Page 101 of House of Roots and Ruin
“Why…why would anyone drink that?”
“It’s said that these states, these trances, help to open minds. The tea can thin the veil between worlds. It lets you see beyond the here and now.”
“What do you mean? What worlds?” I flashed back to the memory of the woman with the black tears. Of my terribly, terribly dead sisters. Gerard had said something similar after my encounter with the laurel tree in the poison garden. “The afterlife? People see the afterlife?”
She offered me a weak smile. “Or…the Sanctum. Some use this to speak to the gods…. It also can make you see things,” Constance added meaningfully. “Things here, that others can’t.”
“Things like…like Alexander walking through corridors,” I guessed.
She nodded.
A hallucination.
The boy I’d seen had been nothing but a hallucination.
It had felt so real.
“How long do its effects last? I’ve been drinking it for weeks. Would it…would it still be in me tonight?” I squirmed, imagining the toxic tea slithering through my bloodstream, a jeweled snake with poison dripping from its fangs.
Constance peered at the canister as if the answer might be printed upon its metal sides. I noticed she would not touch it. “I don’t know. I think it depends on how much you drink, on the potency of the brew.”
“Why would Gerard give me this?”
Her gaze listed away, carefully avoiding me. “Maybe he wanted to see what you would see…”
There was a mistake, a misunderstanding somewhere. Perhaps someone else had put the poppies in and Gerard hadn’t realized it. PerhapsIhad grabbed the wrong tin. Gerard was capable of many things but he would never willingly hurt me.
Would he?
A scream sliced through the air, sharp in pitch, pounding my head and scraping my eardrums raw. I flinched.
Constance turned to the whistling kettle. So quick was she tosilence it, she forgot to grab a cloth. I cried out a warning as her fingers wrapped around the hot handle.
“Let me,” I said, hastily pushing her back as I wrapped a towel round the metal. I moved the whistling pot to the back burner. Its cry died away. I cringed before looking toward Constance, fearing the worst.
But she seemed fine.
She stood at attention, watching me with wide eyes.
Her hands remained loose at her sides.
“You should run cold water over that,” I said, gesturing.
She remained still.
Had she gone into shock?
“Constance?” I prompted.
When I stepped forward, gently tugging her toward the sink, I saw her fingers were unharmed. I flipped her hands over, certain I’d somehow missed seeing the burns, but there was nothing, just pink, unmarred skin.
“Could you let go of me, please?” Her request was strained, taut.
“What?” I ran my fingers over hers, unable to understand what I was seeing.
“It’s harder to do this when you’re touching me.”
A strange dread prickled at the back of my neck. I could feel it work its way lower, skittering down my vertebrae like a long-legged spider, testing a strand of silk.
