A Fierce and Subtle Poison (8 page)

“You know I’m right about you,” Isabel said, turning to face me. She was just inches away, closer than she’d ever been. I could feel her breath—her breath that kills—hot against the cold wet skin of my neck. It was just one exhale, and then she backed away.

“But you’re also right about me,” she said more softly. “Just stay. It’s dangerous out. I’m sorry I overreacted.”

Without giving me the chance to respond, Isabel ducked through the dining room toward the twisting iron staircase on the other end.

“I’ll just be a second,” she called out over her shoulder. “I’m going to fetch you a towel and a dry shirt.”

My hand was still on the doorknob. It stayed there as the rain and wind continued to buffet the walls of the house. It stayed there as I peered into the study that, aside from being entirely candle-lit, looked almost exactly like the same—in a state of gentlemanly disarray—as it did when I was here last. One thing was different, though. Near the coffee table was a terra-cotta pot holding a thin-stemmed plant about a foot and a half tall. It had delicate green leaves and small purple flowers that resembled orchids, though those leaves and flowers were crisp and half wilted, as if the plant hadn’t been watered in several days. I released the doorknob to go over and kneel down near the plant. It gave off that same alcohol reek as the others in the garden.

Isabel was right—my curiosity always got the best of me. I kept barging into her house. I ran after ghosts in the rain even though I knew it made no sense, but sometimes I had no use for sense. I collected insults because I thought the more I had, the closer I would get to invincibility. I was developing a habit of reaching out to touch things—like strange girls and strange-smelling plants with purple petals—that I was sure would hurt me because no matter how severe, the resulting pain was always worth the attempt.

Twelve

“THAT’S POISONOUS.”

I spun around to see Isabel standing in the entrance to the study. She’d changed into a new pair of jeans and an over-sized flannel button-up shirt. Her long wet hair hung down loose, shining like fresh tar.

It was there, cast in that particular light, when I noticed that she was not quite beautiful. Everything that I could think to compare her to was bleak. Mostly, it had to do with those eyes of hers: dark on dark. Raven black ringed with deep purple. Hard like bricks. There was no getting past them. I wondered if she wanted anyone to even try.

“This is the largest one I have.” She held up a dark gray button-up shirt before gathering it together with a towel and tossing them both to me. Turning around, she cleared her throat. It took me a second to realize she was trying to give me some privacy to change. I stood, stripped off my shirt, pulled on the new one, noticing a tear near the collar that had been expertly mended with red thread. My jeans would just have to stay wet.

“I’m sorry about Celia,” Isabel said, which caused my fingers to momentarily freeze on one of the buttons. “I really hope someone’s found her.”

“How did you know about that?”

“I hear things when I’m in the courtyard. Some of the ladies were talking about it earlier. They said she’s Marisol’s little sister.” Isabel paused. “Did you know her well?”

“Not really. I gave her a charm last night. In the shape of a wolf. I told her to keep it as reminder to be brave. I didn’t think it’d make her so brave that she’d go out looking for her sister in the middle of the night on the eve of a hurricane.”

“It’s not your fault, Lucas. You didn’t drive her out into that storm.”

“I’m done,” I said, rolling up the sleeves of the shirt and desperate to change the subject.

She turned and gestured to the blotches on my arms. “Those look better.”

I rubbed my skin absently.

“It’s columbine.” Isabel pointed to the plant I’d just been hovering over. “Usually they’re only found in dry climates, but my dad crossbred a couple of species to get this one that survives in the tropics. I know his personality can be prickly sometimes, but the work he does is remarkable.”

“Are there any plants in this place that aren’t poisonous?”

Isabel smiled wanly and went over to take a seat at her dad’s cluttered desk. “I’m guessing that’s just one of your many burning questions, young Michael Knight.”

“And I’m guessing your dad’s not the only one around here with a prickly personality.”

Isabel put her hand over her heart in mock offense. “I thought we’d called a truce.”

“You called it. Not me.”

I waited, watching as Isabel looked down to the papers strewn across her dad’s desk and started running her fingers—her thin, capable fingers like those of her dad—across them.

“Most of them are poisonous,” she said, finally looking up. “Some aren’t. Most are.”

“Why so many?”

“Because that’s what he studies.”

“What happened to your mother?”

Isabel frowned—just like I would’ve. Just like I
did
whenever someone asked me the same question. “That’s abrupt.”

“They say he loved his plants more than he loved her.”

“Is that what
they
say?” The chair Isabel was sitting in squeaked as she leaned forward. “
They
being old señoras with too much time on their hands?”

I never thought I’d be recounting the stories I’d heard about the house at the end of Calle Sol to a person who lived in the house at the end of Calle Sol—it was like telling a ghost story to a ghost—but once the stories started pouring past my lips, they wouldn’t stop. I told Isabel about the señoras, how they said her father neglected her mother to the point that she grew so sad she would play her harpsichord while her husband’s great bird croaked along, and how Isabel’s mother eventually cursed the house, destroyed the bird, then disappeared.

“She wasn’t his prisoner,” Isabel said.

“The señoras said he loved his macaw and his plants more than he loved her.”

Isabel shook her head. “It was a gray. Not a macaw. An African gray. His name was Rios. Papá would teach him to mimic, say things like ‘hello’ and ‘jolly good.’ But forget about the bird. What did your friends think about my mother? Did they believe the old ladies?”

“We made up our own stories. Rico said she died in childbirth. Ruben said she jumped off the walls of El Morro.”

“And what was
your
story?”

“I didn’t want to believe she was dead. I thought maybe she’d stolen a boat and rowed over to St. Croix or Barbados.”

Several seconds went by, punctuated by howls from the storm.

Then Isabel said, “I’m sorry to say that none of your stories are true, but, if I had to choose, yours is definitely the best.”

“What’s the truth, then?”

“Do you really want to know? Do I even have to ask if you really want to know?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” I replied.

Isabel was still for a moment. Eventually, she rose from her chair and came to sit cross-legged on the ground in front of the columbine.

“Come sit,” she commanded. “And promise you won’t run away again.”

“I promise. Of course.”

“Of course,” Isabel softly repeated.

She began to roll the dry purple petals of the columbine between her fingers. The edge of her sleeve slipped back, and in the dim light, I could see a dark bruise on the tender skin between the thumb and index finger of her right hand. It made me think of how, when I was a boy and had a nasty bruise, my mom would rub her thumb over it three times in a circle and then give it a kiss. She told me that made them fade more quickly, and I could have sworn it worked.

“Looks can be deceiving, you know,” Isabel mused. “In many ways, these plants seem harmless, but they’re good at hiding their true nature. Some have distinctive markings; others you can cut into and tell their toxicity by the color of the sap. With columbine, you’re looking for five petals in certain shades of blue or violet, all of which have this particular shape. It’s lovely, isn’t it?” My eyes were locked on Isabel’s fingers as they stroked those small poison petals, so delicately, with such care.

“I need you to know that after you fell, I
had
to move you.” There was a hitch in her voice. She released her hand from the plant, pulled her sleeves over both her fists, and folded her arms across her chest. “It would’ve been much worse if you’d just stayed where you landed. I covered up my hands the best I could, but sometimes that’s not enough.”

My eyes were still on the columbine. Its leaves were now green and glistening, its petals revived from their once near-dead state. Isabel did that. I touched my arm, recalling the burning itch, the blurred vision, the delirium and shooting pains. Isabel did that, too.

“It wasn’t the plants,” I said. “It was you. You made me sick.”

Isabel exhaled. “It happens when I touch someone. Or if I’m too close to them for too long. You might be starting to feel sick now—”

“I’m fine,” I interrupted.

“You’ll probably get sick later then,” Isabel said. “But I swear, you falling into all those plants out there made it much worse.”

“Plants like these?” I reached out and snapped a leaf from the columbine.

“Lucas!” Isabel unfolded her arms and snatched the leaf from my fingers. “This isn’t a game.”

“That plant has no effect on you whatsoever?”

Isabel faltered, rolling the leaf between her fingers with such force that it tore and was smashed into fibers and green pulp.

“One of the stories about this house is that there was a baby born here full of poison,” I said. “That was you.”

Isabel wiped the crushed remainders of the leaf on her jeans. “That was me. The poison builds up. When I’m around my plants, I can transfer some of it to them. If I’m not around them, the poison just keeps building up and up and I get sick. Sick
er
.”

“That’s why you stay here.”

“That’s why I stay here,” Isabel echoed. “When I was little, I could go for days without having to be near the plants. I would go with my dad to his labs out near Rincón. You recognized my painting the other day. But now I have to be around the plants almost constantly. I tuck leaves into my sheets when I sleep. I wear them between my skin and clothes, but it doesn’t do much good. I don’t know what the problem is.” She paused. “It’s been getting worse since the start of summer.”

I asked a question I realized was stupid the second it passed my lips: “Can’t your dad do anything?”

“He’s trying, Lucas.” Isabel collected up her mass of wet hair and whipped it over one shoulder. “Despite your stories, he’s not evil. He’s just . . . protective. He doesn’t want to lose me like he lost my mother.”

From the corner of the room, a grandfather clock readied itself to usher in a new hour. I was able to hear the subtle ticks and whirs of gears. I glanced up at the ceiling as the chimes began to toll and saw that individual drops were hitting the glass as opposed to sheet after sheet of water.

I would have to leave soon. I didn’t want to.

“What’s it called?” I asked, looking back down to Isabel. She had her eyes fixed on the hem of her jeans, where she’d started to pluck violently at a loose thread.

“What’s what called?” she muttered.

“Your illness?”

Isabel smirked. “I’m quite sure it doesn’t have a name.”

As Isabel continued pulling at the thread, I moved forward, pushing the pot containing the columbine aside, narrowing the space between us. Despite everything I’d seen and heard and experienced over the last two days, I had to sit on my hands to keep them from twitching. They had minds of their own. They didn’t want to touch the columbine anymore. They wanted to touch Isabel. The fever that toppled me last night had been transformed by memory into nothing but a minor inconvenience, nothing worse than the outcome of a typical night out drinking.

The questions I’d had, the ones collected over the years about witches and curses, I didn’t want to ask anymore of those. New questions had formed—about Isabel. About her life, if you could call it that. About her paintings. About what it was like to hide yourself away and watch and listen. Was it lonely or was it wonderful? Could it be both?

“What would happen if I touched you again?”

Isabel’s head snapped up; she again folded her arms across her chest, tighter this time. “Was I unclear about that?”

“Your dad’s been around you his whole life—and lived to tell the tale.”

“Sometimes by the skin of his teeth. If he had to pick me up when I fell, he’d get rashes on his hands. If I got sick and he had to be near me for a long time, he’d also get sick—sometimes for days.”

“Did you ever think that he might die?”

“Several times.” Isabel stood abruptly and bolted past me. A drop of water fell from the tips of her hair onto my hand. “It didn’t take much time for him to figure out it’s best to stay away from me, and I figured out how to take care of myself. Speaking of that,” she continued, flinging open the front door, “you should probably leave. Now that the storm is passing, my dad might be back soon. And, like I said, it’s not good for you to be around me very long.”

I started to protest, but Isabel had disappeared into the soggy, leaf-strewn courtyard.

Apparently, both of the Fords were terrible at goodbyes.

I stood and, shaking the pins from my legs, followed Isabel into the courtyard. I hopscotched fallen branches, palm fronds, and even a single brown shutter that had been torn from some unfortunate house. It was still lightly raining, but since I was still somewhat damp, it didn’t much matter.

The post-storm sky was cantaloupe-colored. In that light, as Isabel undid the latches on the gate, I noticed again her black-rimmed nails and the nasty bruise on her hand, dark purple and yellowed around the edges.

“What happened there?”

Isabel saw where I was looking and shook her head dismissively. “It’s nothing. I just bruise easily. Bad blood.”

“Can I see it?”

Isabel dropped her hand from the gate and turned to face me. “Why?”

“I just want to see it.”

Isabel’s mouth twisted into a slight scowl, but she pushed back her sleeve and lifted her hand to where it hovered between us.

“You know,” I said, “someone once taught me a way to make bruises like this fade more quickly.”

My thumb landed lightly on the center of the bruise, and Isabel’s hand immediately tensed. I traced the edges of the bruise three times and moved closer. My lips had barely grazed Isabel’s skin before she bit back a scream and hit me across the face.