Page 135 of The Widow and the Wanted

I lie still on the narrow cot, listening.

The stove in the corner has burned low, its iron belly showing only a sullen red eye. Beyond the walls, water moves sluggishly. The building creaks under the river wind, carrying the smell of rot and wet planks. A rat scratches behind a crate.

Deputy Hepburn snores by the door. A thin, nervous snag of breath.

Everett sleeps in the room beyond the partition. He has not locked me in. Men like Everett prefer their ugliness gloved. The door between us stays closed, the outer door guarded.

I sit up. The cot ropes groan.

Hepburn’s snoring cuts off.

I freeze.

A chair scrapes. “Ma’am?” His voice is thick with sleep.

I press a hand to my stomach and breathe like a woman merely inconvenienced. “I need the privy.”

A pause. “Now?”

“No, Deputy. I thought I’d announce it and wait for breakfast.”

He clears his throat, embarrassed. The stove’s dull glow catches the edge of his oversized badge.

“Mr. Everett said you’re not to wander.”

“I don’t intend to wander. I intend to avoid humiliating myself in this room. That is unless Mr. Everett arranged more civilized accommodations and forgot to mention it.”

That leaves him stranded. Men like Hepburn can drag a girl into a carriage but turn boyish at the mention of a woman’s body.

He fumbles for the lantern. “I’ll walk you.”

“Of course you will.”

The words come out mild. Inside, every nerve is wire-tight.

Outside, the yard is mud and shadow. The river whispers close by. I let him lead me halfway to the privy, then stumble in the slick mud, catching myself against a stack of boards with a hiss.

“My ankle,” I say, bending.

He lifts the lantern. “Need help?”

“No.” I soften it at once. “No, thank you.”

He decides, reluctantly, to wait at a distance.

Inside the privy, the stench is foul enough to steady me. A woman who has survived worse can endure fear. I count to fifty, make the ordinary sounds, then limp back out.

At the threshold of the building I stop again. “My shawl. I snagged it on a crate inside.”

Hepburn looks at me like I’ve pulled a knife. But he lets me step back in.

The lantern throws a low arc of light. I crouch near the corner where sweepings have been shoved—dried grass, splintered stems, hollow roots with faded purple-brown streaks. Pale tuberous pieces split open, their chambers visible even in death.

Cicuta maculata. Water hemlock.

Dead. Shriveled. Still lethal. The poison lives in the root, concentrated like oily yellow bitterness in hidden chambers. Frost and time may wither the stems, but the root remembers death.

Please, God. Let it have hoarded enough.