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It is the 12th day since I inherited my uncle’s shop. I had spent many a rainy afternoon here as a child, but he grew uncomfortable with my fierce burning need to learn more, to know the unknowable and uncover all the secrets. Even as a girl, I would not be restricted to the safe plants, the herbal remedies and poultices. I wanted to know them all, the drugs and the poisons and the forbidden elixirs.
I was surprised my uncle had willed the shop to me. Then again, there was no one else. And without a horticulturalist, the people of Undermere would be lost.
Forest Vair stands before me, a brave and clever man with eldritch-green eyes, the sign of a Draer who has long partaken of the Dranthium to see beyond the limits of mortal sight. I inhaled the smoke of it myself last night. The dreams it gave me were uncanny and difficult to interpret.
I have supplied Forest Vair with Grey Sandfire, with his Dranthium, and now he has come in search of Embersoul, a slim hope of protection against the monster, the beast, the Servant - the Dendrew.
Ennis Aleford recognized the same unquenchable thirst for knowledge in me that my uncle had. He gave me a chance to prove my expertise and my commitment, a St. John’s Poppy left on the steps of the Sadgill Church. His cult of the Dendrew offers ancient knowledge, things only hinted at in dreams and the foretellings of the cards. In return, he needed just one more sign of my dedication to the cult.
I have the Embersoul Forest Vair seeks, not 30 feet away, in the back of the shop. Much closer to hand is the Lesser Merrydock that would be his undoing. Ennis said it would turn Forest Vair into ‘a worthy sacrifice for the Dendrew.’ According to my notes, a single drop of the sap would utterly drain a person's mental faculties, rendering them slow and uncomprehending. An ugly end for such a man.
A compromise, perhaps. If I make Forest Vair unfit to hunt the Dendrew for a few nights, until the cultists are done with the beast, surely that will satisfy them.
I move to the pot of Eyebright and fight a rising sense of dread as I wrap a sprig of it in butcher’s paper - he won’t notice the venomous thorns until it is too late. I place it on the counter for him with a smile. As he reaches out to touch it a shiver travels down my spine. The world goes black.
My mind is broken.
I reach out to hesitantly touch one fragment of light in the darkness and see myself handing Forest Vair the Embersoul. He returns the next day, one beautiful eye gouged out, a broken man. I drug my friend Simone for knowledge, for power. I give Faye Swift an elixir to grant her control over the monster. She laughs and sends it to slaughter the people of Sadgill. The next night Kentmere falls. The people of Undermere huddle in our homes, knowing we will be next. NO!
I push that piece of the future away and grope blindly for the one next to it. This time, I restrain Faye with Swiftsnare and drink the Elixir of Control myself. My guts knot. I know the Dendrew, feel its rage, its bloodthirst. It wants to kill. I hear myself begin to laugh, realizing that I want it to kill, and I have much better targets for it than some ignorant townsfolk. The monks, the Lord and Lady Fremont, the Sisters, they all thought they could hide their secrets from me, but – NO!
Another piece of the future. I see myself handing Forest Vair the Lesser Merrydock. He is slaughtered in the woods that night, his blood and viscera spread across the sacred grove. I perform the ritual with the Cult, offering up a special elixir to the Dendrew itself. It whirls on the woman in the Jade Mask and slashes her in two before turning on the cult members. I stand alone before it on the desecrated, blood-soaked ground. The Dendrew speaks to me. I cover my ears, cowering in pain and fear away from the wailing hiss of its voice, but it speaks within my mind where I cannot escape. The Dendrew is pleased that I have released it, and so I will be allowed to serve. Forever. NO!
One tiny fragment of future, the one furthest away. I grab for it, and see myself handing Forest Vair the Embersoul. He returns the next day, one beautiful eye gouged out, a broken man. I soothe his mind as best I can with my remedies and send him on his way. I strengthen the mind of the woman in the Jade Mask, so that she can stand against the monster. When Verona Green tells me the time is right, Reuben Ward joins us and we travel to the ritual site and lay five plants, the right five plants, the only five plants that could possibly banish the creature. Verona performs the summoning ritual. The woman in the Jade Mask appears, the great and terrible hulking darkness of the Servant behind her. With blood, magic, strength of will and the love in a father’s heart, we banish the beast. The darkness is lifted; Undermere rejoices. The next day a policeman comes to arrest me for the death by poison of Isidore Burbridge. And I am so, so grateful to be removed from this place of temptation, of too much knowledge and not quite enough power. Yes?
Yes.
“Are you quite alright, my dear?” Forest Vair asks me. He is uninjured, unbowed, waiting for me to decide his fate. He offers me a handkerchief as tears run down my face.
“Of course,” I reply, taking the handkerchief from him. It is worn but of good quality, monogrammed with his initials, F.V., by someone who knew and cared for him long ago. I sniff and wipe my face. “The pollen in here, it gets to me sometimes,” I explain unconvincingly.
I pull the Embersoul from the shelves at the back of the shop, deliver it to him, and accept his payment. “Be careful,” I warn Forest Vair, knowing it will do no good.
He smiles sadly. “You as well,” he replies and leaves the shop.
I lock the door, put up the closed sign, and sink down behind the counter, shaking.
My uncle was right to send me away. A lifetime of card readings and vaguely prescient dreams, none of it compared to what happened today. I saw the future. Too many futures. Dark futures, full of horrors. There were other possibilities, options left unexplored, pieces of the puzzle left untouched, but I will not risk it.
I will not risk a monster destroying my home. I will not risk becoming the monster that destroys it. I’ve been given the sacred and terrible gift of prophecy - to choose my path with eyes open to all of the consequences. And I have made my choice.
Hellebore crawls into my lap and begins to purr.