Maryrose Wood - Poison Diaries: Nightshade

I WAKE, AS I usually do, to the sound of Weeds voice. It rustles in my ear as I sleep. It skitters through my dreams like autumn leaves along the ground. My skin warms, my breath quickens. The memories come unbidden.

It is early spring, before I became ill. Weed and I are on one of our long rambles through the rolling green fields of Northumberland. He tells me strange fables, one after another, of a world where plants can speak, and all forms of life are of equal worth: humans, animals, and plants, too.

I laugh, because the tales are so marvellous. He turns to me, solemn-faced, and I explain my reaction.

Marvellous? You may find them so. The trees are quite serious when they tell them.

But it is only a tale, a story even to the trees, is it not? Look, here is a lovely place for our picnic. Shall we stop?

How foolish I was then. How wrong I was, about so many things.

I thought love was a rare orchid that bloomed only once but once it bloomed, it bloomed forever.

I thought that with the death of my mother, so many years ago, the worst of my life had already come and gone.

I thought my father would protect me from harm.

Was I wrong about Weed as well? Every time I draw breath I catch the earth scent of him. I lie motionless in my bed, alone in my tower bedchamber. A summer breeze floats through the open shutters, and I feel the tenderness of his kiss.

The last time I saw him I was dying. My mind flew with dark wings, and I looked down on my own pain-wracked body as if it belonged to another. I had nightmare visions of a strange prince who fed me poison, who wooed and tormented me, who showed me bloody scenes and unspeakable evils evils wrought by my father.

My heart still pounds when I recall those hellish dreams. I thought I would not survive them. There were times I did not wish to.

More memories play on my half-closed eyelids as the morning sun tries to pry them open: Weed sitting at my bedside, spooning medicine to my lips. Wiping my brow. Gazing at me in love and grief, his moss-green eyes bright with tears.

Then he was gone. He lost hope and left. Too faithless to stay by my side until the end, he abandoned me at the worst point of my illness. That is what Father said, after my fever finally broke and I gasped and cried my way back to life, like a second birth.

He is gone, and good riddance. He is a coward and a trickster. You are not the first maiden to be fooled by such a scoundrel. Bear your shame alone now; marry your work, and forget him, for you will not see him again. Father said it coldly, and not without satisfaction.

Of course, what Father says cannot always be believed. But Weed is gone; that much is true. There has been no word, and now the summer draws to a close.

I stretch and turn beneath the cool linen sheet. I flex each limb and yawn, like a waking cat. Am I well? It is hard to say. In some ways I am stronger than I was. I am less trusting, less innocent. I have thoughts, sometimes, that I barely recognise as my own. I feel capable of things that I never would have dreamed of before.

I have even taken over my fathers healing practice. I had to; Father is too busy now, or too indifferent, to tend to peoples ills as he used to. With my knowledge of plants, it was not difficult to learn the basic cures, and they are most of what any healer needs. One fever, croup, or childbirth pang is much like another.

Once I walked through Northumberland hooded and silent, too shy to speak, too unimportant to approach. Now I am known and respected, and even a little bit feared. I do not mind that.

But there is an ache within, an empty place. My heart, once lush with joy, now lies fallow. Everything tastes like dust.

Weed, I have whispered a thousand times as I wandered alone through the meadows of Hulne Park. Where are you? Why did you leave? When will you come back to me? But the dull, ocean roar of the grass is the only answer I receive.

Tell him I love him still, I weep into the bark of an ancient pine. Tell him for me, please.

Still, I get no reply.

I long to drift back to sleep and bury myself in the bitter sweet dream of all that I have lost. But I must rise and dress. It is Sunday.

Yes, I go to church on Sundays, now. I go alone, for my father worships no god but knowledge. The tested, proven theories of long-dead men, as recorded in the musty books in the Dukes library those are his only sacred texts.

I myself have sometimes wondered what force could have put so many kinds of life on the earth, and made us need each other so, and hurt each other so, but I have not yet conceived of an answer. Still, to church I go, three miles on foot in the hot August haze. It is for my own protection. A woman who knows how to heal will always be suspected of witchcraft in these parts. The witch laws were struck down before I was born, but the people fear what they fear.

This is the north of England, after all; it is beautiful and raw here, and the land, the wind, and the sea have minds of their own. The people do, too. The north is not London, where the latest fashion is always best. In the north, the new is suspect, and the old ways die hard.

Like an apparition I glide silently into the chapel, so that everyone may see I am a virtuous and God-fearing young woman, and that my powers, such as they are, are drawn from nothing more sinister than a sprig of feverfew, a tisane of camomile, or a paste of crushed garlic and cloves.

Good morning, Miss Luxton, the people murmur as I pass. Good day and good health to you. When they ask about my father, and wonder why he no longer goes out, I say he is busy with his apothecary garden, or studying ancient cures at the Dukes library at Alnwick Castle. The truth is that since my recovery, his frequent dark moods have knitted themselves into a ceaseless gloom. He works day and night, in his study or in the garden. At mealtimes he is silent; when we pass each other in the hall, he barely looks at me.

I thought I was alone before, before Weed came and I had only Fathers stern presence for company. Now Father is as lost to me as Weed is.

I sit stiff-backed in a pew, not far from the church doors. I stand when the preacher asks us to stand. I kneel when he tells us to kneel. When it is time to sing hymns, I raise my voice with the congregation, not so loudly that I draw attention to myself, but with enough force to be heard.

When the service is over I linger, my head bowed. Those who would beg my help approach me in turn: Miss Luxton, the baby wont stop coughing. Miss Luxton, a weeks come and gone and the wound wont heal. Miss Luxton, its near my time, I need something to ease the birth pangs, will you come right away if I send my girl for you?

One after another they tell me their aches, their pains, their worries. I nod in sympathy and promise to come when needed. Then I follow my fellow worshippers through the door, stepping from the cool, damp air of the church into the merciless noonday sun.

The preacher speaks to each one of us as we exit, gazing into our eyes, clasping our hands. He tells us to believe, so that we may be saved. Hellfire is a thousand times hotter than this, he warns, shaking a finger to the sky. A thousand times a thousand! But you must believe!