Chapter2

Mom came in with a mug of warm milk and honey.

I'd shoved the tissue deep inside my pillowcase. I drank every drop of the milk, let my eyelids droop, and yawned.

She sat on the edge of the bed and stroked my hair, humming the song she'd hummed to me since I was a baby. When my breathing slowed, she tucked the blanket under my chin and kissed my forehead.

She picked up the pill bottle on her way out.

I opened my eyes in the dark.

I reached down and pressed my fingers into my thighs. Nothing. No pain, no pressure. Just two heavy, wasted things that felt like rubber, not like any part of me.

She locked the bottle in the drawer under the TV,* Vera said. *She's covered the real label with a fake one.

I pushed myself up on my elbows.

I didn't dare use the wheelchair. The wheels squeaked on the hallway floor. So I waited, counting, until I heard Mom's bedroom door close. Then I let myself slide off the mattress and onto the rug.

And I crawled.

Inch by inch, dragging my legs behind me, down the dark hall and into the living room.

The TV console drawer was locked, just like Vera said.

Key's under the fern, she said. *In the saucer.

I tipped the potted fern beside the TV. A small brass key lay in the damp saucer underneath.

My pulse hammered in my ears. I held my breath and turned it in the lock.

Inside were more than a dozen bottles, lined up in neat rows. Every pill I took, every single day.

I found the one Mom had brought me tonight. When I ran my thumb over the label, it felt thicker than it should. Two layers.

I peeled back a corner, read what was underneath, and shoved everything back. Drawer locked. Key in the saucer.

She's coming!

"Evelyn. What are you doing out here?"

I froze.

I turned my head. Mom stood in the hallway in her robe. Her eyes were dark and very still.

I swallowed.

"I— I had to pee," I said, and my voice cracked, and then I was crying for real. "I didn't want to use the chair. I wanted to see if I could walk. But I can't. I can't move at all."

Her face softened at once. She rushed over, scooped me off the floor, and pulled the wheelchair close to set me in it.

She wheeled me into the bathroom.

"If you need the bathroom, you call me. You know you're not strong enough to be crawling around."

She said it three times. I nodded each time.

She helped me onto the toilet, then stepped out.

Through the gap in the door, I watched her walk straight to the TV console. She stood there. Her head tilted. Her nostrils flared, once, twice.

My heart nearly stopped.

But I had put everything back. The drawer was locked. The key was in the saucer. The fern stood straight.

And all she could smell was me, and I smelled like wolfsbane.

After a long moment, she turned away and came back for me.

Back in bed, I could still see the hidden label:

ACONITUM LYCOCTONUM — COMPOUNDED — HALE & THORN APOTHECARY

Mom had taught me to read at the kitchen table. But I'd never seen words like those.

I didn't know what they meant. I memorized every letter anyway.

My phone was an old flip phone. It could call Mom and it could call 911, and that was all. I opened it under the blanket and, by the glow of its tiny screen, copied the letters into the back of my notebook.

I clutched the page against my chest.

If it were really ibuprofen, she wouldn't have needed to hide it.

That alone told me everything.

I lay there with my eyes open until the sky outside turned gray.

The next evening, Mom brought my pills before her shift. Vitamins, she said. Pain pills. A supplement for my muscles.

I couldn't let her suspect. I took them from her hand and pretended to swallow them in front of her.

She smiled. "Leave your plate on the desk. I'll get it in the morning." She kissed my forehead, picked up her bag, and left for St. Agnes.

Every night she worked, I was alone until dawn.

I watched the front door close. Then I opened my other hand.

One of each pill. I'd palmed them all.

I waited twenty minutes, long enough for her to be on the freeway. Then I rolled my chair to the front door and turned the knob.

The hallway smelled of carpet cleaner and someone's dinner.

It was the first time in my life I had been on the other side of that door.

My hands shook on the wheels. I rolled the few yards to the next apartment, lifted my fist, and knocked.

I had no idea if he was even home.

The lock turned.

The door swung open on a tall man in navy scrubs, his sleeves pushed to his elbows, his dark hair still wet from a shower. He looked down at me, puzzled.

"Can I help y—"

He stopped.

His nostrils flared. Something flashed through his eyes, a flicker of gold, there and gone.

When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to a growl.

"Who the hell has been poisoning you?"