“Because of you, Jessamine. Because you are only a child. Until you are older, and have the wisdom to know what you may touch and taste and what you may not, I keep the most powerful plants behind the locked gate, where they cannot harm you.”

“You don’t have to lock the ‘pothecary garden, Father.” I pouted like the baby I was at the time. “If you tell me not to go in I surely will not.”

“If you surely will not,” he said with a smile, “then the existence of the lock should not trouble you in the slightest.”

I have never won an argument with Father, but it is not for lack of trying.

I add more coal to the fire, and light a fresh candle to sew by. It is midafternoon, but the sky is thickly blanketed with clouds. The day feels dim as dusk.

Father must be working hard, wherever he is. I hope it is not a child who is ill. Not that I am squeamish about sick people. In fact, I prefer to go with Father when he pays his visits. I like to watch how men thrash about as they battle against terrible fevers, or how women moan and grunt as they labor to bring their babes forth, while Father mixes just the right medicines to help ease their pains.

But there is so much work to do at the cottage, especially with spring coming. Now that I am old enough to mind the house and care for the gardens myself, Father usually insists that I stay home.

So here I remain, with only my sewing basket and the wet seed babies of my lovely lady for company. A damp, shaded spot near the stone wall suits the belladonna plant best. Or so Father tells me. I have never seen it growing there myself, for I am still not permitted to enter the apothecary garden. It is too dangerous; I am too young, I do not know enough—Father is stubborn as stone and will not change his mind. Yet I want to learn. For now I content myself with leafing through Father’s books and examining the specimens he brings home.

That is how I came to know the belladonna berries. Every autumn Father collects the lush, ink black fruits and preserves them in a glass jar, which he keeps on a high shelf in his study. In late winter he removes a few and delicately slits them open to harvest the seed.

This is the first year he has entrusted the seeds to me to prepare for planting. “Remember, Jessamine,” Father warned, “you will be raising a litter of assassins.”