We were quiet, then, for a minute or so, but it was not uncomfortable in the way that it can be between adults. I supposed the girl to be grateful, foremost, to be out of the cold. I gave her a few moments to warm herself, while I went to my counter and busied myself with a few small black stones. They needed smoothing along the grinding board, after which they would make ideal vial stoppers. Aware of the girl watching me, I lifted the first stone and, pressing down with my palm, rolled it, spun it around and rolled it again. Ten or fifteen seconds was all I could manage before I had to stop and slow my breath.

A year ago, I was stronger, and my strength was such that I could roll and smooth these stones in a matter of minutes, without so much as brushing a hair from my face. But on this day, with the child watching me, I could not go on—my shoulder ached too badly. Oh, how I did not understand this ailment; months ago it had been borne in my elbow, and then shifted into the opposite wrist, and only very recently, the heat had begun to slip into the joints of my fingers.

The girl remained still, her fingers wrapped tightly around her mug. “What’s that bowl of creamy stuff, over there by the fire?”

I turned away from the stones to look at the hearth. “A salve,” I said, “of hog’s lard and purple foxglove.”

“You’re warming it, then, for it’s too hard.”

I paused at her quick understanding. “Yes, that’s right.”

“What is the salve for?”

Heat rose in my face. I could not tell her that the leaves of purple foxglove, when dried and crushed, sucked the heat and blood from the skin, and therefore assisted a great deal in the days after a woman had birthed a child—an experience unknown to girls the age of this one. “It is for a tear in the skin,” I offered, taking a seat.

“Oh, a poisonous salve for a tear in the skin?”

Shaking my head, I said, “No poison in this, child.”

Her little shoulders tensed. “But Mrs. Amwell—my mistress—told me you sell poison.”

“I do, but poison is not all I sell. The women who have been here for deadly remedies have seen the extent of my shelves, and some have whispered of it to their most trusted friends. I dispense all sorts of oils and tinctures and draughts—anything an honorable apothecary might require in her shop.”