Page 37 of Potion Sickness

“Nobody has a private dressing room. It’s a storage closet with a curtain.”

“It’s a storage closet with a curtain that Prudence gets first,” Tiffany says, and goes to wait her turn for it.

Well then.

I got a few usable quotes and one rather alarming reading of Shakespeare, but what really seems to matter to Tiffany, though, is that she wants everyone to know she’s ready. She’s been telling anyone who’ll listen. Either she’s the least discreet poisoner in the history of crime, or she’s just a standard understudy, yearning for the spotlight from the wings.

Both fit. Everything fits. That’s the problem.

* * *

When he’s not on stage, Englebert installs himself on the shelf of the folded bleachers and becomes furniture. His eyes stay slitted. His tail doesn’t move. When Dana calls it, he descends from the bleachers and crosses to my chair with the somberness of a soldier returning from the front.

“Report?” I say.

“No one tampered with anything on my watch. No one lingered. Dorcas dropped a muffin and served it anyway, but I will keep this secret with me for the sake of group morale.”

Across the gym, Ms. Pelham is going through her tote bag at increasing speed, taking things out and putting them back. Hannah asks her what she’s looking for.

“My stitch markers,” Ms. Pelham says. “The little rings. They were in the side pocket at intermission. How do things keep walking out of this building?”

Emma has her clipboard out before Ms. Pelham finishes the sentence.

CHAPTER 12

Bert beckons us through the threshold of the Duskboro Historical Society, clearly delighted to have visitors. Englebert had caught what he’d said about the folder of Wardwell documents and has been insisting ever since that we go visit. Today, I’ve finally given in.

“The folder,” Bert says, in place of hello. “I’ve had it out on the table for days. Your Aunt Imogene called and told me to expect you. You never know with her these days, but I figured it’s best to be safe. Come in, come in, mind the boxes, the Grange donated their minutes going back to 1934 and I haven’t the time to go through everything yet.”

Englebert hops atop a box. I take a seat at the table.

“He organized it chronologically,” Bert says, handing me Rupert’s folder.

The folder holds photocopies, mostly. There are a lot of land records that don’t really pique my interest, or presumably anyone but Bert’s. There’s a page of an old town census with Wardwell Manor inventoried down to the number of stoves and a clipping from a county paper about my great-great-grandmother winning a weaving competition for four years running until she was asked, in what the paper calls ‘the interest of broader participation’ to judge instead.

The photo Bert mentioned from the 1962 Harvest Festival is near the back. My grandmother stands at the left edge of the frame, unmistakable. She’s much younger than I ever knew her, in a coat with a rounded collar, caught mid-sentence with one finger raised toward something outside the picture.

“You did say she was complaining,” I say.

“She often was,” Bert concurs.

“What do you think she was complaining about?”

“The pie placement, if I had to guess. There was a controversy that year. The fruit pies got the shade and the cream pies got the sun, which is backwards. Everyone knows that’s backwards. The committee chair was a cream-pie woman herself, so...” He spreads his hands, indicating the vastness of what followed.

Englebert, who has been touring the room at floor level, arrives on the chair beside me, then the table, then the edge of the folder. He leans in closely, examining the photo.

At my grandmother’s feet, half-hidden by the tablecloth and a stranger’s skirt, sits a cat, facing the camera dead-on while every human in the frame faces the pies.

“That’s you!” I say.

“Of course it’s me.” His voice has gone strange. He leans closer. “The Harvest Festival. She wanted company for the judging. She said…” He stops himself, recalibrates, and starts again at his usual altitude. “I was frequently in attendance at civic functions. It was expected.”

“Englebert! You’re in the town archive.”

“I am documented,” he says, and decades of grievance about family portraiture dissolve with the words. He sits back and composes himself. “Mr. Fisk. I should like a copy. Framed, if the Society’s budget permits. I will accept unframed.”

“The Society’s budget can be contained within a coffee can,” Bert says. “But I’ve got a frame that’ll fit. Martha kept spares. She framed everything. I’ve still got it all. Ticket stubs, the grandchildren’s report cards, a parking citation she considered unjust, you name it.” He shuffles toward a cabinet, continuing to talk with his back to us. He finds the frame he’s looking for. It’s plain wood, a little scuffed, but it fits exactly right.