The Apothecary

Chapter 13

The Gardener’s Letter



I wouldn’t, under the circumstances, have described my parents’ flat as safe, but I had to get home. My parents were furious. “So you just waltz in here at ten o’clock at night?” my father demanded.

“Is it ten?” I asked. I would have guessed much later.

“Do you know how terrified we were?” my mother asked.

“I think so.”

“Where were you this late?”

Benjamin and I had agreed, after much debate as we made our way through the streets, not to tell them about the murder. Both the gardener and the apothecary had told us not to trust the police. But my parents could tell I was upset and had been crying, so we had to tell them something.

“It’s a really long story,” I said.

“So start at the beginning,” my father said. “And I want the truth!” He pointed at Benjamin. “Did your mother really die in the war?”

“Yes,” Benjamin said.

“Okay, that sounds true. Let’s go from there. Did your father go visit a sick aunt?”

“No.”

“I knew it! Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then we should call the police,” my mother said.

“No!” Benjamin said. “We can’t trust the police.”

“Have you done something wrong?”

“No,” he said.

“So why can’t you trust them?”

“I just can’t.”

“You don’t trust the federal marshals,” I reminded my father. “And you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“That’s different.”

“How do you know?” My father hated it when people jumped to conclusions about other people’s situations, and I wasn’t going to let him do the same.

He relented. “I don’t,” he said. “So tell me. Where were you?”

“At a friend’s house, working on a science project,” Benjamin said. “We made . . . a bit of a mess, and our friend’s father was angry with us.”

That was pretty much true.

“So you cleaned up the mess, and you didn’t think to call us, and then what?” my father asked.

“That’s it,” Benjamin said. “It took a long time.”

“What’s the name of the friend?”

Benjamin hesitated. “Stephen Smith.”

“You’re lying, Figment,” my father said. “I’ve worked in show business a long time, and I know what lying sounds like.”

“I can’t tell you his name,” Benjamin said, with stubborn dignity. We had promised Mr Shiskin we would leave him and Sergei out of it, and Benjamin wouldn’t budge on that.

“Then I want you out of my house.”

“He doesn’t have anywhere to go!” I said. “Let him stay one more night.”

“If he tells me the truth, I’ll consider it.”

“He can’t! He promised!”

“Promised who?” my father said. “I’m waiting.”

Benjamin was silent, his head stubbornly bent forward.

“Out, Figment,” my father said. “Now. And Janie, you’re going to bed.”



I begged my parents to reconsider, but it did no good, and I got into bed feeling helpless and trapped. The gardener was dead and Benjamin was out in the streets, in mortal danger, and there was nothing I could do. I was writing furiously in my diary about how my parents didn’t—couldn’t—understand anything, when I heard a tap at the window. I slid the window open, and Benjamin climbed in off the ledge, with his satchel slung across his chest, taking off his shoes before his feet silently touched the floor.

“How’d you get up here?” I whispered. I was too amazed to worry about the fact that I was only in my nightgown. Anyway, it was the long flannel hand-me-down nightgown from Olivia Wolff ’s daughter, and it was about as revealing as a nun’s habit.

“I climbed that tree to the window ledge.”

“If my parents catch you—”

“They won’t. I’ll leave early in the morning.”

I tried to think about the options, and the consequences, but I had no argument. He really didn’t have anywhere else to go.

Benjamin set his satchel down carefully and spotted the diary open on my bed. “You keep a diary?”

I closed it and slid it beneath my pillow. “Sometimes.”

“It doesn’t say anything about the Pharmacopoeia or the gardener, does it?”

“No.” That was a partial truth. “Not so anyone else could understand it.”

“It would be bad if someone found it, and could understand.”

“They won’t,” I said. My eyes filled. “Benjamin—the gardener.”

“We have to be strong,” he said. “Don’t cry.”

I brushed away the tears. “Where will you sleep?” My bed was very narrow, and even if it hadn’t been, the question of sharing it was too embarrassing to think about.

“On the floor.”

So I gave him one of my wool blankets, and he lay down on the floor with his satchel for a pillow. He stretched out on his back with his hands behind his head.

“Why did your father call me Figment?” he asked.

I climbed into bed, under the one remaining blanket, and tried to push the gardener from my head. “Because he thinks he’s funny.”

“But Figment?”

“When I told them I was going to play chess with you, my mother was teasing me about having a boyfriend. Someone said, as a joke, that it was a figment of her imagination. That’s all it took—they were off.”

Benjamin was silent, looking at the ceiling. “It’s nice that they tease you,” he finally said. “My dad’s always so serious. I wonder what he’d have been like if my mother hadn’t died. If he would have been more—I don’t know. Like your parents. Able to joke about things.”

I couldn’t imagine not having parents who joked: It was part of every day. I was silent because I didn’t know what to say.

“What does your diary say about me?” Benjamin asked.

“That I can’t believe my parents sent you out in the cold.”

“That’s all?”

“That you’re kind of a bully when you play chess.”

“A bully! That’s slander!”

“The truth is a defence,” I said. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it was something my father liked to say, before the US marshals started looking for him.

Benjamin smiled. Then there was a knock at my bedroom door, and we both froze.

“Under the bed!” I whispered, and he rolled silently beneath, pulling his satchel and the blanket after him. I got my diary back out and posed with it on my knee.

“Yes?” I said, in a sullen voice.

My father pushed the door open and looked in. “Lights out.”

“I’m still writing.”

“You need your sleep.”

“So does Benjamin, and you sent him out in the cold.”

I was trying to act as I would have acted if Benjamin weren’t in the room, but without drawing my father into the room to discuss it. It was a gamble, and I lost it: My father sighed, and crossed to the bed and sat down. The metal springs squeaked. I held my breath, hoping he wasn’t crushing Benjamin.

“Janie,” my father said. “I know you’re upset. Your mother and I just want you to be safe. Benjamin seems like a resourceful boy. He’s probably safe at home right now.”

I was going to say that Benjamin’s home wasn’t safe, but I didn’t want to start narrowing down the options for where he might actually be. “Maybe,” I said.

“You really like him, don’t you?”

“Dad,” I said, imagining Benjamin under the bed. Even though I’d already told him I fancied him, I thought we could set that aside, in the category of Things the Smell of Truth Made Us Do. I wasn’t going to say it again.

“It’s okay, you can tell me,” my father prodded.

I said nothing.

“He’s a nice kid, Figment,” my father said. “A little arrogant, though.”

I thought I heard a noise under the bed. I shifted, squeaking the metal springs, to cover it.

“And not as responsible as I’d like. Your mother and I were scared today. We thought something terrible had happened to you.”

“I know,” I said. “But it didn’t.” I thought of the gardener bleeding on his worn floor and wondered if we had left footprints, or fingerprints.

“The funny thing is that we’d been waiting for you to get home, to tell you that Olivia wants us to go on location for a few days, to film at a castle. The speech we’d prepared started with how responsible we think you are. But then you didn’t come home to hear it. It got later, and later, and we got pretty worked up. And now I think we have to take you with us.”

I stared at him. “But I have school.”

“It’s just a few days.”

“I’m so far behind already.” I couldn’t leave Benjamin to look for his father alone, and I cast around frantically for ideas.

“Janie, it’s a castle,” my father said.

“I know!” Once I would have loved to skip school to go on location to a castle, but it was unthinkable now. “What was your plan before, when you were going to say how responsible I am?”

My father frowned. “That Mrs Parrish, the landlady downstairs, would look after you.”

“Perfect!” I nearly shouted.

“But Janie, you came home at ten o’clock tonight. You can’t do that with Mrs Parrish.”

“I won’t! I promise!” I didn’t know, at the time, how true that would be.

My father shook his head. “We thought about telling Olivia we couldn’t go, but we’ve just started working for her.” He paused, looking at his hands. “We haven’t wanted to make you afraid or upset, Janie, but we really need this job.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry I was a pill about leaving LA. And I’m sorry I was late tonight. But I’ll check in constantly with Mrs Parrish and I’ll be fine. Really. You can go.”

My father sat on the bed thinking. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know what else to do,” he said. “You really did scare us. We got so mad because we love you and want you to be safe. You understand that?”

“I do. I love you, too.”

“Now lights out, okay?”

When the door clicked closed, Benjamin rolled out from under the bed. “Arrogant?” he whispered.

“But nice,” I whispered back.

“And irresponsible!”

“We were home really late,” I said. “And you wouldn’t tell him anything!”

“Oh, right, so I should have told him that someone kidnapped my father and stabbed the gardener with a sundial?”

“No,” I said.

We sat in silence. Then Benjamin said, “So you get to stay in London.”

I looked at him—was he glad? Had I done right to campaign to stay? “Yes,” I said warily.

He didn’t catch my eye, or give any indication of feeling. “What did the gardener leave us?” he asked.

The note! I’d forgotten to read it. My coat was hanging on the bedpost, and I drew out the little brown glass bottle. The note was tied to the neck with a piece of twine.

I unfolded the piece of paper and spread it on the bed. Benjamin sat beside me and his hand brushed mine, which made it hard to concentrate for a second, but then I was caught up in the letter.

Children,

After much reflection, I begin to think that my life may be in danger. The man with the scarred face is walking in the garden as I write. I will hide this letter among the only plants you know to be useful. If you return to the garden in my absence, perhaps that’s where you’ll go. I know of no other way to contact you safely.

It is clearly of the utmost importance that you find Benjamin’s father. I’m convinced that what he wants is for the good. I have tried to think what I could offer to help you find him, when I may have little time.

There was a transformative elixir you doubted could exist, and I have taken the liberty of making some for you, from the directions in your remarkable book.

I have contemplated using it myself, to escape, but I am old, and have nowhere to go. I would be lost outside the garden. Please give the elixir the respect it deserves—use it not as a frivolous plaything, but approach the transformation with the seriousness that your father has always brought to his work. That will be the best way to find him.

I pray that you will not find this letter under dreadful circumstances. I would prefer to pass the bottle directly into your hands. But I am not hopeful. I wish you all luck.

Your friend

I picked up the bottle when I finished reading the letter. “A transformative elixir,” I said. “It’s the bird spell.”

“Oh, great,” Benjamin said. “The nuttiest one.”

“Don’t you think it works?”

“No,” Benjamin said. “If it did, he would have used it to escape.”

“To go where? He had nowhere to go, like he said.”

“It just isn’t possible, Janie. It isn’t like smelling some truth serum. There are physical laws—the conservation of mass, for one thing. A human being can’t just become a tiny bird-sized thing. We’d have to become something the size of us. Like a baby ostrich. And a lot of good that would do.”

“A giant condor?” I suggested.

“A bit conspicuous in central London.” He reached towards the bottle. “Here, let’s try it now and see.”

I pulled the bottle back. “The gardener said not to use it as a plaything,” I said. “Think how amazing it would be, if it worked, to become a bird and fly!”

“Uh-huh,” Benjamin said.

It did seem fairly unlikely. The exhaustion of the day swept over me and a yawn seemed to take over my whole body. “How are you going to get out of here in the morning?”

“Same way I came in.” He turned over on his side with his head on the satchel, pulling the blanket up.

I reached over and turned out the light and we lay in silence for a while. My brain was spinning through everything that had happened, stopping first on the upside-down face of the man with the scar, then on Shiskin’s angry switching on of the radio. Then on the cold stillness of the gardener’s throat as I felt for his pulse, then on my parents’ fury and the fact that they were going away, and my conflicted feelings about not telling them everything. Then on Benjamin Burrows lying on my bedroom floor. I could tell from his breathing that he wasn’t asleep either.

“Benjamin?” I whispered.

“Yes?”

“What are we going to do tomorrow?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m not used to someone sleeping on my floor.”

“You don’t have girly sleepovers back in Hollywood?”

“Sure, but no one sleeps at them,” I said. “And anyway, you’re not very girly.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. It’s a step up from ‘arrogant’.”

“He said ‘resourceful’, too.”

“I like ‘resourceful’. Hey, Janie?”

“Yes?”

“I’m glad you’re staying in London.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Me too.”

I smiled idiotically at the ceiling for a while, and then lay listening to Benjamin’s even breathing in the dark, trying to concentrate on our problems so that my brain could solve them while I slept. It was a trick my mother had taught me, but I had never been thinking about problems this big before. Eventually exhaustion won out, and I fell asleep.