Poison Orchids

by Sarah A. Denzil

Hayley, a fair-haired English girl from York, slept while a daytime soap ran on the TV. She was tanned for a Brit, with a golden glow across her forehead and freckles clustered around her nose and cheeks. And Gemma, an Australian girl from Sydney, was curled up tightly on the bed, chocolate-brown hair strewn across her face.

Things that looked good from the outside were sometimes rotten underneath.

“Nothing is perfect,” Tate replied. “You have to look hard to find the imperfections, but they’re always there.” “Really?”

A year later, a psychiatrist had diagnosed her with pseudologia phantastica. The psychiatrist had seemed oddly excited by the fact that Gemma’s lying went far beyond the usual, into the delusional.

“Listen, you should get a blood test and definitely an HIV test. The blood test might pick up on any drugs in your system. It’s a long shot, but perhaps we can find out what you were drugged with. I have my kit here in the lab.” Bronwen rolled her sleeve back up. “Just don’t leave another bruise.” She hoped that Audrey didn't notice that she was trembling all over.

So, there it is, the final part. One long year later, and there’s the last image to complete her scrap book: the cutout of Tate Llewellyn in handcuffs on his way to prison. It had been a long trial, one that she’d aided with her witness testimony, and finally he’d been convicted of murder.