How to Poison Your Husband || ONC 2024

Step 1b: ... commit to a plan...

Normally, a knock on the door of Ivelle's hardware shop heralded one of three things. Either the visitor was a debt collector, or they were trying to sell Ivelle something, or–in very, very rare instances–they were so desperately in need of a hammer, they were willing to look past the fact that the shop's owner was in possession of a uterus and boobs.

The newcomer didn't fit any of these categories. She was tall and elegant, with luscious straight hair, pretty black eyes that might or might not have been bespelled to give the owner the illusion of a double eyelid, and a red-and-brown dress of bright tulle that was rapidly accumulating grime from the dirty cobblestones. Ivelle fought the urge to shield her eyes as the sun hit the lady's dress, scattering light from a few thousand garnets and nearly blinding her.

Up and down the street, people were pausing to stare. Rich people never came to this section of town. There was nothing anyone with money could want here, except perhaps a night of debauchery in Madame Debaulford's Tea House For The Discerning Gentleman (And Woman – We Do Not Discriminate – All Are Welcome!) a few doors down.

The woman twisted her fan nervously. "I'm–ah–am I at the right place?"

"No idea." Ivelle grabbed the lady's arm and dragged her into the safety of the shop, away from the prying eyes of the probing townspeople. She dragged the shop door shut, dislodging a few dozen cobwebs in her wake. "But you shouldn't loiter about outside if you value your life. And send that gaudy carriage away, before your poor, hardworking coachman gets shanked."

"Oh my." The lady wasn't even listening to her. She was staring around the shop, wide-eyed. "What is this place?"

"It's called a hardware store."

Ivelle couldn't quite hide the bitterness that crept into her tone.

A few years ago, for the first time in her life, things had actually seemed to be going well. For one shining moment, she'd been happy to be who she was. She'd been proud of the fact that she had managed to break free of her mum's influence, escape Lord Saffron, and set out to pursue the thing she loved most in the world.

Ever since she was little, Ivelle had always dreamed of building things. From the moment she had snuck away from helping her mum swindle the newest villager to build her first treehouse in secret, there was nothing she loved more than to sit with some nails and some wood and shape them into anything she could possibly imagine. She had resolved, at the tender age of ten, to become a carpenter when she grew up. Not just any old carpenter, but the most sought-after carpenter in Estrella. A queen–not of evil lairs and bloodthirsty minions–but of architecture, woodwork, and exterior design.

Finally, after ridding herself of Saffron and paying off her debt, she'd thought she'd got her wish.

But times were tough, and sexism in Estrella was rampant. Apparently mucking around with screws and saws and sandpaper was not a suitable pastime for a lady. As the years passed, and her carpentry business lost more and more money, Ivelle's hopes dwindled. As a last-ditch effort, she downsized into a small carpentry shop, which – a few months later – was downsized even more into a tiny hardware store.

It still wasn't enough. She had a crow to feed and a mortgage to pay off, and screws and bolts and plywood were a whole lot more expensive in this day and age than they had been a few years ago (she had inflation to thank for that). Sometimes you had to abandon your shiny and glorious dreams for somewhat less inspiring dreams that didn't involve your shop's foreclosure and imminent starvation.

The lady visiting Ivelle's store didn't know any of this, of course. She was still looking around, in that polite, delicately aghast way only a privileged lady could pull off, as though trying to find something complimentary to say about a place with literally nothing to compliment. Ivelle could only imagine what the shop looked like to her eyes: heaps of grimy screws, haphazardly strewn about next to hammers, screwdrivers, and nails, with piles of sawdust littering the shelves. One corner of the shop was devoted to chamber pots (which were the only thing in her shop that sold nowadays).