Her face was serious now. “What interest do you have in meddling with this business, child? My heart is black, as black as the ash beneath that fire, for reasons you are too young to understand. What has harmed you so, in merely twelve years, that leaves you wanting more of this?” She waved her arms around the room, her gaze falling at last on the pot of soil, with the wolfsbane hidden underneath.

“And have you considered what it might be like to sleep on a cot in a room hardly large enough for one of us, much less two of us? Have you considered that there is not a bit of privacy in here? There is no rest, Eliza—something is always steaming, brewing, stewing, soaking. I wake at all hours of the night to tend the things you see around us. This is no grand house of nighttime quiet and pink papers on the wall. You may be just a servant, but I suspect your quarters are much nicer even than this.” Nella took a breath and placed a gentle hand on mine. “Do not tell me that you dream of working in a place like this, girl. Do you not wish for something more?”

“Oh, yes,” I told her. “I wish to live near the sea. I have seen paintings of Brighton, of castles in the sand. I would like to live there, I think.” I pulled my hand away and ran my fingers over my chin; a small, itchy boil had formed there, hardly larger than the tip of a needle. Out of other ideas, I exhaled, resigned to telling Nella the rest of the story. “Mr. Amwell’s spirit haunts me. I fear that if I remain at the house without Mrs. Amwell, he will harm me more than he has already.”

“Nonsense, child.” Nella vehemently shook her head back and forth.

“I swear it! The house has another spirit, too, of a young girl who was there before me, named Johanna. She died in the room next to mine, and I hear her crying at night.”

Nella’s palms splayed open as though she could not believe my words, like I was mad.

But I went on, resolute. “I very much want to remain in the service of Mrs. Amwell. And I promise, I will return to my post as soon as she has come back to London. I do not mean to inconvenience you. I only thought perhaps you could teach me how to brew something that will remove the spirits from the house, so I mustn’t listen to Johanna’s incessant crying anymore, and so that Mr. Amwell will leave me alone, once and for all. I could learn other things besides, and perhaps help you some while I am here.”