The Night Strangers - Chris Bohjalian [66]
“Poison ivy,” Garnet suggested, but she crinkled her nose immediately after she spoke, and Hallie could tell it was because Garnet understood that this wasn’t at all what they were looking for. She was just brainstorming. They didn’t need a poison that made your skin itch; they needed a poison that might kill you.
“It needs to be much worse than that,” said Hallie.
“It does,” Molly agreed. “What would those freaky women around here have used? Maybe the lady who lived here before you brought weird poison plants back from Australia or South America. A lot of the women do that.”
The twins turned to each other simultaneously, and Hallie could see the surprise she was feeling mirrored in her sister’s eyes. What in the world would the lady who once lived here have known about poison? From the way their parents talked about the woman, it sounded like she practically never left Bethel. Why would Molly think she knew anything at all? Instead of answering Molly, Hallie asked, “What are you talking about?”
“You know, the woman who lived here. She was a witch. They all are. If there’s a greenhouse, there’s a witch. That’s how you can tell. And this one? Very scary. My mom says her son killed himself.”
“She was a witch?” Hallie said.
“I mean she wasn’t a real witch. They’re not like that. They don’t think they can fly through the air on broomsticks or something. They don’t run around in those pointy Halloween hats. But they are, like, into witchcraft. Witch stuff. My mom said they make potions out of plants that usually only grow in jungles and deserts. They’re all known around here for growing stuff.”
“Yeah, like herbs,” Garnet said.
“Much more,” said Molly.
“Look, I’m sure they grow vegetables and herbs and I guess some flowers,” Hallie told her. “You know, tomatoes. Parsley. Daffodils. Not …” And she stopped speaking because she had no idea what sorts of things a witch grew.
“It’s not like the woman was a real witch,” Molly said again. “It’s not like any of them are.”
“They’re herbalists,” Garnet told the girl, speaking the word very slowly because she had heard her parents using it one night after dinner, and she had never before said it aloud. It was, she decided, a mouthful.
“What’s that?” Molly asked.
Garnet shrugged because she wasn’t completely certain. “I guess it’s a person who uses herbs for stuff. But for more than cooking, because everyone uses herbs in cooking. Right?”
“What else did your mom say about the woman who used to live here?” Hallie asked.
Molly went to one of the dolls and adjusted the quilt. She’s stalling, Hallie thought, because she doesn’t know what to say. She wishes she hadn’t brought any of this up.
Finally Molly answered, “She said she was kind of weird. She and some of her friends. They scared people. There were all kinds of rumors about them, and it was like they were hippies, but older. At least most of them were. Not all. But all of them were women.”
Hallie thought of the pictures she had seen of hippies: the kaleidoscopic-colored T-shirts, the long hair. The ripped bell-bottom pants. The beads and the peace signs. The marijuana. “Do you mean she grew marijuana?” she asked Molly. “Marijuana’s an herb, right?”
The child shrugged her shoulders, which looked even broader and more substantial in her snow jacket. “I don’t know. But I don’t think that’s what my mom meant.”
“Then what did she mean?” Hallie demanded, and she knew there was a bullying quality to her voice that teachers would never approve of, but she couldn’t stop herself and she really didn’t care.
“Well, my mom said that the lady who used to live here and her friends all had these little garden plots or greenhouses where they grew the stuff for their potions. It was all very hush-hush. A lot of people didn’t like them, but I guess a lot of others did.”
“What kinds of potions did they make?” Garnet asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did they make poisons?”
“I said, I don’t know! But here’s the scariest part. She had twins.”
Hallie knew this on some vague level, but because her parents had only mentioned one and he lived in