The Apothecary Page 0,59

and I was glad at least that I wasn’t a tiny bird anymore, and prey. The ground was cold, and I started to shiver inside Benjamin’s shirt and jumper.

“You’ll freeze,” he whispered, and he put his arm under my head, and moved his jacket over so I could share it. It was warm under the jacket, and I could smell his boyish smell. It didn’t sound like he was any closer to sleep than I was.

“Benjamin,” I whispered.

“Yes?”

“Will everything be all right?”

“I hope so,” he said, and I could feel the pulse in his arm against my cheek. “I really do.”

CHAPTER 24

The Dark Force

I must have slept, finally, because I dreamed of being on a boat in the vast sea, among seals and walruses that rose up out of the water and spoke Norwegian. For much of the dream I was panicked that I didn’t have the Pharmacopoeia, and when I did have it, its pages were terrifyingly blank.

I woke at dawn to a racket of birds and didn’t know where I was until I saw Benjamin’s face, blinking and frowning close to mine. The early light filtered through the mulberry leaves. I sat up and saw the apothecary and Jin Lo waking up, too. Jin Lo was brushing dirt off her overalls. Neither of them seemed to notice that I had slept under Benjamin’s jacket with him. The apothecary was too distracted, and Jin Lo, I was pretty sure, would never notice such a thing.

“That boy isn’t back,” the apothecary said. “Your friend.”

“He will be,” I promised, though I wasn’t sure.

We emerged cautiously from our little cave of leaves, and there were no police officers waiting to arrest us, no Danby with his sight returned, no Scar. The apothecary led us across the dew-soaked garden to a leafless tree I hadn’t noticed before. His eyes were locked on it as if he were facing a formidable adversary. There wasn’t a single bud on the tree, or even a bit of warm brown colour in the bark. It could have been a sculpture made of stone or concrete: an expanse of smooth, grey, bare branches, reaching up to the sky.

“You can make that bloom?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, but started to methodically unpack his bag.

Jin Lo went to the gardener’s shed and brought back a long metal rod with a T-shaped handle. She walked around the tree, making deep holes in the earth among its gnarled grey roots. The apothecary followed her with a bottle of green powder, tapping the powder down into the holes.

Then he circled the tree a second time, with a bottle of clear liquid, pouring it into the same holes where he had sprinkled the powder. Green foam bubbled up out of the ground, until there was a ring of popping, fizzing bubbles around the roots and the thick trunk.

The apothecary walked around a third time, with a trowel, and covered all of the holes with dirt so that the fizzing and foaming was trapped underground. And then he stood back with us and waited. I remembered a poem we’d read in school: “Weave a circle round him thrice, and close your eyes with holy dread.”

But nothing happened. We watched and waited.

“That’s the jive-o tree?” a voice said behind me, and I turned and saw Pip, holding a paper bag. He’d approached without any of us noticing, and he’d changed out of the rolled-up overalls into his own clothes and shoes.

“You’re back!” I said.

“You think I’d miss the show? Have a popover.”

He held out the bag, and I brushed off my dirty hands and took one. It was hot and soft and smelled delicious, and I realised I was starving. “Where’d you get these?”

“Portuguese lady makes ’em on the King’s Road,” he said, and he took a bite of golden dough.

Benjamin said, “Look!”

I did, and tiny green leaves had started to pop out and unfold on the tree. As they unfurled, they grew, until there were thick, green, waxy leaves on every branch. Then, while the leaves were still unfolding, tiny white flower buds appeared.

“Take this,” Benjamin’s father said, handing him a glass bell. “I don’t know how long the bloom will last.”

The buds grew into tight fist-sized bundles of petals, which then burst open, all over the tree. It was as if the great tree had spontaneously burst into flame, but the fire was made of white flowers as big as my head. The air smelled heady and sweet, like spring.

The apothecary pulled down a