“Then come on through. Just step over the brambles. I know they look bloodthirsty, but I swear they won’t bite.”
Since the night she and her grandmother had found the dead woman, Nessa had always felt the cool calm of the graveyard. When she’d encountered Jo, she had been drawn to her warmth. Together, they balanced each other out. This woman was different—far more powerful and less controlled. She pulled Nessa toward her, and though Nessa was neither scared nor reluctant, she also knew there was no point in resisting. Some forces in life are so strong that the only thing you can do is submit.
As Nessa passed through the briars, not a single thorn scratched her, and when she emerged on the other side, she knew she’d found someone she’d needed to meet. Harriett was tall, her hair woven through with silvery strands that caught the moonlight. Despite the chill in the air, she’d removed her clothes. She stood naked before Nessa, her skin sprinkled with the soil of her garden. Magnificent flora sprouted from the earth all around her. Burdock, poppies, henbane, angel’s trumpet. Hanging from her arm was a basket filled with pale gray fungi that resembled the delicate hands of young girls.
“I’ve never seen mushrooms like those before,” Nessa said, figuring it wouldn’t be proper to acknowledge the woman’s nudity.
Harriett glanced down at them. “No, I suspect not,” she replied. “They aren’t native to this part of the world.”
“What are you going to do with them? They’re poisonous, I’d imagine.”
Harriett picked one up by the stem and twirled it between her fingers. “It depends how you define poisonous. There’s a very fine line between what cures and what kills. Come,” she said. “I don’t have many visitors. This will be fun for me. Let me show you around.”
Harriett led Nessa along a path that wound through the garden. Raised beds radiated in a spiral around a giant mound in the center of what had once been the lawn. Nessa wondered if it might be some sort of ritual altar.
“That’s where I perform the human sacrifices,” Harriett said, as though she’d been reading Nessa’s mind.
Nessa gulped comically and Harriett laughed.
“Kidding,” she said. “It’s a compost pile. Here in my garden, looks are deceiving. You must judge what you see with something other than your eyes.” She stopped by a patch of unimpressive waist-high weeds with toothed leaves. “These, for example, are stinging nettles. The leaves and stems are bristling with thousands of microscopic needles. When you brush against them, they deliver chemicals that cause a painful rash. Yet nettles are one of the most medicinally useful plants in the world. You can use them to treat everything from arthritis to diabetes.” She moved on to a shrub from which plump orange fruit dripped like teardrops. “This is an iboga plant from West Africa. Its extracts are used in other parts of the world to treat opioid addition. They’re illegal here in the United States.” Last, she pointed to a regal plant on the other side of the path, the top of its tall stem crowded with delicate purple flowers. “And that is a species of aconite, also known as monkshood or wolfsbane. Every part of it is highly toxic. Touching it will turn your fingers numb. Eat even the smallest bit, and you’ll suffocate on your own vomit. Growing beside it is holy basil, which has been used as a medicine for two millennia.”
Nessa looked around. There had to be thousands of different species planted in Harriett’s garden. “What do you plan to do with all of this?” she asked.
Harriett pondered the question as though it had never occurred to her. “Make things for those who have need of them, I suppose.”
“Or use them to punish men like Brendon Baker?” Nessa asked.
Harriett’s smile spread across her face, revealing a rather large gap between her two front teeth. “Perhaps,” she said.
“He deserved what he got. He’s not a good man.”