A Fierce and Subtle Poison

by Samantha Mabry

  Rico spun around and launched off the edge of the bed. Before I could dodge him, he’d shoved me hard on both shoulders causing me to crash into the bathroom doorframe. If it had been anyone but Rico, I would’ve fought back, but Rico’s was a rage that hit whiplash-fast. Whenever I lost my temper—which was often enough—no one got legitimately freaked out the way they did when Rico lost his. I’d seen guys react to his anger the way an unfortunate hiker would react to a bear he came across on a trail—hands up, palms out, making soothing sounds while backing away slowly.

  “We don’t give a shit?” Rico snarled. “We looked for her. While you were here sick off your ass, Carlos and me were knocking on doors and helping out with search parties, not to mention going to Marisol’s funeral and staying up all day and night trying to keep Ruben from completely losing his shit, so don’t fucking talk to me in that stuck-up way of yours about not caring.”

  Marisol’s funeral. I’d missed it because I was sick. I was sick because I couldn’t resist putting my lips on Isabel’s skin.

  I turned to Carlos, who’d swung his legs off the side of the bed and was in the process of putting his work shoes back on. He looked at me, shook his head, and shrugged like, What do want me to do?

  “Hey!” Rico shoved me again in the chest to get my attention. “I’m sorry about Marisol, okay? I know you were only together for a couple of days or whatever, but still that sucks.” He put his finger in my face, but his tone had softened. “You should’ve just told me you were going to the beach that night. I would’ve come with you, and you wouldn’t have had to deal with this . . . ” He waved his hand in the air. “ . . . by yourself.”

  I cringed. “I wanted to be alone.”

  “Yes, I know.” Rico backed away. “Lucas—always needing his precious alone time. We get it.” He ticked up his chin to Carlos. “Let’s go.”

  Carlos was halfway out the door when he stopped and turned. “Hey. I just want you to know—while you were sick La Lopez was around asking questions.”

  “About what?”

  “About you. Like, about your temper. Like, if I’ve ever seen you get jealous or anything. I told her out of everyone I knew, you were the most levelheaded.”

  “So you lied?”

  “Through my teeth.” Carlos cracked a smile that quickly faded. “Just be careful. La Lopez has it out for you.”

  After they left, I took my time in the shower, scrubbing off the days’ worth of grime, then shaved, slicked back my hair, scrounged up some clean clothes, and headed downstairs to have my first proper dinner in a long time. In the staircase, I ran into a girl who had just arrived with her parents after a long flight from the mainland and was out exploring the hotel on her own. She was wearing a long white dress and white leather sandals to match. I told her my name was Luke, that I was from Houston, that my dad owned this place. I wasn’t proud of myself, but it just all came out, so easy, like it used to before all the girls I met ended up dead or deadly. The girl smiled. She was pretty. She said her name was Tara and that it was nice to meet me.

  “Do you want to take a walk?” I offered. “I can show you some great places around town.”

  The two of us were halfway through the lobby when I heard my dad call out my name. I could tell by the direction his voice came from that he was in the “library,” a rarely used room just off the front entrance that had very little to do with the actual storage and enjoyment of books. It was more like an Old World man-cave, housing clusters of broken-in leather chairs, an antique pool table that no one was allowed to touch, the stuffed and mounted carcasses of various animals in “lifelike” poses, and my dad’s personal stock of scotch (which was safely secured in a cabinet to which only he had the key). The only time he ever went in that room was when he was trying to impress someone.

  I promised Tara I’d just be a second and headed over to the half-open set of twelve-foot-high, seventeenth-century wooden doors. When I entered the room, I saw that my dad wasn’t alone. There, settled across from him at one end of an overstuffed brown leather couch and holding a snifter of brandy, was Dr. Rupert Ford.

  The color in both his and my dad’s cheeks indicated that they’d been in high spirits for a while. Sitting there, both impeccably dressed and getting sloshed on a bottle of liquor that probably cost more than three of Carlos’s paychecks combined, the two of them looked like old friends. For all I knew, they were.

  “Son!” My dad set his glass down and leaned forward as I stepped into the room. “How are you doing? Have you heard anything about your friend’s cousin? Clara, was it?”

  “Celia,” I replied, trying not to stare at the doctor’s long fingers curling around the short stem of his snifter as he swirled the amber-colored liquid. “And, no.”

  “Your father’s told me what you’ve been going through the last few days.” Dr. Ford lifted the thin glass up to his mouth and took a sip, wincing from the alcohol burn. “Loss. Grief. Sickness. So unfortunate.”

  The silence that followed stretched to an uncomfortable length.

  “So, Lucas,” my dad eventually said. “Rupert came over to tell me that you paid him a visit recently.”

  Shit.

  “Apparently you’re interested in studying botany.” He looked over at Dr. Ford and chuckled. “That’s news to me.”

  I cracked a knuckle as I tried to come up with a decent response.

  “Yeah, well when you asked about college visits the other day, it got me thinking,” I said. “Since I like it so much out here, I thought it might make sense for me to stay for college.”

  My dad’s eyes shimmered, I hoped from the booze and not from some newfound fatherly pride. In a way, I was disappointed he couldn’t see through my flimsy attempt at deception.

  I went on. “Science seemed like a good idea. You know, because of all the nature.”

  All the nature. What a dumb thing to say.

  Dr. Ford thought so, too. He again brought the snifter up to his lips, though now he was visibly sneering.

  “I think that’s great, Lucas!” My dad picked up a large leather-bound book from one of the side tables and held it out to me. “You couldn’t have picked a better mentor. I asked Rupert to bring over one of his manuscripts so that we could add it to our library. I also took the liberty of having him inscribe it for you.”

  Once the book was in my hands, I turned to the blue cursive on the title page. The handwriting was similar to, but not quite the same as, Isabel’s.

  To the young Michael Knight. Best of luck with your scientific endeavors. Warmest regards, Rupert Ford III.

  “It’s apparently groundbreaking stuff,” my dad added.

  Dr. Ford shook his head and put up his hand in a show of false modesty. “It’s a minor text. I wrote it when I was a young man not much older than Lucas here. It’s about Puerto Rico, naturally, and all the species of poisonous plants that grow on the island. They’re my specialty, as you know. And while it may not be as exciting as the things most young people read today, it’s still relevant to your burgeoning interest.”

  “Thanks,” I said, itching to get away. My dad and Dr. Ford together, acting all buddy-buddy—it was not something I wanted to see. “Can you just leave it here?” I handed the book back to my dad. “I’ll come back and look at it later.”

  “Sure, Luke. You on your way out? Rupert and I were just about to head over to the restaurant and have dinner. We wouldn’t mind if you joined us.”

  I tried not to smirk as I thought about just how much Rupert Ford would mind if I joined them for dinner.

  “I’m good. Hey, I heard Mara Lopez has been around here asking questions about me.”

  My dad grunted. “That foul woman. Some people here just have it out for people like us.”

  “It’s true.” Dr. Ford nodded. “Distrust is embedded into their culture—particularly distrust of foreigners of a certain means.” He turned toward me and held up his snifter. “Take care, then, Mr. Knight.”

  I took t
hat as my cue to leave.

  As I closed the door behind me, I heard, in addition to the clinking of glasses, my dad asking the doctor if he cared for another nip.

  I needed Tara to forget, and to regress. So, as promised, I took her around to the best of the old Spanish-style buildings and snapped a picture of her in front of the statue of Ponce de León. After that, I led her down to the footpaths outside of El Morro and showed her the old mangrove trees.

  It was all going well enough until I made one major mistake. We were walking along the waterfront when I asked Tara if she’d ever thought about jumping into the ocean water and swimming until she sank. Once the words left my mouth, she stopped and stared at me like I was demented, and as I studied her face by the blood-orange light of the setting sun, I tried not to picture her hair, wet and tangled in my toes, or her dead eyes fixed on the moon. It was impossible.

  I wasn’t surprised when our date ended there, even though my original plan was to lead her back to my room in the hopes of drinking stolen wine until our thoughts and lips and fingertips grew numb and we fell into each other’s arms.

  Instead, I went back to my room alone and lay awake for hours, trying and failing to fall asleep. This made sense, given that I’d been unconscious for three whole days.

  Eventually, I went downstairs and paused in front of the library, picturing the expensive scotch behind its doors. Maybe my dad had left his liquor cabinet unlocked.

  No such luck. I stayed in there anyway, taking a seat in one of the plush leather chairs and staring at all the books I’d never read. Dr. Ford’s was still out on one of the side tables. I snatched it up and flipped to the title page. Above his signature was an incomprehensible title about tropical flora. If I couldn’t understand the title, there was little hope in me getting through the rest.

  On the next page was the dedication: To Zabana. There is nothing in this or any world strong enough to divide us.

  Zabana. The woman who must have given Isabel her dark features. I skimmed past the table of contents to the first lines of the first chapter:

  Hot as a hare, blind as a bat, dry as a bone, red as a beet, and mad as a hatter. Doctors memorize this phrase to aid them in identifying the symptoms of poisoning. It is true that many of the solandra species of poisonous tropical plants native to the island of Puerto Rico, such as cup of gold, have long been used for ceremonial and hallucinogenic purposes. There are descriptions in the diaries of the Spanish settlers of the Taíno ingesting cup of gold during their religious ceremonies. The natives would report developing fevers, having blurred vision, desperately needing water, and undergoing vivid, psychotropic experiences.

  “Tell me about it,” I mumbled.

  These sensations, however, have little to do with any kind of spiritual experience. They are merely the result of changes in brain and body chemistry brought about by poison.

  The chapter continued, but I stopped and turned to the index. The specific plant that I was looking for was discussed on page forty-eight.

  Legend dictates that lions eat the flowers of the columbine during the spring mating period to give themselves extra vigor. Therefore, some people have taken to rubbing the petals of the columbine against their bare skin when they are in need of a touch more courage.

  Columbine has also become a popular symbol for ingratitude or forsaken love, and thus it is fitting that Ophelia mentions the flower (among many others, of course) in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

  As intriguing as these stories may be, they are just that: stories. They are invented and passed on to mask the realities of poisonous plants and their effects on humans, for it is not remarkable if one merely is sick; he or she must be lovesick. Nor is it enough that a man have innate courage; he must have obtained it from some magical source.

  I shut the book and carried it upstairs, but when I tossed it on my bed, it fell open to a page near the middle that had been marked with what on first glance appeared to be a roughly two-inch-wide green-and-yellow bookmark. It didn’t take me long to realize, however, that it wasn’t a bookmark, but a smashed segment of a leaf from the dumb cane plant that I’d seen sitting near the Fords’ doorstep. The fact that its colors were still fresh and vivid and it gave off an acrid scent told me it had been recently torn from its stem.

  Was this some kind of a threat? Had Dr. Ford found out about my recent tumbles into his house and was letting me know—again—to stay away from things that were, as he’d put it, a “bit of an irritant”?

  Like I cared.

  I used one of the pillowcases to take the leaf from the book and place it on my nightstand. Then, finally surrendering to the reality that this would be a sleepless night, I headed out into the drizzle. I’d eventually head to Festival de San Juan. But first, I had to stop and see a saint.

  Fourteen

  AFTER SAINT PIUS died in Rome during the second century, his hair and nails grew to great lengths and his corpse was sealed in wax. Then for whatever reason, Saint Pius’s mummified, wax-covered corpse took a trip across the Atlantic Ocean and ended up in a glass casket in middle of the San Juan Cathedral.

  There are lots of saints there; their freaky wood and plaster likenesses watch over the space and care for the prayers that live as long as the little red candles stayed lit.

  But Saint Pius isn’t made of wood or plaster. His weird, shrunken body is actually there—along with his ghost, if the stories are true. His leatherlike skin and brittle bones are perfectly preserved, along with the light brown hair that falls over his shoulders. When I was a kid, I would tiptoe up to his glass coffin and stare, waiting for his fingers to twitch. They never did. His permanent immobility gave me the creeps way more than if he were to suddenly sit up and turn his head to look at me.

  I’d lit three of those little red candles—one for Sara, one for Marisol, and one for Celia—and had taken a seat in one of the pews within view of the saint—just an eyelid twitch would do—when I heard the clicking of footsteps coming down the aisle. Whoever it was scooted down the row directly behind mine, and sat down. The wood squealed. A Bible was lifted out of the compartment on the back of my pew. I could hear its pages swish as they were flipped.

  Then, there was my name, spoken in a raspy whisper: “Lucas.”

  I turned and came face to face with Detective Mara Lopez. As always, her black hair was pulled away from her face and slicked down.

  “You remember me, don’t you?” She smiled with her thin, red-stained lips and then opened the flap of her dark trench coat in order to flash her badge. “From last summer? We spoke again the night you found Marisol Reyes, though I don’t blame you if you don’t remember that last encounter. You were pretty shaken up.”

  Shaken up. That was putting it mildly.

  “I remember.” I tried to keep my voice low but was still on the receiving end of a sharp look from an old lady kneeling in one of the pews in front of me.

  The detective leaned forward and rested one of her hands on my shoulder. The crimson color on her fingernails almost exactly matched her lips.

  “What are you doing here?” She nodded in the direction of the prayer candles. “Paying your respects?”

  “I missed Marisol’s funeral.”

  “Yes, I noticed that.”

  Something hung between us in the silence that followed, like static in the otherwise stale church air. Why would she notice that I missed Marisol’s funeral? Why would she care?

  “Is there something I can help you with?” I shifted in my seat. “I have to be somewhere in a little while.”

  “Ah, yes.” She clucked her tongue and nodded. “The festival, right?”

  With her hand still on my shoulder, she leaned in closer as if to tell me a secret. Her clothes gave off the slightly sour smell of cheap fabric having been worn too long and too often.

  “I just need a moment . . . ” She held up her other hand and pinched the air with her pointer finger and thumb, “. . . un momento—of your time. We can just walk down to the plaza
together, if you don’t mind?” Her eyes darted over to a flower-draped statue of Saint Mary. “This place has too many sets of ears, if you know what I mean.”

  She stood and began to make her way down the pew and toward the aisle. I let out a long, loud exhale and followed.

  It was only after we were both outside and walking through the drizzle on near-empty streets that I asked how she knew where to find me.

  “I usually find the people I’m looking for in one of two places: in church or at a bar. And apparently you don’t have a cell phone.”

  “I do back in Houston.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “But I never bring it to the island. What it is you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “Marisol Reyes.”

  “Okay. But I don’t know what I could say that I haven’t already said before.”

  Sighing, she stuffed her hands in the pockets of her coat. “I knew you’d say that, and I know this must be difficult for you. So, here it is. As you probably know, the official story is that Marisol drowned. Aside from being washed up the way she was, the autopsy report came back saying that there was a large amount of water in her lungs.”

  The detective paused, giving me the chance for that to sink in. From where we were, the music from the festival was rising into the night sky. I could hear the sharp, low pops of drums.

  “And?”

  “And . . . ” She looked down at the cobblestones and furrowed her brow. “I’m not so sure about that. At the station, you said something about her neck and face being covered in sores.”

  I stopped and turned to face the detective. She was short, shorter than I remembered, but in that moment she commanded space like someone twice her size. Her jaw was clamped tight as if her mother taught her that if she couldn’t say anything nice, she shouldn’t say anything at all.

  “I said what?”

  Detective Lopez reached into her coat, pulled out a small pad of paper, and flipped through its pages.

  “Yeah. Here it is.” She tapped a red nail against the pad. “When asked to describe the condition of her body, you said, and I quote, ‘I could only see parts of her—like her neck, throat, and face and fingertips, but they had sores on them, like the kind you’d get from rubbing up against poison ivy or something.’ ” She glanced up, cocking her eyebrow. “You don’t remember saying that?”