“Right.” I took the lid off the jar. The species was Symphytum officinale. “This kind of comfrey is called common comfrey. It’s good, but the Russian strain, Symphytum uplandicum, would be better for Alec’s ulcers. The alkaloid content is higher in that strain.”

I raised my head to look at Marie. Her eyebrow arched, her mouth a half smile. I quickly scooped the dried comfrey leaves onto the scale, measured out eight ounces, and then dumped them into a paper bag. In the drawer to my right, I found a sheet of small black stickers and used one to seal the bag. I handed it to Marie and she pushed a twenty-dollar bill across the counter.

“I can’t take that,” I said.

“Why? It’s what I paid Circe.”

“When?” I asked. “Everybody keeps telling me this place has been closed for a long time.”

“A while ago.” She pushed the money closer to me. “You got bills to pay, right? I really hope you reopen the apothecary. This place is more important to people than you can imagine.”

She’d sidestepped my question about when she’d paid Circe like I hadn’t even asked it. Something lingered in her words, some other meaning. This place.

Marie leaned forward, rolling the beads of her necklace between her fingers. Her nails were painted fire-engine red, and a moss-colored agate in the shape of a skull adorned her middle finger. “This has been passed down through my family for generations. You see the beads? Do you know what they’re made from?”

I leaned in to take a closer look at the necklace. She gently bit her bottom lip and sighed. The warmth of her breath and the closeness of her face to mine lit a fire in me. I blinked away the thoughts and I tried to refocus on the necklace.

What appeared to be wooden beads were, in fact, black and red seeds, dried and drilled straight through the middle.

“They’re Abrus precatorious,” I said. “Rosary peas.”

She strummed her fingers on the counter. “Harmless in this form—”

“Deadly to cultivate.”

“Exactly.”

Circe had known, or at least suspected, that I was immune, and I began to wonder if she had an even deeper understanding of this mysterious gift than I thought.

“Circe replaced them for me over the years,” Marie said. “See these ones?” She touched two cracked and flaking seeds near the clasp. “Maybe you can fix them for me now that she’s gone.”

The jar labeled Abrus Precatorious was empty, but she probably knew that. She wasn’t asking me to climb the ladder—she wanted me to grow them for her.

“I’ll pay you a hundred dollars a seed,” Marie said.

The door of the apothecary bounced open. Mom and Mo fell headfirst into the room. Mo practically did a full barrel roll, then jumped up and stood at the doorway.