Her stomach lurched. "Is she all right?"
"She's fine," Paul said. He was dressed casually and expensively, the typical Cape Cod inn owner. He gave Piper a weak smile. "It's Stan we should be worried about. He stopped by the inn with an alarming story. Uh—can we talk?"
Slightly calmer, but with a sense of dread, Piper led them inside, through her in-progress front parlor back to her keeping room. It still smelled of bread from her morning class. She offered the two men something to drink, but they declined. She poured herself a glass of water, noticing that Stan was tense and awkward as he scanned her cozy, unusual kitchen. One of her first tasks had been to uncover the plastered-over fireplace, where she'd discovered beehive ovens and even an old iron kettle. She'd since added more kettles and pans, storing them in and around the fireplace.
No one sat down. Piper leaned against the sink and drank her water, wondering what Hannah had done now.
Paul did the talking. He was tall enough that her dried herbs skimmed the top of his head. "Stan came to me because of Sally's and my close relationship to Hannah. Sally's gone to Hyannis for the evening or she would certainly have come with us. However, I don't think we're the ones who can help with this situation. You've always been the closest to her, Piper. If anyone can get her under control, it's you."
Piper could feel her leg muscles seizing up. She'd planned on a long session of stretching, an invigorating shower, then her jam making. "Has she done something?"
Carlucci took a breath. "She's tried again to terrorize me with her witchcraft."
He sounded like a Puritan prosecutor at a seventeenth-century witch trial. Piper gulped more water, trying not to let Stan's gravity and hyperbole affect her. "Hannah would never deliberately harm you or anyone else."
"Show her," Paul said to Carlucci, his tone resigned, even a bit depressed.
Stan withdrew a black velvet pouch from the pocket of his seersucker sport coat and tossed it on the counter. Piper eyed it, then him. Perspiration dotted his brow. "I hope there's nothing dead inside," she said, trying to inject a little levity into the conversation.
Neither he nor Paul responded. "Open it up," Stan said.
Piper's first impulse was to argue, but she thought better of it. Best to get this over with. Apprehensively, she loosened the string on the pouch and felt inside. No dead bat or anything, just a little bottle, about two inches tall. She lifted it out. It was made of brown glass, typical of what Hannah used for her various tinctures and essential oils. A simple label stuck to the outside identified the contents as tincture of bistort and agrimony.
Piper choked back a laugh.
"I'm glad you're amused," Stan Carlucci grumbled.
"I'm sorry. Really." But she had to cover her mouth to keep from sputtering from her laughter, prompted as much by relief as amusement.
"I take it you recognize the contents," Paul said seriously.
"Mmm. Bistort and agrimony are two common astringent herbs used in the treatment of diarrhea." The previous tea that Hannah had prepared for Stan Carlucci was to relieve constipation. Piper chewed on a piece of ice, trying to contain her inappropriate fit of giggles. "Maybe it's Hannah's way of making peace between you."
Stan was unpersuaded. "There's no note, nothing."
"Maybe she expected you to be home, and when you weren't, just left the tincture, assuming you'd figure out what it was for."
"Oh, I figured it out all right."
"Under the circumstances," Paul said, "perhaps Hannah should have at least called."
"She probably didn't think of it. She's eighty-seven. Allowances
Stan snorted. "She's had all the allowances I'm going to give her. The woman's a menace."
"Oh, come on, Stan." Piper set her glass down on the sink, ignoring a slight tremble in her fingers. "It's not as if she left a bag of henbane under your pillow. Now that would worry me. Henbane's highly poisonous, but tincture of bistort and agrimony..." She shrugged. "Sorry, but that just doesn't move my needle."
"It's harassment," Carlucci said, refusing to back down.
"How do you know? Have you talked to her? You know, if you're so worried about my aunt, why don't you ask her what she intended by leaving a tincture on your doorstep?"
Paul intervened before Piper could work up a really good head of steam in her aunt's defense. "We understand how devoted you are to Hannah, Piper. That's why we've come to you. Neither Stan nor I was ever worried the tincture was poisonous. But Hannah can't—she just shouldn't be doing this sort of thing. You can see that, can't you? People are going to get the wrong idea about her, or one day she will hurt someone, however unintentionally."