Mo came back with the first aid kit and reached for my hand. I jerked away from her. She couldn’t get the poisonous liquid on her or she’d die, the same way I was about to.

“I need to see it, love,” she said.

“No—no, it’s—Can you hand me some gauze?”

She handed me a few pieces and I pressed them against the cut. I didn’t care about the wound or the pain. The poison was already working. There was no stopping it, no way to reverse it. I couldn’t form the words to make her understand. She didn’t even know what I’d been doing. A rush of guilt swept over me. When I died, she’d blame herself.

The ivy suddenly burst from its clay pot, shattering it with a loud crack. Mo jumped back as the plants doubled their length to reach me, encircling my ankles.

“Hey, Mo,” I managed to mutter. “I—I love you. A lot.”

She sidestepped the tangle of vines at my feet. “You okay, love? It’s only a little blood. I don’t even think it’ll need stitches. Wait.” She touched my cheek. “Are you in shock?”

I shook my head. “Can you get Mom?”

“Uh, sure,” she said, still looking confused. She left and I checked the clock again. Three minutes had gone by. The poison only needed fifteen minutes to kill me. This was my own stupid fault. I’d given into my curiosity instead of being careful the way Mom and Mo had taught me.

Four minutes.

All the plants in my room had turned toward me.

Mom came barreling into the room. “Let me see—Oh, God! Is the finger cut off? Where is it? If we put it in ice, they can reattach it!”

Mo came in behind her. “Thandie, it’s a cut, not an amputation.”

Five minutes.

I stared at my hand. The tingling had stopped and was now confined to the tip of my thumb. I tried to breathe slower so I could take stock of how I felt.

I couldn’t tell if my pulse was faster because of the hemlock or because I was scared. Still no sweating, no seizures, or blurred vision. The scalpel lay on my desk. The blood smeared on it had begun to turn black. That was the poison acting on the cells, breaking them apart. If it was doing that inside my body, I should’ve felt something by now.

Six minutes.

Mom knelt next to me. “Bri, baby, are you okay?” She eyed the tangle of ivy around my ankles.

I held my hand away so that she couldn’t touch it. “I—I think so.” I actually wasn’t sure at all.

“Let’s take a deep breath and calm down,” Mo said. She took Mom by the arm and guided her to my bed. She turned to me. “Briseis, love, I am so sorry.”

“No, it’s my fault,” I said. “It’s okay.”

Nine minutes.

Something was wrong, but not in the way I expected. Nothing was happening.