Chapter 82

Ruby

Following my strange interaction with Atwood, I scurry back to my room with the letter still in my pocket and lock the door behind me, letting out a sigh of relief and leaning my weight against the door once I’m safely inside.

There are a million things running through my head right now. Who poisoned Vivian? Was it the Queen, Alice, or even Atwood? And why did they poison her? My heart aches for poor Vivian, who had to take a special tincture from the witch to end her suffering.

That leads me to my next thought: who killed Marisa Elder, and why did they steal her body and burn her house down? I find it hard to believe that it was simply the Bears who did all of this; sure, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if they killed her and burned her house, but why steal the body? Why release the birds that were caged in her hut?

None of it makes sense.

My hands are shaking as I pull out my phone. It’s well past midnight, but I have to call Nancy and tell her what’s happening. Right now, she’s the only person who I completely trust.

Nancy picks up on the fourth ring.

“Ruby? Are you okay?” she says. Her voice sounds groggy.

“I’m sorry to wake you up,” I whisper into the phone, keeping my eye on the door in case someone unlocks it from the outside and comes in. “But I need to talk to you.”

I hear the sound of blankets rustling on the other end. “Okay,” she says. “What’s going on?”

“I went back into Vivian’s room and found a letter from Marisa Elder. It wasn’t a curse that killed Vivian. It was a plant.”

“A… plant?” Nancy says, sounding confused.

“Toxic ashroot,” I respond. “Have you heard of it?”

Nancy is silent for a few moments before speaking. “No, I haven’t heard of it,” she says. “But there’s an herbalist in Greenwood. Maybe we should ask her.”

I bite my lip, thinking. “Are you free tomorrow?” I ask.

“Of course,” Nancy responds.

“Meet me at the castle tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. I’ll tell Atwood we’re going Christmas shopping.”

Once we’ve made our plans, I let Nancy go back to sleep and hang up the phone.

Maybe the herbalist will know something about toxic ashroot. Maybe she’ll have some sort of information that can help us. But for now, I need to keep our excursion a secret, because I don’t know who to trust.

I barely get any sleep because I’m too busy anxiously watching the door in case someone sneaks in. Eventually, however, I finally nod off and fall into a light slumber.

When I wake up, the sun is already shining brightly through my window. My eyes feel tired and my body aches from the night of bad sleep, but still I push myself to get out of bed and get ready to leave.

After showering, I throw on a pair of jeans and a sweater. I’m hungry, but I’m too paranoid to eat anything in the castle since anything could be laced with toxic ashroot. I’ll have to buy something in Greenwood to eat.

I pull on my boots and head out into the hallway, where I decide to visit Atwood in his study. I have to act natural and keep him from suspecting anything.

He’s reading by the fireplace when I enter. Even though I’m not sure if I can trust him now, he’s still incredibly handsome with his partially-unbuttoned shirt and black suit jacket. His sharp jawline gives his face an almost ethereal expression as he gazes down at his book. When he looks up at me and smiles, I can feel my heart pace quicken with a combination of arousal and fear.

“Going somewhere?” he says as he looks at my boots.

“Um, I was actually hoping to go to Greenwood with Nancy today,” I say. “We wanted to do some Christmas shopping.”

Atwood nods and stands from his chair, going over to his desk. He opens a drawer and pulls out his wallet, then holds his credit card out to me.

“Buy whatever you like,” he says. “Cole will take you. Have fun, okay?”

I nod, blushing a bit, and gingerly take his credit card.

“Thank you,” I murmur before walking out of the room. I feel suddenly guilty for suspecting Atwood.

Nancy is already waiting for me when I get downstairs. She’s wearing a denim mini skirt with tights and a puffy purple coat -- not exactly the best “sleuthing” outfit, but she looks cute. After we visit the herbalist, I think to myself that it might be fun to actually do some shopping together.

Cole pulls the car around, and soon we’re on our way to Greenwood. When we arrive, he promises to wait for us in the car while we shop.

Nancy and I both look at each other before heading for the herbalist’s shop.

It’s a nice, clean store with a small window display and a bell on the door that jingles when we enter. The inside of the shop is warm and smells like a combination of all sorts of plants, from rosemary and lavender to plants with magical properties that I’ve never seen or heard of before. Tables with moist plants aligned neatly on them line the shop in rows, with propagation wall displays that contain glass tubes filled with water and all sorts of different plant starts.

My mother would have liked this shop. She was always interested in plants and had quite the green thumb.

“May I help you young ladies?” a woman’s voice echoes through the shop. Nancy and I both look around, unable to see where the voice came from through all of the ferns and palm fronds.

“Uh… hello?” I call out.

An attractive woman with curly red hair pokes her head out from behind a particularly large plant pot. She’s on her knees, elbow deep in the soil.

“Come, come!” she says with a bright smile. “I’m just tending to this mandrake.”

Nancy and I walk over to her as she continues digging through the pot.

“What are you doing?” Nancy asks.

“I’m aerating the soil!” she says. Nancy and I must look confused, because she elaborates without us having to ask. “I’m helping the soil get more air flow, so it doesn’t get waterlogged. This mandrake is over a hundred years old, would you believe it? A customer brought her in. She was suffering from root rot, so I’ve been giving her some much needed care.”

Her?

Nancy and I must have the same thought, because we both look at each other when the red-haired woman refers to the plant as a female. I simply shrug subtly.

“There we go.” The woman pulls her arm out of the pot and brushes the dirt off, wiping her hand on her apron. “Now, can I help you?” she says. Her eyes are big and round and an incredibly vibrant shade of sage green. They almost match the green of the plants around her.

“Well, we actually have a question,” I say, to which the woman smiles brightly and nods. “It’s about a plant.”

“Oh! Well, you’ve come to the right place,” she says. “Is it Ocimum basilicum? Or how about Borago officinalis?”

Nancy and I look at each other again, then shake our heads. “No,” I reply. “It’s… toxic ashroot.”

The woman’s smile suddenly fades and she narrows her eyes at both of us.

“Why would you need to know about such a plant?” she says coldly.

“I-It’s for a school paper,” Nancy chimes in. “About how to identify dangerous plants.”

With a slight scoff, the woman walks over to the counter and retrieves a large tome from a messy bookshelf that lines the wall behind it. She drops the book down on the counter with a loud thud that sends dust particles flying everywhere from its old, yellowed pages. She coughs and waves her hand in front of her face to get the dust away, then opens it and starts thumbing through the pages.

“Toxic ashroot was forbidden many years ago,” she says, flipping to a specific page and turning the book so we can see. There’s an illustration of the plant: it’s got a long, thin stalk with small red flowers at the top. At the bottom, there is a large, thick, black root.

“What sort of symptoms does the plant cause?” I ask, trying to seem nonchalant.

“Oh, all sorts of things,” the woman says. “Fever, nausea, delirium…”

“Can it kill you?” I ask.

The woman suddenly snaps the book shut and turns away, sticking it back on the shelf with a huff.

“I think you should consider using a different plant for your research,” she says angrily. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

With a defeated nod, Nancy and I leave the store.

“Well, that was at least a little helpful,” Nancy says as we walk down the street.

“Yeah,” I respond, “but not enough. I think that herbalist is hiding something.”

“What makes you think that?” Nancy asks.

“The page on toxic ashroot was dog-eared,” I say. “And it wasn’t dusty at all, even though all of the other pages were coated in it.”

“So does that mean…” Nancy says.

I nod.

“That herbalist knows more than she let on.”