Dangerous Remedy

by Kat Dunn

  Wearing his own thick cloak, Al joined her, leaning against the stern. He was dressed simply too, as unassuming as he would allow. They’d walked through every daylight hour to reach the coast, then stopped at a market town to buy a change of clothes and pick up information about any ships sailing out of port. The war made it tricky but not impossible, with the combination of Al’s smooth talking and Camille’s well-placed threats, to find a ship that would take them.

  ‘Come on.’ Al touched her shoulder gently. ‘Let’s take a turn.’

  He offered his arm, and together they made a slow damp circuit of the deck of the sloop.

  Few other passengers were visible; it wasn’t a pleasure cruiser but a trading vessel that dropped its colours as soon as it was out of sight of the coast. Some of the sailors didn’t like the idea of a woman on board, superstitious as they were. Al had to laugh it off on her behalf, while giving her a prod to warn her to drop her snarl.

  As they passed the prow, Camille tugged out of his grasp and went to stand with her face in the wind. The Channel spread out before her, the North Sea some way to the right and the Atlantic to the left. But they were going straight ahead. Across the Channel to England, as she had countless times as a girl when her family visited James’s.

  ‘When I saw my mother die,’ she said into the wind, ‘they held her face up to the crowd. They do that with every head, I know, but it felt like a hunter brandishing some strange trophy.’

  Al settled in beside her, his forearms on the rail.

  ‘She always had lovely hair,’ she continued. ‘It’s a silly thing to remember, and she was far more interested in other things, like politics and poetry and debating. But she was always complimented her on her lovely hair, as if it was the most important thing about her. She’d tell everyone that it was a stupid compliment, because she’d never done anything to earn her hair. It just grew out of her head. It didn’t take skill or patience or talent or determination. It was hair. She’d far rather be complimented on her quick mind or her clever words or her kind heart. But when they held up her head still dripping with blood, they’d got it in her hair. And all I could think of was how they’d spoiled her lovely hair. At the last moment of her life, when everything else she’d ever fought for had been taken away, they took that too.’

  From her pocket, she pulled the cameo locket. Her parents’ faces looked back at her. The coil of her mother’s hair fluttered in the breeze. She took it out, winding it around her finger. Then she held her hand over the side of the ship and let the strands slowly fan into the wind, before they were snatched away entirely.

  Al pulled out a bag of wrinkly hazelnuts from his pocket and offered her one. ‘My mother was ... nothing like yours, to put it mildly. But they reduced her to nothing too. All her poise and wit and fine clothes and skill at the pianoforte and ability to negotiate any social situation … it was gone. There were only her eyes looking out at me, as if she could still see me.’

  Camille shuddered.

  Al let a long silence billow out in the wind before he spoke again. ‘I wonder if they can still see us.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I read something once in one of Ada’s journals about how long you can stay alive without air, without your blood pumping. It’s not very long, of course, but I wonder if it would be long enough for them to see the crowd. To know they were dead.’

  Camille didn’t reply, but wrapped her cloak closely around her so it covered her throat. Sea spray stung her eyes and painted salt along her lips.

  Pressing her fingers into her eyes, she tried to shut away thoughts of Ada and Guil left behind. Things were going to get messy, and she wouldn’t be there. But Ada knew what she was doing. Ada was smart and brave and cunning. She trusted her.

  Soon enough her worry faded behind the wave of anger that had been with her all the way from Paris. The threat of the English gaining a weapon like Olympe was real enough, but what sent her marching forth was the memory of James’s handsome, smug face smirking at her from the other end of her pistol. Whatever unforgivable things her father had done, that was her pistol now. The one she’d used to protect her battalion – her family.

  This wasn’t over until she said it was. James didn’t get to win.

  Behind her, France disappeared into the haze and the tricolore flags were taken down from the mast.

  There was no fate. No destiny.

  Before them lay open water, and in the dim distance, a new coast began to unfurl.

  James had made his choice.

  Now she was making hers.

  Acknowledgements

  Many people I love are dead.

  Which, if anything, is why I write. Because after all the crying is done, they are dead and I am alive so I have to do something with it.

  But moving on doesn’t mean forgetting. The people we lose stay with us, in our minds and our memories and the quirks of thought they gifted to us.

  To Rosie, who taught me theatrics; Nana, who taught me a steel will; Bumpas, who taught me kindness; Dawn, who taught me generosity. And Mum – I don’t know whether you’ll be with us when these words are printed, but thank you for the good bits. Let’s forget about the bad bits.

  Thanks to the family I do have around – Tim, Sas, Coco, Jack, Lottie, Kai, Brian, Rynagh. To my dad – you take music and I’ll take literature and together we can sew up the creative industries, okay?

  And to my found family: Kiran, my practically-sister, our friendship is so old it’s a voting, driving adult – we survived, against the odds. Chelsey, my ever-safe space. Kirstin, for picking up the pieces. Harry, for suffering with me. Allison, even though you abandoned me for LA. Jane and Tasha, thank you for letting me mooch off you for over a decade now. Martin, Paul and Yasuko, who’ve been there from the start. And the rest of you lot, Constance, Abigail, Marianna, Jenny, Myra – thank you.

  Luckily writing has brought me a whole bunch of new people to love along with the ones who survived this far with me, so I get to make these thanks go on for a few lines more.

  First off, a whopping big thank you to my agent, Hellie Ogden, and everyone at Janklow & Nesbit who got behind this book and gave me a chance to inflict it on other people too.

  Second off, thank you to the team at Zephyr and Head of Zeus. To my editor, Fiona Kennedy, who looked into my brain and saw how it could be organised more sensibly and knew what I was trying to do before I did. To Jade Gwilliam for suffering me whatsapping garbage-brain thoughts at weird times, and being as enthusiastic about shoving Dangerous Remedy into people’s hands as I am. Thank you also to Lauren, Jenni, Vicki, Dan, Topsy, Clémence and Jessie.

  Thank you to Laura Brett whose artwork is charmingly creepy, and means I’ve got the best cover of 2020, hands down.

  Writing books is a desperately lonely, extreme endurance sport, and I wouldn’t have made it through intact without knowing as many wonderful, talented, generous authors, writers, publishing and books people as I do. You understand all the weird stuff I want to say without me having to explain it, and your support for Dangerous Remedy has made me cry real tears from my eyes.

  The Alchemists – Jess Rule, Jess Rigby, Natasha Harding, Kesia Lupo (thank you for letting me endlessly panic at you) and Maddy Beresford (thank you for being in the dark side of my brain with me, I can’t wait to see what we do together).

  My delightful D&D disaster pals – Tash Suri, Daphne Lao Tonge, Kate Harrison (thanks for the Sheffield safe house) and Carly Suri.

  My dear, strange writing friends, I’m sorry you have to know me but it’s just too late for you now. Chloe Seager, Yasmin Rahman, Sophie Cameron, Peta Freestone, Bex Hogan, Danielle Jawando, Catherine Johnson, Leena Normington, you are all mine now. Worse luck.

  And all you fantastic people I’ve met and loved since letting myself pursue this old publishing thing – Lizzie Huxley-Jones, Charlie Morris, Aisha Bushby, Ciannon Smart, Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, Helen Corcoran, Ciara Smyth, Mel Salisbury, David Owen, Darr
en Stobbart, Laura Stevens, Kate Dylan, Sarah Corrigan, Jim Dean, Stevie Finnegan – thank you all for more than you’ll ever know.

  And thank you to you, dear reader. Thank you for taking a chance on this book. Thank you to everyone who has supported Dangerous Remedy, shouted about it online or written reviews. You make this whole thing worthwhile.

  And a final shout out to my therapist. There is zero way I could have written a damn thing without 5+ years of you sorting my brain out.

  It took me over a decade to get out of a hole and let myself write. If you are still in the hole I am here to tell you that is okay. You are not written off yet. There is no deadline for getting help or doing the thing you really want to do with your life. How you feel is not fate, you are not destined to always be unhappy. That’s your brain lying to you. What you deserve is empathy, kindness and acceptance. What happened to you cannot be changed – but the future is not fixed.

  For better or worse, the future is unknown. And that’s the best we can hope for.

  Kat Dunn,

  London, March 2020

  About the Author

  KAT DUNN grew up in London, her current home; and has also lived in Japan, Australia and France. Dangerous Remedy is her debut novel, the first of three books set in 18th century France.

  About Zephyr

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