This was not an improvement. I tried to distract myself by identifying the plants that sprung up along the verge—dock and bitter cress, garden vetch, crownbeard and speedwell. On the side partly shaded by the woods, burgundy wood sorrel put up tiny flowers. When I ran out of new plants, I went to birdcalls. The scolding of a Carolina chickadee, the liquid trilling of a hermit thrush, the white-throated sparrow that callsOld Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody… from low to the ground.
It was with some relief that I reached the turnoff. The row of houses was just as described. Ma Kersey’s house stood a little apart, surrounded by a garden that did not so much grow as rampage in all directions. A few chickens ran screaming from my approach, and a rooster stood on top of a ramshackle henhouse and shouted insults at me in Chicken.
Unlike her birds, Ma Kersey was delighted to see me, or at least did a pretty good imitation, and professed equal delight with the gift I brought her. I had spent part of the evening carefully drawinga rabbit, based on a few quick sketches I’d done of one that had been hanging around Jackson’s garden, made larger and fluffier with imagination. I wroteWorld-Famous Chatham Rabbitunderneath, which she read aloud when I presented it to her with some trepidation. (It’s always awkward to give people art that you’ve made. It feels egotistical, as if you think so highly of yourself and your skill that you expect other people to be impressed as well. Even now, when I make my living with that skill, I can never quite shake the feeling that people are humoring me like a child when I give them something I’ve drawn.)
When she had finished admiring the rabbit, she put the drawing up on a high shelf, looking down over the room, then put on the teakettle.
“How you settling in?” asked Ma Kersey. She cocked her head to one side, eyes bird-bright. “How do you like them woods?”
“I love the woods. I grew up tromping through them with my father, painting things.”
“Mmm.”
I wasn’t sure if that was an invitation or not, but I decided to treat it as one. “Though I heard something about some… err… bad things that happened in the woods years ago,” I said cautiously, “but that was a long time ago. Errr… blood thieves?”
Ma Kersey’s bright little eyes narrowed. “Jackson’s been telling you tales, has he?”
I gulped. I didn’t want to get him in trouble, and I had a feeling that Ma Kersey could make quite a lot of trouble if she chose. “He didn’t mean any harm. I’m sure he was just trying to put a scare in the new girl.”
“Mmm.” Ma Kersey poured the tea. “Wasn’t just a story. Some bad things went on back then.”
I was beginning to regret starting down this road at all. Despite the goodwill the Chatham rabbit had won me, the old woman’s tone was, if not hostile, at least chill. “Well,” I saidhastily, “he said they caught some people and it all stopped happening.”
“The three-month babies,” she said.
“Beg pardon?”
“Brother and sister, they were.” She shook her head. “Old story. Old gossip. Never mind it. It’s over now. For good, I hope. What’s this you’re wanting to know about plants?”
The phrase “three-month babies” had lodged like a thorn in my brain, but I shook it off and explained about medicinal plants, passing the heavy copy of theBotanicato her. Ma Kersey read the title aloud, and began to page through it. When she reached a plant that she knew, she told what she used it for, and she knew alotof uses. I hastily pulled out my sketchbook and began taking notes. It was unlikely that there would ever be another edition ofBotanica, but there have been a few books published by female naturalists over the years, and books on herbs and home remedies seem to be of greater interest to publishers. Perhaps my hasty deception might prove truthful after all.
My hand nearly cramped by the time she had finished telling me all the uses for dock leaves, and I stopped and shook it out. I was sneakingly grateful when she reached my favorite section of the book, page after page of terrestrial orchids. Few of them have any medicinal use that I know of. Ma Kersey looked through them appreciatively nonetheless—crane-fly orchid, rattlesnake plantain, wake-robin, pink lady’s slipper. “Mmm-mm-mm,” she said. “You drew all these, huh?”
“Every one. Though it took a long time.”
“I’ll just bet it did.” She sat back, pushing the book back toward me. “And now you’re drawing for the doctor’s book, are you?”
I didn’t think I’d get a better conversational opening than this. “I am. Though that one’s partly done already.” I licked suddenly dry lips. “Halder’s wife, Louisa, was the illustrator before me.”
“Oh,Louisa,” said Ma Kersey, shaking her head. “Poor unhappy soul.”
“I heard that she left…?” I let the last word trail off.
Ma Kersey pounced on it like Smiley on a piece of string. “Left! Ran for her life, more like. Oh, it’s a sad tale, it is.” She poured herself out more tea. “She was younger ’n you when she married the doctor. Not that he was as old then as he is now. They were married a good fifteen years. Probably felt like fifteen hundred, so far as Louisa was concerned.”
“The doctor can be difficult to get along with,” I said.
“The doctor’s a horse’s ass, if’n you ask me.”
“That too,” I admitted. She cackled. I plunged onward. “Although I didn’t figure him for a murderer, but Jackson said…” I let the word trail again, and Ma Kersey obligingly picked it up.
“Saul, yep. Damn shame. Odd fellow, but a good one, and he loved Louisa something fierce.” She sighed. “Suppose if I was being charitable, I’d say the doctor didn’t mean to kill him, but I doubt he shed many tears when he did.”
So it was true. He really had killed Saul. I had no idea how to feel about that. Aloud I said, “Dear god. Poor Louisa.”
“Ayep.” Ma Kersey gestured with her cup. “Anyway, she ain’t been seen around these parts since, and if she’s smart, she won’t be. Halder’s still got all her money, and maybe she could get a divorce and try to get some of it back, but I wouldn’t give a plug nickel for her chances.”
This struck me as extremely depressing. I clutched theBotanicaagainst my chest, appreciating the solid, grounding weight. “And you’re sure she got away?Reallysure?”
