The Survivors: Point of Origin (book 2)

Apothecary, pt. 2

LIZZIE, REBECCA, SARAH, ADELAIDE, AND I CALLED IT QUITS FOR THE DAY, Hoping not to push our luck with my early success in the apothecary. As we left, Lizzie lifted her palm toward the lights in the ceiling, and as she closed her fist tightly, the oil-lamp chandelier went dark.

In 144 years, I’d had no inkling that the elders could do this or anything else beyond the talents or powers everyone knew they had. This made it so hard to trust them — even Lizzie, whom I adored. I know she had reminded me of my place, growing frustrated that I felt I had a right to know these things, but didn’t I have a right? I was risking absolutely everything — most notably, my freedom — to be here, to help them and to protect them, but they were keeping secrets. As we wound down the earth-walled tunnel back to the church, I was upset — not because they were still keeping secrets (I had come to expect it), and not because I would never uncover those secrets (I was sure I could), but because there might never be a way for me to determine when I had figured it all out. After all, how could I know what I didn’t know?

When we got to the end of the tunnel, Rebecca reached her palms out to the wall to open the missing door.

“Wait,” I called. “Can we see if I can do that? What if I’m in here alone and can’t get out?”

Rebecca quickly put her hands to the wall, as if I hadn’t asked her anything. “What?” she asked, once the door was open. “Oh, sorry, Sadie. I didn’t hear you in time,” she said. A lie. I clearly heard her think, Goodness. We might trust you, but there would be no occasion for you to be in our apothecary by yourself.

Light poured into the hallway from the room inside the church. It was already morning. I was surprised to find several of the elders meeting around the giant marble table, including John. My stomach clenched. As soon as he saw me, he jumped to his feet. “What is she doing in there?” he said in a growl to the others, not even bothering to address me himself.

“We’ve had this discussion,” Lizzie said, the only one among them comfortable with defying John.

“And I thought we agreed we’d stop telling the girl everything she wanted to know,” he barked.

“This was my idea, John. We need to know what she’s capable of. There will come a time when we need to know what all Survivors are capable of,” Lizzie said.

John scoffed. “These are not your secrets to give away! And they aren’t yours either,” he shot at Adelaide. “What were you even working on in there?”

“Merely a discussion of protection elixirs,” Lizzie said, but John cut her off.

“Protection? Good Lord, you told her she is incapable of being bound by your protection charms and elixirs? What did you hope she would do with this information? Suddenly be loyal and help us reinforce the barriers around the city with her own irreverent breed of magic?

“John — “ Lizzie interjected.

“It is imperative that we stop telling her these things. It is bad enough that she already knew that we knew not to let anyone outside of this sacred city. What of our secrets haven’t you given away?” he asked, heated.

Lizzie pursed her lips together. “We were merely talking about protection elixirs in the apothecary. Simple, primitive versions. We were going to educate her on the things we learned first. So, until you said that just now, Sadie didn’t know about the barriers, so now it is you who is — what was the phrase you used the other night? — ‘impulsively giving away our most trusted strategic information to Sadie and the Winters’ I believe it was?” Lizzie smiled, but there was an edge to it.

“What barriers?” I asked. Just how much were they talking about me when I wasn’t around? And what did they mean about knowing not to let anyone outside, I wondered. I didn’t actually know that. I don’t know why he thought I did.