I cleared my throat. The man stirred with a start. Lifting his head off the pillow, his gaze settled on me. His right eye was swollen shut, but the gash in his lip had been stitched closed. The monitor tracking his heartbeat beeped loudly.

“What do you want?” His voice was gravelly, strained. I took a step closer. He squinted his bloodshot left eye. “Oh, it’s you.”

“You don’t know me,” I said. “You called me Selene before, but I’m not her.”

His face, swollen and bruised as it was, softened. “I’m sorry. You look so much like her. It’s uncanny.”

“Did you know her?”

He nodded. “And her sister, Circe. They’re gone now. They’re all gone.” His eye misted over. “I apologize for scaring you. I was confused. I got turned around out there.”

“About that,” I said. “How did you get to the gate? It’s on private property, and it’s—”

He raised his left eyebrow, a simple gesture that seemed to cause him a disproportionate amount of pain.

“It’s hard to get out there,” I said.

He eyed me carefully. “I know how difficult it is.” He readjusted himself in the bed, wincing with every movement. “That’s why I brought the machete. I had to chop my way through, and still . . .” He held up his hands in front of him. The skin had peeled off several fingers, and the nails had turned black. He leaned back on the pillow and gave a dry, rasping laugh. “I should’ve known better. There’s a reason nobody can get out there. I thought there were booby traps, maybe some kind of elaborate security system. I knew it would be overgrown. I had no clue the damned forest was going to come alive and try to kill me.”

If there had been a plant nearby, it would have found me, drawn in by my racing heart.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t go back out there. I barely survived as it is. No sense testing my luck.”

“Why were you out there in the first place?”

“The house was dark for years. After Selene died, Circe shut down the shop.”

“The apothecary?” I asked.

The monitor beeped and a cuff on his arm tightened. “Natural medicines. Remedies. Other things too, but I’m not the right person to ask about that.” He glanced out the window.

The natural medicine part made sense, but what other things?

He turned onto his side and the sheet slipped off his bare foot. It was covered in deep, painful-looking sores. He quickly readjusted the sheet. “That’s what I need the herb for. Diabetes damages the blood vessels, makes it harder for wounds to heal. I’ve tried every ointment and cream my doc recommends but nothing works like comfrey. But it has to be the comfrey Circe and Selene were growing. It’s just better. I knew they were growing the herbs somewhere on the property, so I went to find out where. I’ve been without it for so long, going on ten years. I was desperate. I didn’t know you’d moved in. I saw you go into the forest and I thought—I thought you were Selene. Back from the dead to help me out.”