Before me are the belladonna sprouts. Each one is nearly a foot tall now, delicate and lanky. They sway in unison with the breeze, like a company of dancers.

The sight of them makes me forget everything else: the fading throb in my arm, Weed’s bizarre behavior behind me on the path, Father’s strange, cool indifference—

“My belladonna seeds!” I exclaim. “Look how well they are growing. Weed, come see.”

I kneel down to get a better look at the infant shoots. Truly, it is a miracle, the way a tiny nubbin of a seed can so quickly transform into lush green growth.

“Isn’t it amazing?” I say to Weed, who now stands next to me. He looks ashen and preoccupied. I keep my voice merry and my arm hidden beneath my shawl, so Father will not suspect anything is amiss. “Before the season is over these plants will be nearly as tall as I am.”

Playfully, I tease the little plants with the tip of a stick I find on the ground. “Hello, lovely girls. I wonder if you remember me? Jessamine, who bathed you so tenderly, and cared for you every day before you were born?”

With sudden violence Weed seizes the stick and snaps it in two. He looks at me, as if astonished by his own act. Then he groans and collapses to the ground.

Father and I carry a half-conscious Weed back to the cottage. He feels impossibly heavy; with each step it is as if we are pulling him from the earth.

“Did you see him touch any of the plants?” Father grunts. “Did he taste anything? Smell anything?”

We will be banned forever from the garden now, I think, but for Weed’s sake I tell the truth. “He did, Father, but only to help me. When I fell into that nettle plant, he tore a leaf from something to ease the burning.” I drop my shawl and hold up my arm to show him. The red welts have already faded, and the skin is cool and flat, with only faint pink streaks to show where I was hurt.

“Which plant? Which plant did he touch?”

“I don’t know!” The look on Father’s face is terrifying; for an awful moment I cannot tell if he is upset because Weed is ill, or because he had the nerve to tear a leaf from one of Father’s precious plants—or because Father himself did not know which plant cured the nettle sting.

With Weed slung over his shoulder, Father opens the cottage door with a violent kick and marches straight up the stairs to my bedchamber.

“Can you help him?” I plead.