“The back wall,” Mom says, her voice tight with pain. “Press the bottom-right corner. You might have to press kind of hard.”
Is she just trying to distract me? Buy time while Lewis dies out of sight?
I press against the panel.
At first, nothing happens. Then, with a soft click, the wall shifts inward and back out, revealing a hollow space hidden behind the cupboard with five wooden shelves.
A false panel.
The scent of dust hits my nose, then herbs—lavender, rosemary, mint. There’s more, so many more, but I can’t pick them out. My heart pounds in my ears. “What…is this?”
Mom is quiet, breathing through her teeth. “Look for…something to help.”
“What does that even mean?” My hand scans the shelves. There are tiny vials and aged tins of different shapes and colors. A stone mortar and pestle. Tinctures sealed with wax or cork stoppers. Bundles of canvas bound tightly with twine. A half-burned candle.
I rummage carefully, reading over labels written in faded ink. Some of the handwriting is scratchy, rushed. Another hand wrote in looping cursive.
For pain
To stop a quickening
To aid digestion
To ease a cough
For a full night’s sleep
For a sore throat
To cure a headache
For rash
To bring down a fever
For swelling
To quiet restless thoughts
I stop when I reach a dark-brown bottle, almost black. The label is yellow and curled up on itself. As I run my finger across it, revealing its use, the room’s temperature drops twenty degrees.
To stop the bleeding
I pick it up with shaking hands.
Yarrow to stop bleeding.Grandma’s soft voice floats through my mind—so real and so close I glance over my shoulder. But she’s not there, and this isn’t her handwriting.
I don’t even know what it is. I don’t know how they’d know…
How could they have known we’d need this?
A peculiar and oddly warm sensation settles on my skin, just like before with the knife.
I stare across the room at Mom. “What is this?”
“It will work” is all she says.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. This feels ridiculous. “It’s…it’sancient. We can’t just… What is it? Is it even safe?”
