I look up to the bright glowing orb above and I remember its power. Could I halt the corruption of the Uroborus alone? Not alone, but with the power of the sun. Malina’s attention is focussed on Ruth and Jessica. The numbing atrophy she dulls within me is weak. I take my chance and open myself completely to the sun’s kiss. I call to it with all of my strength. I hear a whispered voice in my head and that same door I saw at Soutra Aisle is conjured before me. There is no hesitation in this hour and I throw it wide. Time seems to slow down as I let my roots feel the earth deeply and I pulse onto the cardinal vein. I mainline with Mab and Sol with driving urgency as I watch my love and my charge, the two people that I care for most in the world, being tortured.
The lens of my mind quivers and I see once more the gossamer web that runs under the earth, the nexus of all growing things. I perceive Malina and myself on that network. It looks different than before. Malina is attracting filaments of energy to herself; arteries of sap are being drawn to her, away from Medcaut. I feel Mab’s anger at the insult and her fear as the balance of the Green world is corrupted. She germinates a dread choice into my mind. The same fearful choice I had once before at Soutra Aisle: Break the connection. Turn off the growing. Short circuit the cycle of the Uroborus and end Malina’s life. I look once more at Jessica and then do that which is most taboo in the growing world: I kill the Green in this place. I am the lens of the Sol Invictus and I deliver the terrible glare of the sun’s power.
‘Eh? What’s this?’ The smile leaves her lips and Malina looks at me with her dead eyes. She howls in rage. ‘Weed! You’re no good.’
I think she’s screaming but I can’t hear her anymore. I live and draw half of my own nature from the same cardinal root that I have broken. I double up in agony. I hear the grove’s voices bray and shiver: these ancient trees as well are condemned under my blow. I feel their dying on the deep vein and I bring my hands to my head as my mind dries and cracks like a dead leaf. But when I look up my animal heart beats faster as I see Jessica reviving. The vines that bind her throat and body are growing limp and she pulls them from her weakly.
The flames of Malina’s hatred fill the air now. ‘Weed! Kill you with snakes. Weed! Rot you with camphor. Curse you! Your boots have grown but my roots run deep. I will show you fear and madness. I will be your nemesis. I hate you.’ But the poison on her lips is already drying. I look to Malina as her mouth convulses and then stiffens and stills quietly. The strange altered body she has corrupted looks like a dead tree in winter. Her light is out and contented at least by that fact I collapse in grief. I have maimed myself. I have cut myself off from the earth. My heart beats in my broken chest and I hate it because I am now only blood, and my sap won’t rise again.
When I revive in Jessica’s arms, her voice comes hoarsely. ‘She is dead.’
‘Malina?’
‘Ruth is dead.’ Jessica’s cheeks run with tears as she holds me. ‘The witch is a husk.’
Today I have lost Issa and Ruth and I groan wretchedly because I have lost my Green friends as well. Yet there is something that must be done before it is time to mourn. ‘Jessica. Take the stone from the crone’s neck. It should be safe to touch it now. You must place it on the plinth inside the cairn and do it quickly. Do it now, love, and once it is set leave the hollow and don’t look back.’
She leaves me for a moment and I blink my eyes, heavy with sadness. I look for the body of Ruth. Jessica has laid her peacefully on the altar. She has removed her from the tangle of vines that took her life, though little Ruth’s cut cheek is still marked by their green scar.
‘It is done.’ Jessica helps me to my feet. ‘What can we do with poor, sweet Ruth?’
I stare at the body of the child I have cared for and loved for so many months. ‘Let her rest in the sacred Grove. Someone once said that this is a holy place on an island of Holy places. Fit for her soul.’
Jessica and I lean into each other as we limp towards the southern opening of the glade. She looks back. ‘Shouldn’t we say something?’
I remember the fierce Celtic warriors who fought the Romans and died on this island in my dream. I look at the battlefield within the grove and see Ruth on a bier at its centre. Ruth is a warrior, the best I have ever known and so I speak her eulogy. ‘A friend I have lost, faithful she was, swift in the struggle. It grieves me to leave her. No brave one so generous in her purpose. She fed a black raven on her shoulder in a Green garden. Though she was slain, she slew. Ruth came to Menai.’
Epilogue
My name is Ruth and I’m not good. A devil lives within me and she is welcome. Jessica and Weed left me for dead in Anglesey. Not very nice for best friends to do that. It was only a little Hemlock as made me sleepy. When I find them I will let them know about my displeasure. For now I have returned to London but it is so hard for me find good homes. I do go out looking every night, but people are so disappointing. Dear Nessa threw me out, blaming some bad habits that I have picked up. The cow will still sell me Henbane and Strychnine and I think that I deserve a bigger discount. I will have to speak with her about that. I can be persuasive. I lodged with Cao too but his customers are too lethargic and poor for my needs. The streets of Whitechapel do me a good service. My scarred face does not trouble my clients. They recognise that I am artful in my skills.
It is always so cold in London. I walk under the new gaslights and whistle to myself for company. I am not the only walker out tonight, but my fellow ladies know not to bother me. I have sharp teeth and nails and have doled out some good scars, though none as glorious as my own. I hear a carriage approaching behind me. That is good. I was getting bored. I turn and look. It is a rich man’s vehicle, with velvet curtains drawn at the window. Even the driver looks well turned out. I feel in my pocket for doses of Strychnine. A little in their drink does not always kill, but it does render them rather incapable of crying out when I take from them whatever I wish.
I stand beneath one of these glorious new wrought iron lamps the city has built for itself. They are so hard and beautiful in the darkness. Like me. The carriage’s horse is trotting slowly and its driver has spotted me. Good. He pulls up along the road’s dirty kerb and nods down at me, indicating that I should speak with his passenger. I amble to the cab’s window and the velvet curtain is hooked open. I see a man within in fine dress and I poke my face inside. I smile. ‘Good evening, Sir. What’s your poison?’
A Note on the Author
Jane Northumberland is married to the twelfth Duke of Northumberland and is mistress of Alnwick Castle, often referred to as the “Windsor of the North”. The earls and dukes of Northumberland have lived in Alnwick Castle for seven hundred years. The Duchess has spent the last fourteen years creating beautiful public gardens in the grounds of the castle and, because of her fascination with, and knowledge of, poisons, has created the most popular tourist destinations in the north of England, attracting more than 800,000 visitors each year.
Weed is brought to life here by script-writer and author, Hugh Sington.
This electronic edition published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Reader
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First published in Great Britain 2013 by Bloomsbury Reader
Copyright © 2013 Jane Northumberland with Hugh Sington
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eISBN: 9781448214006
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Weed: The Poison Diaries Page 26