She puts a hand on her hip. “You want to what?”
Take up a sport, like football, or crew, and limp away, flush from victory. Join the debate club, and say things like “That’s a logical fallacy!” Scream over boy bands. I don’t want to waste my teen years elbow-deep in soil and begonias. But if Mother knew I wanted to have a life outside the briar walls, she’d think I was planning to defect, maybe like Aunt Bryony. “Not weed.”
I gather my books and my lunch into my messenger bag, almost knocking our chipped guacamole bowl off the counter. If I was the type to throw things, that ugly bowl would make a satisfying crack against the wood floors. The frustrated scent of loosestrife peels off me, a noxious weed that smells like garlic breath. “I’m late.”
“Mim.”
I pause in the doorway, but don’t turn around.
“I’ll think about algebra,” she says.
In front of the library, a modern building with large glass windows, I remove the vial of elixir from my bag. A tiny fragment of Mr. Frederics’s handkerchief with a sample of his saliva floats inside. Saliva’s a key component of elixir.
I warm the vial in my palm, then shake it vigorously. Usually, we shoot the arrow by sprinkling the elixir directly on the target, or something we are certain the target and no one else will touch. Elixirs are clear, tasteless, and virtually undetectable by the regular human nose. They’re also the same temperature as skin, and lighter than rain, making them nearly impossible to feel. The elixir affixes to the target and in a few days, the target starts subconsciously “noticing” the client’s scent. Magic.
Through the windows, I spy Ms. DiCarlo at her desk, rubbing an alcohol-soaked cotton ball over a book cover with such vigor, she might erase the picture. Her red hair bounces around her shoulders, flipped up at the ends into a single fat curl.
I walk right up to the librarian’s desk. “Hi, Ms. DiCarlo.” Beside her keyboard lies a small Starbucks cup filled with a shot of espresso, still steaming, with a D marked on the side for what must mean “decaf.” I could drop the elixir into the cup. Mom made it so concentrated, a single drop will work, even if Ms. DiCarlo doesn’t finish her drink.
First thing’s first. Our Rulebook requires us to verify that the target is not married and is not a sociopath. We learn about these things during the client interviews and a background check. I simply take a few whiffs of the target to confirm.
Windex and bran muffins with splashes of peaceful green notes, like holy basil, the scent of pensiveness. Decoding a person’s scentprint—peeling away the outside package to see the person inside—is usually my favorite part of the job. But it’s not what I came for today.
She blinks at me with her doll-like eyes. “Hello. Are you new?”
“Yes. I’m Mimosa,” I say, feeling dumb at my lack of a last name. “Please call me Mim.” Another sniff. I don’t detect sour mash or black rot, which could indicate psychosis.
Ms. DiCarlo sits up so straight, her chair rolls back a few inches. Even faculty isn’t immune to the rumors about me. “Oh yes. I’ve heard you were here. May I help you?”
“So far, no one has signed up for the Puddle Jumpers’ teachers’ team.” Kali put me in charge of recruiting for the charity event she leads every year, buddying troubled youth with SGHS teachers and students. She thought it would help people get over their hesitancy toward me by showing them that I can be fun, too. Plus, it’s something we can do together outside of the garden. “Are you interested? You’d be perfect. Kids always love librarians.” I sniff deeper. I don’t detect any male odors on her whatsoever. No female ones, either, other than her own. Single for sure.
“Oh, well, yes, that’s true.” She tries to suppress a smile, but it doesn’t work, so she waves my comment off. “Well, when is it?”
“Next Friday during homecoming week.”
“Let me check my calendar.” She opens a drawer and pulls out a bound stack of papers that looks like a manuscript. Under the manuscript, she finds her day planner, which is thick as a bible. As she replaces the manuscript in the drawer, I catch the words, Avoiding the Torture Chamber of Medieval Library Collections, by Sofia DiCarlo, on the cover page. She’s a writer.
She flips through the mostly blank pages of her planner and finds the right day. “Looks like I’m free.”
“Great. Is there anyone I might ask to be your faculty partner?” If she says Mr. Frederics, we definitely have a match.
Her traffic-light green eyes shift to the corner, while she thinks it over.
I help her along. “Mr. Frederics, maybe?”
She tilts her chin to the side. “Why not? He always makes the students laugh.”