Page 19 of As Many Souls as Stars
Oswyn glanced at Miriam, crossing himself. ‘Ill omens, crows. My ma says they carry curses.’
Cybil’s expression twitched, then went stoic. ‘The apothecary, then.’
The apothecary was not a stall but a building at the edge of the square, bearing a sign with a crude drawing of a mortar and pestle. Cybil instructed Oswyn to wait outside—her patience with him had clearly grown thin—and as she entered, he leaned against the wall to stare up at the sky, chewing his lip.
Miriam opened her beak again and mimicked the sound of a man’s scream. Oswyn hopped three feet in the air, face going wan, and then he noticed the crow. He crossed himself once more, glowering.
Miriam sensed an opportunity, and she would not allow it to slip away. If Cybil found this man interesting, so be it.
The heavy clouds meant the shadows were thin, but Miriam still found refuge in the darkness cast by the apothecary’s sign, melding into its shadows. She was fortunate to have been so gluttonous the past few days; she had more than enough power to trade. As the sign swung back and forth in the breeze—the shadow swinging with it—Miriam waited for Oswyn’s shadow and hers to make contact. He sighed and shuffled. Just another inch to the left, and she would have it. His soul was a dying star, hardly visible: that was good, because her plan would have been difficult otherwise. This trick required someone suggestible.
Peter Oswyn, still flushed from his interactions with Cybil, took a deep, joyful breath of Ipswich air, and leaned sideways—and the shadows slipped down his throat, wrapping themselves around the light in his chest. He panicked, but the panic was a distant thrum: he was in darkness—hewasthe darkness. When Miriam released him, he would feel as if he were waking from an uncertain and unpleasant dream. For now, he was trapped in a nightmare.
Mine now, Miriam thought, lifting Peter’s hand to inspect it in the light.Come along, puppet. You might prove useful, after all.
7
The apothecary had raised his brow at the amount of mandrake Cybil requested, but the brow had lowered precipitously once her coins hit the counter. As he packaged the root, Cybil stared at the shelves behind him—they were covered in misted glass jars of pickled herbs and bone-coloured powders. The lowest shelf had a cage with a hedgehog in it, poking its tiny blackcurrant nose through the bars. Cybil stooped to observe the creature: it sniffed curiously at her fingers, then gave her a brief nip that stung like a nettle. Cybil smiled at its fury, its wild, dark gaze. It was pleasant to encounter something that was not frightened of her.
The apothecary was broad and tall; his forearms were thickened with hours at the mortar and pestle. There was a sharpness behind his eyes, a cold intelligence that reminded Cybil of her father. As he handed her the package, he told her, ‘Careful with that, now. That witchfinder’s been poking around these parts.’
Cybil bristled. ‘What are you implying?’
‘Only that folk see shadows where there are none, mistress. They look at shops like mine and think of spells instead of medicine. Last week, Master Martingale—that is the witchfinder—asked me for a list of all the women in Ipswich who had bought henbane from me.’
‘And you gave it to him?’
The apothecary spread his hands in surrender. ‘What was I to do? Put myself to the noose instead?’
Cybil swallowed the bile in her throat and put the package in her pocket. There would be no use in argument; she could not truly say she would have done different. ‘How much for the hedgehog?’
He glanced at the cage. ‘That depends. You want the whole thing, or just the quills?’
‘The whole thing,’ she said, in smothered horror. ‘Living, preferably—unless, for some reason, keeping a pet will alert the witchfinder, too?’
Outside, the sun had been obscured by clouds dark and discoloured as a bruise. The change from the morning’s sunshine was so sudden and so stark, it felt portentous; Cybil pulled her cloak tighter around herself as she approached Peter, the hedgehog’s little cage swinging from her hand.
He blinked at her. ‘What is that?’
‘Hm? Oh, it is a hedgehog.’
‘… Is it for eating?’
‘Her name is Aurelia,’ Cybil told him haughtily, ‘and no, she is not foreating. I must return to the Hall. My horse is stabled outside the gates. My thanks, for… for your company.’
‘You wish to leave?’
‘Yes.’
‘I shall accompany you, then.’ He offered her an arm, and she took it hesitantly—there was a new intensity to his expression that she found somewhat unsettling. ‘This way.’
She allowed him to lead her away from the market square, winding through the back alleys to avoid the worst of the crowd.
‘Surely it is lonely,’ Peter said, as they walked. ‘Up there in the Hall, all alone. Is it not?’
‘I have my mother,’ Cybil replied, but that felt like a lie.
‘Still. You have much responsibility, as lady of the manor. Is it not difficult?’
