Read by Gloria Sanders (2nd story in podcast, at 17m 30s)
It started out as a game. My sister had found a purplish flower hidden in a tangle of weeds, and we both recognised it from the illustration in one of Mother’s old books. She didn’t say anything, just held the greenery at bay and eyed it greedily as though she wanted to taste it herself. She knew it was wolfsbane, same as I did. A purple death, potentially. Always was her favourite colour, though it suited us both, or so Mother used to say.
While my sister harvested her find, I hunted further, hacking away the strangling vines until I found a treasure of my own. Spotted stems that I disturbed, and then a scattering of tiny seeds, each strong enough to kill a man. I wasn’t keen on sharing, and we fought there among the overgrown greenery, scratching and biting like we were kids again, rolling over berries that stained our shirts red.
We’d only read Mother’s herbarium out of boredom. Neither of us had shown any interest in tending the garden before. Back when Mother had Father digging holes in the earth, large enough to bury small bodies in. When she’d bundle her skirts like a cushion under her knees, and root around in the mud, petticoats showing.
Back then we left them to it, and made the most of having the house to ourselves. Sometimes we sneaked a peek at Mother’s pantry, tapping the glass jars to alarm the creatures still wiggling inside. Other times we locked each other in to see who’d last longest without screaming. It meant we were prepared for the times Mother told Father to lock us in there. We grew accustomed to the dark.
Now that the garden was all ours, we split it right down the middle and competed to see who could grow the deadliest plants, or hide the most poisonous leaves where the other might brush past them and develop a nasty rash. Some plants dropped spores that floated on the wind, and emitted nauseating smells that made our nostrils burn.
Maybe it was the heat, but as the flowers bloomed and fruit swelled we came to an unspoken agreement to let the game spread into the house. We started sneaking the most potent parts inside, hidden in pockets or bags or upturned hats. My sister potted a whole plant and left it in the kitchen, where it turned the air toxic. I crumbled leaves on the floor around her bed, that made her bare feet itch and sting all night. She left thorns in my underwear drawer, barbed and clinging, and I pressed rough burrs between the folds of her towel while she took a bath.
There had never been any secrets between us, and yet this game felt like one. It was our very own sacred pact, just as long as neither of us said a word. So the game became a silent performance, and we were each both player and played. We began to offer each other cups of suspicious looking tea, with green fragments floating on the top. Both of us pretended to drink it, every time, and every time a shiver like a static charge flickered up my spine. Perhaps, faced with the death of both our parents at once, some part of us wanted to try it for ourselves, and yet some primal instinct held us back.
We got cleverer then, stuck freshly-dipped sewing needles in each other's pockets, and left sticky sap on the handles of doors. Yet, maybe because we were both concocting similar schemes, we were neither of us easily tricked. We saw every threat coming, and had already considered what each other might do before they did it. We don’t just look alike, we think alike too. Too alike, Mother used to say. Sisters who always had to explain we weren’t actually twins.
We both began baking at the same time, moving around each other in the kitchen, turning our backs as we mixed ingredients, taking turns to take gasps of hot summer air at the open window. We were used to the kitchen. Mother used to say it was the place for us girls, and set us to work there. She used to leave us to it, but would stay within earshot in case we dared to bicker, forcing her to send Father to fetch his stick. We had learned to work in silence, and it was a hard habit to break.
It was when we shared the belladonna between us, that we realised what fools we were being. Why make two small pies when we could bake one big one? So I kneaded the pastry and she rolled it out, and we took turns to spoon in the mixture. I heaved the oven door open while she slid the pie inside. I could have pushed her in and slammed it shut, but that would have broken the unspoken rules of the game.
We hadn’t exchanged a word since we lost our parents and weren’t going to start now, but I think we realised at the same time that we weren’t really trying to kill each other. We each just wanted a little taste of death for ourselves. To feel closer to Mother, or more like her perhaps. For all her faults she never had been afraid of death.
We tidied up while the pie rose and browned. I washed the dishes and my sister dried. She scrubbed the surfaces clean while I polished the sink. Mother always insisted on a spotless sink, it just invited sickness otherwise.
Together we had made the biggest, deadliest pie we could manage. The air of the hot kitchen was thick with an odd array of aromas. In the same breath I could taste delicious buttery pastry, and a bitter, mousy smell that furred my tongue.
When we opened the oven the heat forced us back, and I threw the window open wider, knocking my sister’s plant out with my elbow. I don’t know if I meant to do it or not, but she didn’t mind, laughing when the pot smashed. She covered her mouth to stop the noise, but I smiled to let her know that it was all right. We could make as much noise as we wanted now, but somehow we weren’t ready just yet. Maybe some part of us still feared Mother was listening, even though she couldn’t.
We cut two big slices of steaming pie and placed them on Mother’s best, gold-rimmed plates. We made tea, and set the table as though for a great feast. We cleared off the piles of books and papers, smoothed out Mother’s favourite red tablecloth, rolled napkins into holders and lit a single, tall candle. We sat down together, on our own chairs. Mother’s and Father’s held the books we’d moved, and they towered there like we’d distilled the knowledge from our parents and pressed it back onto paper. Cookbooks and Herbals, Bestiaries and Encyclopaedias and Grimoires. Mother’s precious notebook was perched on top of her pile, the one we’d stolen from her some time before, letting her think she’d lost it. The one with all the old family recipes in.
My sister looked at me over her pie, and took a tiny sip of tea. I hadn’t put anything in it, it was just tea. Plain and unsugared, as she liked it. The same way I took mine.
We sat together for a while and watched the candle burn, but we didn’t eat the pie. Once our shadows loomed large, we put it out in the garden for the rats to find instead. We went upstairs to sleep in our own beds, ours since childhood, shaking out the blankets first to check for deadly sprigs.
The next morning, the birds did not sing. We woke to silence and a cold unnatural for July. We met each other mutely on the landing, shivering in our nightdresses, rubbing our arms. Her face was a mirror of mine, tight-lipped and anxious, like we’d been caught doing something terribly wrong. We went downstairs and nothing looked amiss, and yet the house felt hollow, like its last breath had left it in the night. The books on Mother’s chair had toppled, the notebook knocking over the candle on the table. Thankfully, one of us had blown the flame out before we went to bed, though I couldn’t remember which of us had done it.
Our boots stood ready by the back door as always, so we slipped them on and let ourselves out into the garden. The sky was white as an empty page and the chill air was still. Even our booted feet sounded muffled as we left the house.
We knew what awaited us outside, I think. Death scattered in little bodies all around us, dozens of creatures lying stiff and empty. Claws curled and useless, wings stretched out at awkward angles. We had brought death to our home again. And this time, there was no argument. We were both equally guilty.
The game was over, and we both knew it. The spell was broken, and it was right that I, being the eldest by nearly a year, was the first to speak again.
So I said we should keep them all in jars like Mother would have, preserved in vinegar, in case we needed them. Waste not, want not, as she would have said. Only, my sister reminded me that all the jars were in the pantry. Neither of us would dare unlock it now, not with her still in there. Not when her eyes might still be open, her fingers still pointing.
So, we dug holes with Father’s spade instead and gathered the bodies one by one. We lifted them by their tails or feet and dropped them into the fresh graves. Then we covered them over with earth and an apology, just as we had for Father. We buried what was left of the pie too, wiping our fingers clean on the grass after.
And at last, the whole place seemed able to breathe again.
(c) 2024, Lisa Farrell
Lisa Farrell is a freelance writer in the hobby games industry & a postgraduate researcher exploring interactivity in fiction. Some of her recent stories have been published by Litro, BFS Horizons, & Luna Station Quarterly.
Gloria Sanders is returning to Whitby Abbey in October with Time Will Tell Theatre. She has enjoyed narrating audiobooks for over a decade & has worked as an historical interpreter at heritage sites around the country, training in clowning & historic fooling. She’s a qualified Spanish Interpreter, working with Crowded Room on the co-created documentary La Lucha & she produced Deepfakes by Sarah Blake for Cabinets of Curiosity. www.gloriasanders.com
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