He studied me for a minute. “So can you tell me why my squash isn’t doing well?”
I shrugged. “Maybe? It’d be easier if I had access to a lab. And I’m guessing you don’t have one of those in another closet somewhere.”
I’d expected him to laugh and agree, but, instead, his expression turned thoughtful. “Probably not quite what you mean, but… maybe Dad has something that might act like lab equipment?”
I blinked. “Really?”
Elliot shrugged. “He was into herbalism, homeopathy, that sort of thing. Except,” he continued, glancing up and probably reading the skepticism on my face, “that he did actually know what he was doing. Mamaceqtaw have been using herbal remedies for centuries—are you going to tell me that we’ve been using things that are useless for that long?” An edge of defensiveness had crept into his tone.
“No,” I replied. “A lot of the chemical compounds that we use as medicines are derived from similar compounds found in nature. Willow bark, for instance, is chemically similar to aspirin. It contains salicin, aspirin has acetylsalicylic acid—the salicil tells us that they’re chemically related. So yeah, I’m sure they did have remedies that worked.” I shrugged. “There are also a lot of homeopaths who wouldn’t know willow bark from black locust. Which, by the way, could kill you.”
Elliot blinked. “You know herbalism?”
I felt my neck flush a little. “I… know what can kill people.”
Elliot let out an amused grunt. “Can willow bark kill people?”
“It’s a blood thinner, just like aspirin. So not really by itself, but if you’re taking it or if someone gives you enough of it, you can bleed to death a lot more easily. It’s more common in accidental death than as a murder weapon, though.”
He was staring at me, and I felt the flush creeping higher on my neck.
“What?” I asked him.
“Just…” He shook his head. “I don’t know, actually. I probably shouldn’t be surprised that you know shit like this, given the fact that you were texting me about how many bars of soap you can get out of a corpse.”
The heat had reached my face. “Sorry about that,” I muttered.
“Don’t need to be sorry,” Elliot replied. “It just never occurred to me that you might know about plants.”
“Oh. Yeah. I like plants, actually.” My cheeks were warm behind my beard, although I didn’t think they’d gotten any worse. “I know way too much about poisons.”
“Then you’d love Dad’s poison garden.”
I felt my eyes widen. “He had apoisongarden?”
Elliot nodded. “Yeah. The courtyard. I’m not entirely sure what’s in there or how to care for it, though.”
“Can I go out there?”
Elliot narrowed his hazel eyes at me. “Not until after lunch.”
It took me a second, but then I laughed. “Fair enough. Although generally speaking, you wear gloves when you work with poisonous plants. Accidentally poisoning yourself or breaking out in epic hives isn’t a fun way to garden.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he teased. “I love rolling around in poison ivy.”
I shuddered faintly. Ihateitching. “You have a lot of that?”
He shrugged. “It’s the north woods. Do you not have it in Virginia?”
“Of course we do,” I replied. “I justhateit.”
Elliot snorted. “Ticks and poison ivy. I think you might actually need to stop rolling around in the woods.”
“I don’t roll around,” I muttered.
“You don’t dress appropriately, either,” he retorted.
“How would you know?” I asked him.
