This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
PRELUDE TO POISON
First edition. January 1, 2020.
Copyright © 2020 Morgan W. Silver.
ISBN: 978-9083038827
Written by Morgan W. Silver.
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
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About the Author
I dedicate this book to all the oddballs out there.
You know who you are. Always be proud of your inner Pandora.
Chapter 1
The lifeless body of Marlene Green was draped across the carpet as if she were sleeping. Only the pool of blood that surrounded her head like a halo and the lifeless expression in her open eyes indicated otherwise. She was known for her looks, but now that she was nothing but an empty shell, the mere residue of a person, her beauty seemed to be a cruel joke, like a broken piece of jewellery.
Detective Black stared at the body, wondering what she’d been like when she still had a pulse, when she was breathing, her heart beating in her small-framed chest. Had she been a morning person? Had she loved animals or been afraid of the dark?
I STOPPED WRITING AND stared at the page before hitting the delete button for the seventh time. In the last two hours I had rewritten the opening paragraph of my latest novel six times, and at this rate I’d be working on it until the sun imploded. Which would be a welcome distraction.
“Why are you doubting yourself, dear Maggie?” Detective Black asked from behind me. He moved past my table in the local pub and sat across from me. It wasn’t busy at eleven o’clock in the morning, and I sat all the way in the back. On the rare occasions that my writing drove me mad in my own office, I sought refuge in The Rose where I could be driven mad in public.
I bit my lip and stared at Detective Black, unsure of how to answer him, when Callum popped out from behind the bar with a fresh pot of tea. He was dressed way too stylishly for his job as a bartender, in his blazer and bow tie. But he was only doing this kind of work so that he could pay for acting classes.
“Talking to yourself, Mags?” he asked as he poured me a hot cup of tea before putting the pot down. There was barely any room for it since I had littered the table with my laptop, several notebooks, and too many pens and post-its.
“Just my characters,” I said, and glanced at the seat across from me, which was empty now.
“Seeing as how you barely started, will you please put me in your novel?” Callum asked with a hint of excitement in his voice.
“Why would you want that? All new characters are either suspects or murder victims.” He wasn’t the only one who had asked me this, but I always held my ground because otherwise I’d soon be writing about my entire village.
“I’m trying to impress my new beau,” he said. “He reads a lot. He wears glasses and even has a bookcase.”
“Amazing,” I managed to say without rolling my eyes. Callum didn’t read anything other than menus and his text messages. It was wise not to remind him of the fact that most people owned bookcases, and even wiser not to mention the four that I had.
“Right? And look, I can make an excellent corpse.” He flopped down to the floor and remained motionless, staring at the ceiling.
“Okay, yes, very good.” He really was good at not blinking, I had to hand him that.
He remained motionless and showed no signs of getting up.
I laughed. “You can get up now. You look too nice to lie on the floor.”
“So will you put me in your novel?” he asked as he bounced to his feet again.
“No. And what happened to your previous boyfriend who owned the tattoo parlour?”
He made a face. “He owned a tattoo parlour.”
“Right.” Despite his whimsical interests, I couldn’t help but admire how easily he found these boyfriends, especially since he always joked he was the only gay in the village. Whatever dark forces he was using, I wanted in. I mean, I was completely willing to ritually sacrifice a pen or two. “Now that you have a boyfriend who is into reading, can I tempt you to enter my bookshop and actually purchase a book?” I wiggled my eyebrows.
He laughed. “How cute you are.” Then he turned and walked away.
I grumbled something and attempted to write one more hour before returning to The Wicked Bookworm to put my stuff away. I wanted to visit Beth and didn’t want to be too late. Especially since I had something else planned for later today.
When I arrived at my shop, it was busy. No, Saturdays were busy. This was mayhem.
I checked out the queues and heaps of cackling women in my store. Not that I didn’t love the women in this village, but they did have a tendency to gossip about trivial things and frown upon every woman in her late twenties, such as myself, who hadn’t reproduced yet. Thursdays normally didn’t bring such chaos, but the new novel True Love had been released today. I had expected some buzz, but not this much. It appeared to be a flimsy book and even just the cover was sweet enough to give me diabetes.
Instead of running upstairs to my flat, I slipped behind the counter and went through the curtain and into the small room I shared with my aunt Nancy. It functioned as a tiny break room, with a sink and small fridge, as well as some cleaning supplies. Her occult store was on the other side of her curtain. I put down my bag and hurried back out. My best friend Eddie had red cheeks and shot terrified glances at the chatting women in the queue. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. He never wore anything else. Even in winter.
My other employee, a woman a few years younger than me, Susan, was also at the counter, but she showed no signs of stress whatsoever.
As soon as I opened another cash register, it attracted the flock of women who had been standing in line for Eddie. Most of the women I knew by name, and others I recognised from around. The majority of them were part of the Castlefield Book Club. They sometimes held their meetings at my bookshop and though I hadn’t ever attended, Nancy had. She said the meetings consisted mostly of gossip and cakes. It also meant that I had dirt on most of these women, since Nancy relayed any noteworthy information to me.
Poppy Kilkenny, for instance, went through a phase where she put on cat fashion shows for herself. She dressed up the cats in knitted clothing that she’d made for them. Apparently she had a playlist, special lamps, everything. She was a widower in her eighties and I didn’t blame her for finding ways to keep busy. She was now third in the queue and every time I saw her, I’d ask about her cats. It was a bit mean since she had no idea those fashion shows were now common knowledge and she always responded in earnest, but I couldn’t resist.
Jessica Parsley collected hamster wheels. To this day she still didn’t have a hamster. Phoebe Rivers made her own doll houses, which I found cool, but she was adamant that nobody ever see them. She had three alarm systems in her house.
My favourite bit of info was about Lily Cromwell, who was still a bit sore abou
t the fact that I had exposed her cousin as a garden gnome thief. She considered herself an inventor, which was no secret, and liked to tinker with things. One of the things she had invented was a coffee mug that also served as an iron. As well as a teapot with two spouts.
Normally these women would all have a little chat with me when I was at the counter, but this time they were too excited about the new novel. I could hardly judge them for it, since I knew the power of good books all too well. Books had been my sanctuary as a kid, when home wasn’t.
The women continued talking to each other while I rang up their books and it wasn’t until an hour later that it finally quieted down enough to breathe. Eddie sighed next to me.
“You okay?” I asked while I handed my final customer a plastic bag with my bookshop’s logo on it; an open book with a bookworm.
Eddie moved his hand through his red, curly hair. “I’m fairly sure that even my sweat is sweating.” He chuckled his boyish chuckle.
“You survived and that’s all that matters. I’m proud of you.” It wasn’t just the sudden rush, but I knew he disliked the women mainly because of the way they had gossiped about his parents when they split up, as if it had been pure entertainment for them, which it probably had been. This Cornish village didn’t elicit much excitement, except for when the gnomes were stolen and my books got published. The first time my Detective Black novel came out, the Castlefield Book Club threw a huge party during which I mostly cried with pure joy.
From the corner of my eye I spotted the vicar’s wife lingering near a stack of True Love. “One moment,” I said to Eddie and strode over.
She looked up and soft lines appeared around her warm brown eyes. “Hi, Maggie.” She squeezed my arm.
“Eleanor,” I said, though it made my toes tingle every time I said it. She had made me address her by her first name since I was sixteen, but I respected her too much to utter the name without my body protesting a little. “There is one steamy scene in it, the rest is pretty sappy,” I said as I picked up one of the books.
She chuckled. “Don’t you remember that I bought a certain romance book about bondage?”
My eyes widened. “No. I am sure I would have remembered that. In fact, I’m sure the memory would have engraved itself in my brain.” I was uncertain how I felt about this little piece of info, but decided I rather liked it.
“Then why the hesitation?” I asked.
She sighed. “I just feel like I’ve read them all, you know? I feel like reading something different.”
“Then why don’t you? I don’t think any person reads just one genre. I think you should read what the mood dictates. What do you feel like reading?”
She tilted her head as she contemplated an answer. A streak of greyish black hair fell over her shoulder. “Violence,” she said.
I burst out laughing.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just like these surprises you keep throwing at me. Follow me, I have some cool thrillers about women who kick ass.”
“Oh, I’d very much like that,” she said as she followed me to the right bookshelves. After a few moments we returned to the register and I rang up her books. “Enjoy the violence,” I said with a smile.
She laughed. “Not too loud or I’ll be hearing about this at the next Castlefield Book Club meeting.”
“You know they’ll all be distracted by the new romance novel, right? They’ll talk about bare chests and dramatic hair sweeping gestures that make them swoon.”
She made a face. “I better start preparing myself mentally, then.” With a wave of her thin hand, she headed out.
I turned to Eddie. “I’m sorry, I have to go visit Beth. I’ll see you later.” I grabbed two books from under the counter that I had reserved just for her. “Will you be okay?”
“Of course. Though I can’t guarantee that I won’t fake my death at least several times today.”
I laughed. “That will probably only attract more customers.” I left and as I passed my aunt Nancy’s store, I was forced to stop. A man darted out in front of me clutching his head while Nancy hit him repeatedly with a broom.
“How dare you? Get out and don’t come back.” She hit him once more before he ran off across the cobbled street. Several people stared and by dinnertime the whole village would know about this. Luckily for Nancy it meant that customers would come in to hear her version and also buy something.
My aunt had raised me and I was always glad to see her, even when she had her volatile outbursts. Which could be quite frequent and would always make me laugh on the inside. When I was ten, I witnessed her shove a pie in a man’s face at the Church’s bake sale after he’d touched her bum. As I recall, she even won the bake sale, but that was probably because people were afraid of her. It didn’t help that every time someone asked her about her glass eye, she came up with a new gruesome story of how it had happened.
And yet people flocked to her for ointments, spells, and advice. She was even asked to put a spell on Pandora the psycho chicken that terrorised Castlefield. She would walk about and peck everyone in sight. People crossed the street just to avoid her. Much to the dismay of every one of us, she had declined and said that Pandora was working through some issues and who were we to interfere? She made it up by never turning down any humans. Except for now. Hitting someone with a broom, sure. But hitting a customer with a broom? No.
“What the sweet muffin was that about?” I asked.
She huffed. “He wanted some herbs to put his wife to sleep so he could go out all night and spend time with his mistress.”
“What? Really?” I wanted to go after him with a broom myself.
“Well, he said he wanted them so his wife would sleep and he could stay out all night. But it was all there in his lewd eyes and lustful aura. I can read between the lines, you know?”
She had never been wrong as long I remembered and I had places to be. I was already late. “I believe you,” I said, holding up my hand. “I’ll talk to you later, I’m going to visit Beth now.”
“Is she doing any better?” Nancy’s voice was calmer as we moved on to the topic of Beth. She was one of the oldest women in the village and though she had her moments, she was getting confused about reality. She remembered things that weren’t memories, but bits from books or films she’d seen and most of the time they were harmless. Although she did once tackle the post woman Dawn because she thought the package that was being delivered was a bomb. She broke her hip in doing so.
She’d always been like a granny to me and she had no family around, so I took it upon myself to visit her a few times a week and spend time with her. I usually brought her romance books, because they contained no dangerous situations or threats that she could perceive as real.
“Last week she wanted me to chase off a dinosaur in her garden because she’d seen a documentary about them. That’s when I unplugged the TV and gave her a few books to read. I’m bringing over a new batch now.”
“You know Patricia Woodsbury has been making her a charity case. She and her gang visit her every Sunday to play bridge with her and afterwards she boasts about how kind she’s being.” Nancy made a face. “And then she bathes in the blood of innocents.”
I laughed. “I don’t like her either, but it’s good that she’s entertaining Beth, no matter her motivation.”
Nancy grumbled.
She’d never liked the woman, not since she stole her boyfriend in secondary school, just because she could.
“Okay, I’m off. See you.”
“See you later, love.”
BETH’S COTTAGE WAS near the vicarage where Eleanor and Harold, the vicar, lived. It was a cute cottage with a rose garden in the front that was regularly tended to by Eleanor. Olivia, the baker’s wife, also occasionally brought her baked goods, so she was in good hands. It was also the main reason I loved this village so much. Despite the gossip and the rare rotten apples, people genuinely cared about each other. No matter where you were from or what you
looked like, or who you dated.
I picked up the key from under the flower pot and entered. “Hi, Beth. It’s me,” I shouted and went through the reception area, which was empty, and straight to the kitchen.
Beth shrieked when she saw me and held a rolling pin above her head. She had a wild look in her eyes and was trembling.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “It’s me, Maggie.”
“Maggie?” She slowly lowered the rolling pin and then her expression changed. She broke out in a smile. “Hello, dear. How are you doing? So nice to see you.”
“And nice to see you.” I gave her a kiss on her cheek and took the rolling pin from her, hoping that whatever had frightened her was now forgotten. “I brought you two new books.” I put them on the counter. “Why don’t you sit down in your chair and I’ll make us some tea.”
“No!” she dashed forward and yanked me back from the teapot. “No, don’t do that. It’s poisoned.”
Chapter 2
As soon as I had put Beth in her favourite armchair with one of the books I had brought, she calmed down. In fact, she quickly forgot the whole thing, unlike me. Instead of making her tea, I inspected all of her tea cups, tea bags, loose herbal tea, and even her tea spoons while Detective Black looked over my shoulder and listed signs of poison. Not that there were any to be found. There was nothing suspicious, and all appeared normal. It was safe.
“But what about untraceable poison?” Detective Black whispered in my ear.
A moment later I put down a steaming mug of black drab on the coffee table. “I made you coffee,” I said.
“How nice,” Beth muttered as she continued reading. As long as she had a book in front of her, she would be fine. It was when she got up to pee or to eat that she usually forgot that she had a book unless she returned to her armchair. Which is why I had trained her to put her book on the chair each time she got out of it. That way she had to pick it up if she sat down and usually she went straight back to reading. But this was only if she had one of her unclear moments. The moments that she was her real self were fine.
Prelude to Poison Page 1