear it subconsciously and it would give her nightmares.
Call me Petty Lettie.
My mother didn’t have a maternal bone in her body. I still wasn’t sure why she’d chosen to have me, if it had even been a choice at all. She would never tell me who my father was, and at this point, it no longer mattered.