I wrap my arms around my waist, completely lost. “Myrtle, what’s going on here?” I whisper. “What happened to that man tonight? What are you telling me?”
She presses her lips together with pity, then steps over and pushes down on my shoulder until I sit on one of the narrow steps. She takes a seat on a small twig stool across from me. “Piers, honey, there’s something you should know about us. Something your mother should have told you a long time ago.”
“Crows,” I whisper.
“What?”
“You told me we were crows. When I was a little girl and you came to see me, that’s what you said.” My mouth feels dry around the words.
“And so we are,” she agrees. “Do you remember why I told you that?”
“Because crows feed on what others can’t, including other birds,” I repeat. I’ve never forgotten her words in all these years.
“That’s right,” she says reassuringly. “You’ve done that before, haven’t you? Eaten something other people couldn’t eat, not without it making them real sick.”
“Pokeweed.” It might be the very first time I’ve spoken the word aloud. Saying it feels like a release, like a marble I swallowed years ago has finally come back up.
“Your mother preferred castor beans,” she tells me. “Swore by it for a time. Ashorttime, mind you. My sister, Angel—your grandmother—liked lily of the valley, which is where your mother got her name. I just so happen to be partial to a little fungus called the destroying angel. I think you’ve heard of it? Tasted it, at least.”
Something inside me roils, bucking against a truth I’ve been denying for so long I don’t know how not to. The mushroom near Regis’s house comes back to me, its enticing glow. And Regis telling me to leave it alone, that it would kill me before sunup. The trail of them around her cabin, like a constellation.
“Of course,” she goes on. “I don’t like to limit myself, especially here where there is so much life. And I have a particular giftfor… shall we say… making my own blends? So, far be it from me to chastise you for getting into my supply. It’s just, you might have told me. We could have prepared.”
“Prepared?” I can hardly form the word.
“Now, we have to clean up this mess. Oh, they’ll think he picked the mushroom up long before he got to my place. Destroying angel usually takes several hours to work. But it’s a risk having so many witnesses and Sheriff Brooks sniffing around here. I’ve been very careful to establish myself in this community. I have a good thing going. I don’t need Angel’s and Lily’s mistakes haunting me. And yet here you are.” She gives me another appraising look. “The venery will be angry I kept you from them, but I had to be sure. Now I’ll have to call a conclave to sort this out.”
“Thevenery?” I remember the word from the day I eavesdropped on her and my mother.
She pats my knee but doesn’t answer. “At any rate, speaking of names, did you come up withAcaciaall on your own?”
When I don’t respond, she goes on. “The acacia tree produces a cyanogenic poison to discourage indulgent herbivores. Did you know that? It’s no wonder you gravitated to it. But it’s your real name that I want to tell you about. You should know that it is very special. You weren’t named Piers because your mother wanted a boy, though she did. We’ll get into that some other time. No, my girl, you were named forPieris japonica—lily-of-the-valley bush. Delicious berries, I’m told. Sadly, responsible for multiple deaths in children every year. I wish people would stop landscaping with stuff that can kill them. Of course, that would only make our job harder.”
I shake my head, trying to make sense of what she’s saying. “The man, tonight. The one who died. I did that when I spit into his coffee because… because of what I ate in your jars?” I point at the shelves, which I now realize are lined with countless jars like the ones in the storeroom. “That was destroying angel mushroom?”
“Delicious, isn’t it? Such a shame the general population will never get to taste it.”
I stare at her, horrified and titillated all at once. “What about when I was a little girl? The man at my feet, I did that, too?”
Her brows arch tellingly. “Ah. Thebad thing.I was wondering when that might come up. Yes, I’m afraid you were initiated into our gifts rather young. I imagine he was your first.”
“My first?”
She smiles. “But certainly not your last.”
I feel nauseous. I don’t bring up Don; I don’t need to. It’s evident that his death is also my doing.
“It must have been terribly confusing for you,” she goes on. A sympathetic hand pats my knee. “What horrors did you see when you looked at him? Far too young for such things, but nature will take its own course, I’m afraid. Like it did with your mother. Don’t trouble yourself over him any longer, child. I’m sure you didn’t fully grasp it at the time, but you were only doing what you were born for. And in the end, the world was better off. The women you spared would thank you if they only knew to, I’m sure.”
I bracket my head between my hands, trying to stitch it all together.
“There, there,” she soothes. “It’s like I always say,a very little poison can do a world of good.”
My eyes meet hers. “But I killed them. You’re saying I’m a murderer.”
Myrtle clucks her tongue in disgust. “You misunderstand me, my dear. A Corbin,yes.A murderer,no.”
“A killer,” I whisper.
