Sitting alone at a booth against the wall, Samantha drained the last of her mead. The pub was dingy and quiet for the early evening. Because she was unescorted, men would try to join her every once in a while, always mistaking her rouged cheeks and piled-high hair for a streetwalker. She would slip her wand out under the table and befuddle him with a flick of magic, and they would stumble away in a stupor.
Otherwise it was an uneventful evening. Her eyes began to well up and made her feel like she was looking through her empty pint flagon. How would she ever win her case against Judge Forest? She stood up, teetering a bit. Drink always affected Fairies strongly. A trip to the apothecary would do the trick. Samantha left in a swish and tapped down the cobblestone alleyways, hoping she would remember where the little shop was. Horse-drawn carriages were clattering down the streets and candles were being lit above, glowing in high windows. London bustled in a different way at night.
Sure enough, the dark apothecary stood right where it always had been, between a boarded-up flower shop and an abandoned soothsayer’s room. Samantha pushed into the windowless store and was greeted by heavy, scented air and the sound of bubbles popping. The old shop owner reading at the counter looked up and smiled crookedly. “Sammy,” he said. Samantha made a curtsy and came up to the counter. “Blimey, you never look a year older, do you?”
“I told you,” Samantha wagged a finger, “I don’t age.”
The shop owner rasped a laugh, disbelieving. “You and your jokes. What will you have, m’dear?”
“I just need to restock on a few ingredients.”
“Take your time,” the owner said, gesturing with a hand for Samantha to wander about the shop’s dusty shelves.
As Samantha found rice powder for her beer-battered brain, the front door of the shop jingled again as another person came in.
“Evenin’, sir,” said a soft voice, “I would like to buy arsenic.”
“Arsenic?” the shop owner said. “That’s a strong drop. What for?”
Samantha peered over her shoulder at the sooty little blond wrapped in tatters.
“We have frogs in the basement,” the girl said.
The owner scrutinized the peasant. “How much do you need?”
“Five ounces.”
“You don’t need that much for frogs.”
“There are a lot of frogs.”
The owner and beggar looked at one another for a moment.
“Ten shillings,” the owner said.
The girl handed over the coins, but they rattled in her shaking palm. The owner looked at the money for a moment and then reluctantly pushed a vial across the counter, which the girl snatched up.
She was gone in an instant. Samantha, beyond intrigued, left her package of rice powder on the shelf and whisked out of the shop after the girl. The alleys were dark, the puddles between cobblestones reflecting lamplight from rooms high above. Samantha thought she’d lost the girl in the maze of back streets, until she heard sniffling. Peering around a corner, Samantha spotted the girl leaning against the wall in the dark, the vial in her trembling hands. The cork was gone; the girl shut her eyes tight and raised the vial.
“Wait!” Samantha said, whipping out her wand and causing the vial to jump from the peasant’s hands. It shattered on the stone street as the girl screamed and covered her head. “Quiet! I won’t hurt you! Oh, do be quiet!”
The girl stuffed a fist in her mouth and gazed at Samantha with petrified blue eyes. Samantha still had her wand raised in case the girl tried to run, walking forward into the orange light. “Now then,” Samantha snipped, “What the devil were you thinking, hm?” The girl shook her head but said nothing. “Out with it. I know what you were up to, what’s the cause?”
Silent sobs quaked the beggar girl’s thin shoulders. “Please,” she squeaked.
“I’ll turn you into a mouse,” Samantha warned.
A silent struggle waged war on the poor girl, until she burst. “It’s all wretched! All of it! I want it to end!”
“There now, what is?”
“Me awful step-sisters, me ghastly step-mother, me father gone, gone, gone. I’m a slave in me own ‘ouse.”
Each grievance rang like a bell to Samantha’s well-tuned ear. The ever-familiar phrase, “You poor, misfortunate girl,” fell from her lips like honey.