A Fierce and Subtle Poison - Samantha Mabry Page 0,35

faltered, rolling the leaf between her fingers with such force that it tore and was smashed into fibers and green pulp.

“One of the stories about this house is that there was a baby born here full of poison,” I said. “That was you.”

Isabel wiped the crushed remainders of the leaf on her jeans. “That was me. The poison builds up. When I’m around my plants, I can transfer some of it to them. If I’m not around them, the poison just keeps building up and up and I get sick. Sicker.”

“That’s why you stay here.”

“That’s why I stay here,” Isabel echoed. “When I was little, I could go for days without having to be near the plants. I would go with my dad to his labs out near Rincón. You recognized my painting the other day. But now I have to be around the plants almost constantly. I tuck leaves into my sheets when I sleep. I wear them between my skin and clothes, but it doesn’t do much good. I don’t know what the problem is.” She paused. “It’s been getting worse since the start of summer.”

I asked a question I realized was stupid the second it passed my lips: “Can’t your dad do anything?”

“He’s trying, Lucas.” Isabel collected up her mass of wet hair and whipped it over one shoulder. “Despite your stories, he’s not evil. He’s just . . . protective. He doesn’t want to lose me like he lost my mother.”

From the corner of the room, a grandfather clock readied itself to usher in a new hour. I was able to hear the subtle ticks and whirs of gears. I glanced up at the ceiling as the chimes began to toll and saw that individual drops were hitting the glass as opposed to sheet after sheet of water.

I would have to leave soon. I didn’t want to.

“What’s it called?” I asked, looking back down to Isabel. She had her eyes fixed on the hem of her jeans, where she’d started to pluck violently at a loose thread.

“What’s what called?” she muttered.

“Your illness?”

Isabel smirked. “I’m quite sure it doesn’t have a name.”

As Isabel continued pulling at the thread, I moved forward, pushing the pot containing the columbine aside, narrowing the space between us. Despite everything I’d seen and heard and experienced over the last two days, I had to sit on my hands to keep them from twitching. They had minds of their own. They didn’t want to touch the columbine anymore. They wanted to touch Isabel. The fever that toppled me last night had been transformed by memory into nothing but a minor inconvenience, nothing worse than the outcome of a typical night out drinking.

The questions I’d had, the ones collected over the years about witches and curses, I didn’t want to ask anymore of those. New questions had formed—about Isabel. About her life, if you could call it that. About her paintings. About what it was like to hide yourself away and watch and listen. Was it lonely or was it wonderful? Could it be both?

“What would happen if I touched you again?”

Isabel’s head snapped up; she again folded her arms across her chest, tighter this time. “Was I unclear about that?”

“Your dad’s been around you his whole life—and lived to tell the tale.”

“Sometimes by the skin of his teeth. If he had to pick me up when I fell, he’d get rashes on his hands. If I got sick and he had to be near me for a long time, he’d also get sick—sometimes for days.”

“Did you ever think that he might die?”

“Several times.” Isabel stood abruptly and bolted past me. A drop of water fell from the tips of her hair onto my hand. “It didn’t take much time for him to figure out it’s best to stay away from me, and I figured out how to take care of myself. Speaking of that,” she continued, flinging open the front door, “you should probably leave. Now that the storm is passing, my dad might be back soon. And, like I said, it’s not good for you to be around me very long.”

I started to protest, but Isabel had disappeared into the soggy, leaf-strewn courtyard.

Apparently, both of the Fords were terrible at goodbyes.

I stood and, shaking the pins from my legs, followed Isabel into the courtyard. I hopscotched fallen branches, palm fronds, and even a single brown shutter that had been torn from some unfortunate house. It was still lightly raining, but since I