Suddenly embarrassed, I said, “No, but I did a few days ago. It hurt very much—my belly felt swollen and cramped.”

“And it was the first time?”

I nodded. “It happened right after Mr. Amwell’s death. I feared he did it to me—”

Nella raised her hand and smiled softly at me. “A mere coincidence, child. You are blessed, and more so than me. I only wish you’d told me sooner. I could have mixed something up to ease the cramping altogether.”

I wished I’d told her sooner, too. For the first time since the death of Mr. Amwell, I allowed myself to consider the possibility that the bleeding might not have been his wicked spirit taking hold of me. Could it have been simply the monthly bleeding of which Nella just spoke? A passage into maturity? I had never thought of myself as a woman—only a child, a girl.

I wished to think on it longer, but there was no time. We should have left long ago.

Nella’s register was still open on the table, and I glanced down at it. She had opened it to the year 1770, more than twenty years ago. The page was badly damaged; a dark red stain, like wine, smeared across the side.

Why had Nella returned to this old entry? Perhaps she meant to turn back the pages of her life—to remember the early days, before it all began. When this page was written, Nella’s heart was not yet scarred. Her joints were not yet swollen and stiff. Motherhood, and her own mother, had not yet been taken from her. Perhaps she’d revisited the entry because she meant to remember these things: the honorable work she once did, the sort of apothecary she could have been, the virtuous woman her mother wanted her to be.

All of it, thrown aside in the bitter wake of Frederick’s betrayal.

Nella caught me looking, then closed the book with a loud snap and led us to the door to go our separate ways.

26

Caroline

Present day, Wednesday

In a dingy, windowless room on the third floor of St. Bartholomew’s hospital, I sat across from two male police officers, my notebook between us. A nauseating odor permeated the airless room—antiseptic and floor cleaner—while a fluorescent light buzzed and flickered above us.

The lead officer spun my notebook to face him, tapping his finger on the incriminating words: Quantities of non-poisons needed to kill. I braced myself, fearing what else he might see on the page of my hastily jotted notes. The word arsenic was asterisked, for God’s sake.