The Lost Apothecary

by Sarah Penner

May God continue to bless me so long as I continue to obey these things!”

Killing and secret-keeping had done this to me. It had begun to rot me from the inside out, and something inside meant to tear me open.

I wondered what else may soon be discarded. Our marriage? James was my college sweetheart; I didn’t know life without him. I didn’t know myself without him. Would I lose, too, my hopes for a baby? The idea of it made my stomach ache with want of more than just a decent meal. I longed to be a mother—to kiss those tiny, perfect toes and blow raspberries on the round belly of my baby.

To me, the allure of history lay in the minutiae of life long ago, the untold secrets of ordinary people.

In spite of my grief, I smiled. If I lost all else, at least I’d have these two. If social media was any indication, James and I seemed like the only ones in our circle of friends who were not yet pushing strollers and kissing mac-and-cheese-covered cheeks. And although waiting had been tough, it had been right for us:

And what I’d always considered sensible in James seemed, for the first time, something else: stifling and subtly manipulative.

No doubt James would have resisted this spontaneous adventure, but he wasn’t here to hold me back. Alone, I could do whatever I damn well pleased.

I willed myself to leave all thoughts of home behind: James, the secret I’d uncovered, our unfulfilled desire for a baby. I needed a break from the grief suffocating me, the thorns of fury so sharp and unexpected they took my breath away.

I continued to keep the ingredients needed to remedy most afflictions, supplies as benign as clary or tamarisk. Just because a woman has rid herself of one malady—a devious husband, for instance—does not mean she is immune to all other maladies. My register was proof of it; interspersed among the deadly tonics were also many healing ones.

I only aided women.

How dare he bring that woman’s ghost to our bed, the sacred place where we’d been trying to conceive a child.

This glass object—delicate and yet still intact, somewhat like myself—was proof that I could be brave, adventurous, and do hard things on my own.

Mrs. Amwell was a wonderful tutor: gentle and soft-spoken, wrapping my hand in hers to form the letters, laughing with me when the pen slipped.

“That is why my mother never opened the book in your hands. Because saving lives with the gifts of the earth, Eliza, is as good as magick.”

“Kill the mistress of a lord,” she mumbled, “or swing from the gallows?” She rolled her head to look into the fire, as though searching for what remained of her beetles. “Each choice is more hideous than the other.”

“First, there was trust. Then, there was betrayal. You cannot have one without the other. You cannot be betrayed by someone you do not trust.”

I’d realized in recent days this woman wasn’t the only source of unhappiness in my life.

I considered sharing my feelings with him, but I didn’t view him as an ally in whom I could confide. He remained an adversary, and I felt protective of the truths I had begun to discover on this trip.

Why did we suffer to keep secrets? Merely to protect ourselves, or to protect others?

there was anything I’d learned in recent days, it was that secrets wreaked havoc on lives.

“Our marriage has disguised too much,” I whispered. “You clearly have a lot to figure out, and so do I. We can’t do these things together. We’d end up on the same trail, making the same mistakes that got us here in the first place.”

It had almost worked, but not quite. Because now, having distanced myself physically and emotionally from this man, I was able to see through him to his real nature, and it reeked of deceit and unfairness.

History doesn’t record the intricacies of women’s relationships with one another; they’re not to be uncovered.