The Lost Apothecary

by Sarah Penner

“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.”

every woman has faced a man’s wickedness to some degree. Even you.”

Perhaps if I had bled again after the loss, if my womb were not scarred, I would have stopped long ago. But the absence of bleeding has been a constant reminder of Frederick’s betrayal and what he took from me.”

My grief has never gone away, not in twenty years.” Speaking so quietly that I could hardly hear her, I wondered if she had not slipped into a sort of peaceful nightmare. “For this kind of pain, no such tincture exists.”