Edna’s hands trembled slightly as she lifted the latch on the door to her cabin. There was no lock. There had never been a need for one. Edna entered and hung her purse and jacket on the peg row by the front door. She desperately needed a cup of chamomile tea.
Oh, she knew which mushrooms to use. She could kill the doctor dead, dead, dead and, if she was careful, no one would connect the death to her.
Edna crossed her narrow living room, navigating carefully around the edge of the rug. At her age, she didn’t need a fall.
She knew where to collect the Death Angel mushroom. There was a disturbed site behind the school bus barn that produced Amanitas. Even if the species she needed happened to be growing in a mixture of other fungi, as mushrooms often do, the Death Angel would stand out to her. She would know, instantly, when she had found any specimen of the Death Angels group. Eighty years of mushroom hunting was good for something. She knew her fungi.
Edna made it to her kitchen and rested her hands on the deep enamel sink. She remembered the day her husband had installed it. There was a chip near the drain hole. The geraniums on the windowsill needed watering. Edna blinked back tears. She had bigger challenges now. Her hands continued to tremble as she filled the teakettle.
She knew a Death Angel signaled its presence with a bright white stem erupting from an egg-shaped sac. Then there was the white ring on the stalk, the white spores, the unattached white gills, and the elegant profile that all said Amanita phalloides just as clearly as a nametag.
She would have preferred the prettier Amanita ocreata, with its brighter cap, but that was a spring Death Angel. She was going to have to make do with the fall alternative.
As the flames of the propane burner licked the bottom of the teakettle, Edna’s nerves steadied. She should think this through.
Amatoxins were not affected by heat. Cooked or raw, they poisoned. Surely a casserole would be a better vector than a salad. Who gave a gift salad?
Edna’s mind skittered through the details. It would take several hours for the mushrooms in the dish to begin their poisoning of Dr. Band. The vomiting and diarrhea might not be connected with her offering. A day of intestinal agony might be attributed to a passing virus. She could hope. That weasel of a woman deserved all the agony the planet could deliver.
There would be a rebound day. Her victim would feel much better. It would be on the third or fourth day when the kidneys and liver began to fail.
Edna lifted the squealing kettle off the fire and poured the boiling water over a teabag. She made her mind take a step back from thoughts of murder.
She trusted Dr. Patel. He was a sweet man. None of this was his fault. She had made the appointment with him, trusting that her odd condition would be discretely discussed. And, no, she hadn’t been naïve. It was time to tell someone about her changing body.
She had not known there was a visiting doctor at the clinic, an intense, scary woman with a tiny body and ferocious eyes. Dr. Band was a witch of the worst possible sort.
Edna grimaced, a sour taste in her mouth despite sipping the mild tea.
“These days it is ‘witch’ with a B,” she muttered.
Dr. Band was trouble.
As she sipped her tea, Edna considered her options. She could get a dog. A large dog with large teeth. And a No Trespassing sign. Her daughter would think her aging poorly, with the fears of old age sprouting like mushrooms after fall rains.
Edna’s mind veered back to murder. Weasels sometimes had to be killed to protect a flock. No matter what, she should protect her daughter and granddaughter.
What she had, they might have next.
Feathers. An old woman should be sprouting chin hairs, not feathers. And a feather had emerged on her sternum a month ago and now that odd emergence was adding little friends. Dr. Patel had been kind and soothing. Dr. Band had been . . . fascinated.
Edna had seen the rectangle of a smartphone in the pocket of Dr. Band’s white coat. When Dr. Band’s hand went snaking into that pocket, Edna had leapt off the examination table and she had fled the clinic. There would be no photographs of her chest. Not if she could help it.
Edna picked up a frame from a kitchen shelf and studied the picture of herself as a bride. Marrying a cousin had not seemed so bad as they had no plans of children. She had been a fifty-year-old bride, for heaven’s sake.
“Well, ‘oops’, as they say.” Edna replaced her bridal picture on the shelf and took down a framed photo of Lena. Edna hugged the picture frame to her sagging chest. Her daughter Lena was so much more than they could have ever hoped for. More marvelous, more flawed and in so much danger from the modern world. Thank goodness Lena’s husband was such a good man. And their daughter, Piper, had the family cunning to go with the family oddities.
Edna kissed the glass of the picture frame, steering her lips to the glowing halo of bright hair surrounding her daughter’s perfect oval face. Edna’s stomach swooped down with a wave of worry, then stabilized as the chamomile did its magic.
Edna’s jangled thoughts began to settle. There was a better way.
She would protect Lena. She would protect her granddaughter. She would forge a back-up plan in case she needed a speedy exit for Dr. Band. Forget the mushrooms that had sustained and enchanted her all these many years. She needed to get out of the cabin and into the woods. She would collect some water hemlock.
Wabi-Sabi – an imperfect, rustic beauty
I work hard on my stories, but I’m constantly aware of short-comings. Too much lecturing, repeated phrases, and confusing plot lines are just a few of my tripping points. The best I can hope for is a flawed beauty as my imperfect efforts meet up with the astonishing ecology of the Pacific Northwest.
The Tuesday Morning Rebel Writers saved my sanity during the many months of the Covid-19 pandemic. Thank you to Connie Jasperson, Lee French, Melissa Carpenter and Johanna Flynn.
I am inspired and educated by Connie’s Life in the Realm of Fantasy blog postings. She delivers a scrumptious smorgasbord of story-telling, book reviews and fine art, well-seasoned with her insights on grammar and punctuation. I don’t know what I’ll learn when I open her column, but I always learn something. Connie is also an accomplished map maker. She created the map of Dylan’s new neighborhood, a blessing as I rushed to finish this book.
Stephanie Claire came to the rescue when I needed an editor’s eyes. Thank you, thank you for such a gracious and special gift. Not everyone can provide both an eagle’s eye for error and a consistently kind delivery of corrections needed.
I’m also deeply grateful to our neighbors. Sally and Gregg Bennett are perennial supporters of all things good, including mushrooming and social kindnesses. Steve King always has a good book or movie to recommend and knows much of photography.
Olympia writers Judy Kiehart, Sheila Rodriquez and Diana Vincent Reale have been insightful assessors. Thank you, so very much, for your wise comments.
The on-line lectures of Eric Luttrell of Texas A&M at Corpus Christie definitely helped me understand why The Canterbury Tales were important to the development of modern English. I appreciate the clarity and charm of Luttrell’s presentations.
I’m grateful to Duncan Sheffels because working with him is a joy. I always know the results will be awesome. Thank you, Duncan!
Last in mention, but first in my heart, are my husband and sons. I’d be lost without you.
The Slime Mold Murder Page 25