“Yes, I’m taking it,” I say flatly. “I am aware of the consequences if I don’t.”
“Well, I know that,” she says, rummaging through the vials on the shelf. “I just know that you can sometimes be a little bit absentminded, is all.”
“Not about this.” It sickens me—the idea that one day I might forget.
Charlie examines a row of potions and vials behind us, and I bite my lip, the carelessness with which she plucks them from the shelf threatening to make me break out in hives. It seems that every time she places a vial back on the shelf, there’s the tink of crystal bottles colliding.
“And you’ve had your bleeding every month, right?” she asks, very much not in a whisper.
I frown. “No. But that’s not all that strange. I haven’t bled since Peter called in his bargain in Neverland.”
What I don’t say is, since John died.
Charlie crinkles her nose. “Really? I mean, I suppose I’m not surprised that you lost it in Neverland, with all the grief and suffering you endured, as well as the not eating.”
She looks down at my body, which from the outside appears back to normal.
“Yes, well,” I say. “I don’t think it was just that.”
“You think the faerie dust had something to do with it?” she says.
I nod. “I was on it for so long, so consistently. There’s no telling what it did to my body or how long it will take for me to recover.”
“You were off of it for almost ten months before we found you, right?” asks Charlie.
I nod. “You’d think it would have returned after I came off of it. Or at least once I started eating more again. But nothing. That’s part of the reason I felt I could make the bargain with the Sister. Whatever Peter did to me in Neverland by dosing me with that stuff…”
My heart sinks a smidge. It’s a stupid thing to feel disappointed about. Pregnancy is exactly what Nolan and I are trying to prevent. Still, the idea that Peter might have taken away even the physical possibility of conceiving a child causes a sting to swell up within me.
Charlie glances at me with sad eyes, biting her lip. “You’ve been through too much. More than one person should have to go through in an entire lifetime.”
She reaches out her hand and touches mine.
When the man behind the apothecary desk calls us back up to the front and hands us the vial, I frown. It’s clear, made of crystal like the other vials in the shop—but inside is a faint green liquid.
“This isn’t right,” I say, to which the apothecary scoffs at me.
“Are you an expert?” he asks. “If you wish to question my practice, go brew your own.”
“No,” I say. “I’m sorry. That was silly of me. There must be multiple potions that all serve the same purpose.”
“True,” says the apothecary. “But none as effective as this one.”
I frown, looking at Charlie, who speaks up for me this time. “That’s not what we’ve heard.”
“Forgive us, we don’t mean to insult,” I say. “It’s just that the last two apothecaries that we visited gave us a different mixture. One that was supposed to be the most effective.”
The man crosses his arms.
“Come now,” says Charlie. “It’s fair for a customer to validate what they’re getting.”
“Yes, well, perhaps you should have validated what the other two apothecaries gave you. And made sure that they were actually apothecaries, and not simply peddlers.”
“We received the exact same mixture from two separate apothecaries in two separate cities,” says Charlie. “You’d think that would be enough validation. Unless, perhaps, there’s a modern brew you don’t know about.”
The apothecary is fuming, but his ears perk in curiosity. At his heart, he’s a chemist, and no amount of pride can stop that sort from coveting knowledge they believe someone else might possess.
The man sighs, defeated. “If you have any left of the other potion, I’d be happy to look at it for you. See if I can recreate it.”
