LITMIR.BIZ

      Dedication

      For Ruta Rimas, with deepest thanks

      Epigraph

      “Weed… fills my head with tales from the ancient forests, tales so old that the trees themselves call them legends. It is as if a veil has been lifted from my eyes, and the world I have lived in all my sixteen years is revealed to be something else entirely, something so

      marvellous I could never have imagined it…”

      – JESSAMINE LUXTON, The Poison Diaries

      Contents

       Cover

      Title Page

      Dedication

      Epigraph

      1

      I WAKE, AS I usually do, to the sound of…

      2

      ALL DAY AND LATE into the evening, the fields ring…

      3

      A STAND OF HEMLOCK water dropwort grows in a sturdy…

      4

      IT IS LATE AFTERNOON when I return, though the sky…

      5

      DEEP IN THE FOREST is another world, yet three hours…

      6

      I AM ROWAN. I tell myself over and over, in…

      7

      THE JOURNEY SOUTH TAKES on a rhythm of its own.

      8

      THE NEXT MORNING I awaken early. I have only had…

      9

      THEY DRAG ME BACK to the King’s Head and sequester…

      10

      IT HAS TAKEN THE better part of this long sea…

      11

      THE COURTYARD OF SIGNORA Baglioni’s house is filled with weathered…

      12

      JESSAMINE LUXTON.

      13

      SIGNORA BAGLIONI BEGINS EVERY lesson the same way: “What does…

      14

      BE CHARMING, LOVELY. That was Oleander’s final instruction. These men…

      15

      THE TREE SIGNORA CALLS the Palm of St. Peter is the…

      16

      “BELLISSIMO,” SIGNORA BAGLIONI MURMURS, making the final adjustments to my…

      17

      I AM DYING, DROWNING at the bottom of the Tyne…

      18

      ARE YOU VERY WEARY, lovely? You must be. Even with…

      19

      THE PORTS OF PADUA and Venice were closed after word…

      Other Books by Maryrose Wood

      Copyright

      About the Publisher

      

1

      I WAKE, AS I usually do, to the sound of Weed’s voice. It rustles in my ear as I sleep. It skitters through my dreams like autumn leaves along the ground. My skin warms, my breath quickens. The memories come unbidden.

      It is early spring, before I became ill. Weed and I are on one of our long rambles through the rolling green fields of Northumberland. He tells me strange fables, one after another, of a world where plants can speak, and all forms of life are of equal worth: humans, animals, and plants, too.

      I laugh, because the tales are so marvellous. He turns to me, solemn-faced, and I explain my reaction.

      “Marvellous? You may find them so. The trees are quite serious when they tell them.”

      “But it is only a tale, a story – even to the trees, is it not? Look, here is a lovely place for our picnic. Shall we stop?”

      How foolish I was then. How wrong I was, about so many things.

      I thought love was a rare orchid that bloomed only once – but once it bloomed, it bloomed forever.

      I thought that with the death of my mother, so many years ago, the worst of my life had already come and gone.

      I thought my father would protect me from harm.

      Was I wrong about Weed as well? Every time I draw breath I catch the earth scent of him. I lie motionless in my bed, alone in my tower bedchamber. A summer breeze floats through the open shutters, and I feel the tenderness of his kiss.

      The last time I saw him I was dying. My mind flew with dark wings, and I looked down on my own pain-wracked body as if it belonged to another. I had nightmare visions of a strange prince who fed me poison, who wooed and tormented me, who showed me bloody scenes and unspeakable evils – evils wrought by my father.

      My heart still pounds when I recall those hellish dreams. I thought I would not survive them. There were times I did not wish to.

      More memories play on my half-closed eyelids as the morning sun tries to pry them open: Weed sitting at my bedside, spooning medicine to my lips. Wiping my brow. Gazing at me in love and grief, his moss-green eyes bright with tears.

      Then he was gone. He lost hope and left. Too faithless to stay by my side until the end, he abandoned me at the worst point of my illness. That is what Father said, after my fever finally broke and I gasped and cried my way back to life, like a second birth.

      “He is gone, and good riddance. He is a coward and a trickster. You are not the first maiden to be fooled by such a scoundrel. Bear your shame alone now; marry your work, and forget him, for you will not see him again.” Father said it coldly, and not without satisfaction.

      Of course, what Father says cannot always be believed. But Weed is gone; that much is true. There has been no word, and now the summer draws to a close.

      I stretch and turn beneath the cool linen sheet. I flex each limb and yawn, like a waking cat. Am I well? It is hard to say. In some ways I am stronger than I was. I am less trusting, less innocent. I have thoughts, sometimes, that I barely recognise as my own. I feel capable of things that I never would have dreamed of before.

      I have even taken over my father’s healing practice. I had to; Father is too busy now, or too indifferent, to tend to people’s ills as he used to. With my knowledge of plants, it was not difficult to learn the basic cures, and they are most of what any healer needs. One fever, croup, or childbirth pang is much like another.

      Once I walked through Northumberland hooded and silent, too shy to speak, too unimportant to approach. Now I am known and respected, and even a little bit feared. I do not mind that.

      But there is an ache within, an empty place. My heart, once lush with joy, now lies fallow. Everything tastes like dust.

      Weed, I have whispered a thousand times as I wandered alone through the meadows of Hulne Park. Where are you? Why did you leave? When will you come back to me? But the dull, ocean roar of the grass is the only answer I receive.

      Tell him I love him still, I weep into the bark of an ancient pine. Tell him for me, please.

      Still, I get no reply.

      I long to drift back to sleep and bury myself in the bitter sweet dream of all that I

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