As soon as the sun lit the room through a crack in the curtains, Mom got up and stood in the shower for half an hour trying to relieve her itchy skin. I was still rash-free. Mo ran out to get breakfast and came back with griddle cakes, fruit, and coffee that we ate in the front living room.
The morning light and delicious food had blunted the unease from the night before. Mom was still on edge, but had put her Taser away, which was a good sign.
“I say we start cleaning at the top and work our way down,” said Mo. “We can use that dumpster on the side of the house. There’s a number on it. I’ll call and see if they can come switch it out when it’s full.”
I preferred a plan that involved napping, Netflix, and maybe ordering a pizza but that would have been too easy. We made our way up to the turret with trash bags and empty boxes we’d salvaged from the first floor. I avoided looking at the painting on the wall. I didn’t want to worry about what was in the letters stashed in that safe.
We filled bag after bag with old newspapers and magazines. I organized empty plant pots into stacks and swept up the dust and mouse droppings. I helped Mo carry out a broken chair then turned my attention to the bookshelves.
I pulled collections of poems and stories by people with names like Euripides, Eumelus, and Pausanias off the shelves. Every single one was worn, their pages dog-eared and marked up with pencil in the margins. I dusted them off and reorganized them on the shelf in alphabetical order.
“I think Circe had a thing for Greek mythology,” I said.
Mom picked up a copy of The Metamorphoses. “I remember reading some of this in college,” she said. “It didn’t really stick. I know the Orpheus myth, though.”
“Seeing Hadestown doesn’t count as knowing the Orpheus myth,” Mo said.
Mom put a hand on her hip. “I paid a hundred dollars apiece for those seats. It counts.”
“Check this out.” Mo pulled a beige drop cloth off what I thought was another stack of boxes, but underneath was a book the size of a poster, sitting on a waist-high pedestal. Mo studied its proportions. “This thing’s gotta weigh fifty pounds.”
I grabbed a rag and dusted off the leather cover where the title had been pressed in crimson. Venenum Hortus.
“Latin?” Mom asked.
“ ‘Venenum’ is poison,” I said in a whisper. My skin turned to gooseflesh under the sleeves of my shirt. A tickle at my ankle drew my attention downward. One of the plant pots wasn’t empty after all. Something I didn’t recognize at first was wrapping itself around my leg, turning from brown to green while turtle shell–shaped leaves with thin white veins crisscrossing their surfaces sprouted by the dozens.
“Peperomia prostrata,” I said.
“There was nothing left of that thing,” Mom said, her voice tight. “Those pots were empty. There was only dust inside. I’ve—I’ve never seen you bring something back that was that dead.”
I tried to think of a time when I’d done something like that, either purposely or by accident, but she was right. I’d never brought back a plant from its dusty, decayed remains. Avoiding her worried gaze, I gently untangled the tendrils from my leg, pushed the pot back against the wall, and turned my attention to the massive book.
“Plants are classified in Latin,” I said. “So I recognize that part. I think the other word is—” I took out my phone and Googled “hortus.” I wanted to be sure. “ ‘Hortus’ means ‘garden.’ It’s ‘poison garden.’ ”
We huddled around the book as Mo pulled open the front cover. The spine cracked like a set of aching knuckles. The first page was a semitransparent piece of paper. Through it, I could make out the outline of a plant. Mo gently uncovered the picture underneath. The details were sharp, the colors vivid, like a photograph. The only clues that it was hand-drawn were the hints of pencil where the artist had painted over their sketch.
“It’s beautiful,” Mom said.
I didn’t need to read the Latin inscription to know what it was. The white parasol-shaped blooms gave it away. It was the same plant I’d grown in Prospect Park. The very same plant that should have killed me. Cicuta douglasii, the water hemlock. I took a deep breath, pushing away the