He grinned and shook his head. “You clearly haven’t stuck your fingers in enough mouths, if that’s possible,” he teased.
“I should have poked you harder in yours,” I grumbled.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he insisted. “Why on earth would you become a poisoner? I’m sure not many people tell their parents their lifelong dream is to become a killer.”
“My father taught me most of what I know, though I doubt he could have predicted how I would use that knowledge now.” I rubbed theback of my neck, flattening my back against the wall as I got comfortable, our shoulders touching as we were confined to the cozy nook. Maybe I would have felt threatened if this were weeks ago, but his presence now was different. Like a crackling bonfire. Dangerous—butoh so warm.
“But what made you do it?” he asked curiously, watching me.
“I don’t quite know when I started. I guess I’ve been doing it for a while—” I sighed. “It started out harmless. The other children in the neighborhood would tease my dear friend Phoebe. Bless that poor child. She didn’t know how to stand up for herself. Always afraid to make the first move. They pulled her hair and tripped her in the street. So one day I borrowed some chemicals from my father’s work desk. I didn’t know what they did or what they were for. I couldn’t read yet. I only meant to make them eat something distasteful—I put them in their midday meal at grammar school.” I shuddered.
“What happened?” His eyes were intense but teasing with something like curiosity.
“Two of the boys got sick. The last one went west.” I swallowed.
“You killed him.” He didn’t state it as a question.
“Yes. I didn’t mean to. That was one of very few accidents in my lifetime.” My voice grew quiet, like my subconscious was telling me to stop talking.
“What made you do it again?”
“People needed me. First, it was friends, then friends of friends, and eventually through the grapevine.”
“Did you ever do it for yourself rather than others?”
“I didn’t dare to help myself until it was too late and I got lazy. A miscalculation. One I can’t come back from, and I’ll be making up for it every day I’m alive.”
“Does it eat away at you inside?” he asked, though there was no humor in his tone.
“Every day, like ants digging tunnels—only sometimes I wonder when they will eat away at my nervous system, so I don’t have to feel the emptiness when they are done.” I pulled my knees up to my chest.
He sighed and draped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me in and resting his head on top of mine. “There are worse things out there than you. Like myself. So take some comfort in that.”
“I don’t, but thank you,” I whispered.
“Does Phoebe know?”
“I never told her. She thinks it was karma.” I leaned my head into his shoulder.
He did not ask me to be anything that night. Not his meal nor his conquest. He did not ask me to be strong or to be smart. He basked in the presence of justme. There had never been a comfort like this, not in a while and certainly not while someone else was present. How ironic that the only man who could comfort my aching soul would be the worst one I knew.
I awoke the next morning curled up in the nook, a wool blanket draped over me, and not one Creature in sight. The only proof of him was the lingering scent of smoked bay leaf that clung to my hair and a bloom of oleander tucked behind my ear.
27
THE POISONER
“There you are, my bitter flower. Have you been hiding?” Silas crooned, stepping into the back room.
“The only thing I wish to hide from is cleaning duties,” I mumbled, scrubbing some of my tools in the sink. It was full of beakers, flasks, stirring rods, petri dishes, and other things I had dirtied in the previous weeks.
He stalked over to me, poking at random instruments as if to pretend he only had a casual interest in walking in my direction.
You are not clever, Creature.
He came up behind me and gripped the sink on either side of me, looking over my shoulder to peek at the contents.
“What are those?” he sneered.
