The Poisons of Caux: The Hollow Bettle (Book I) Read Free

a simple request. Ivy warned him away from her garden.
    Ivy’s satisfying garden grew behind crumbling stone walls thick with moss and knotted branches and buzzed loudly with honeybees. Poisonous plants grew right beside their natural antidotes, with chipped slate announcements (in curly writing) labeling each in the old tongue. With Ivy’s care, the herbs grew to great beauty and potency. With Shoo’s help, the garden was not bothered by pests; he could be found—without any sense of irony—perched upon a stricken scarecrow.
    Understandably, for the uninvited, Ivy’s garden was a place of grave danger.
    Sorrel Flux knew himself to be uninvited, but Ivy’s warning had piqued an uncharacteristic interest in his languid brain. One day, in a fit of exertion, he found himself beside the overgrown walls. Hearing something, he peered in.
    A picture of sweet sadness met his eyes. Ivy had been weeping over a crop of feisty snapdragons—her uncle particularly delighted in them—and as she sat there crying quietly upon the earth, not a soul could resist being moved by the young girl’s plight.

    Not a soul, that is, but Mr. Flux.
    Mr. Sorrel Flux’s heart, in fact, which pumped its limp business inside his chest, was just as hard and calloused as the rest of him. It was stony and small, and if someone had plucked it from his chest and thrown it at you, it would have certainly left a bruise. Because of this, Mr. Flux was entirely incapable of shedding a tear—except perhaps for himself—so Ivy’s current lonesome state left him entirely dry-eyed.
    Dry-eyed and thirsty.
    As he made to leave, he was distracted by a different sight. Mr. Flux was not in possession of even the slightest green thumb, but his eyes were drawn to the curious nature of the plants within the old walls. The foliage seemed to positively sparkle and pulse with an odd, shivery force, and the taster wondered at once if he were not the victim of a bottle of bad brandy. The plants trembled, as if with a chill, and Flux couldn’t escape the idea that they might extract their pale, sodden roots from the soil and start scurrying about. He blinked several times and rubbed his eyes thoroughly, and to his relief, the effect was gone.
    But the experience served as a reminder that the tavern that Ivy Manx called home had some fine brandies from which to choose, as well as a hearty assortment of hard ciders and something called applejack that was better suited as fuel for the tavern’s few and flickery lanterns. With this, Sorrel Flux departed the garden for the tavern, where he spent the rest of the day recovering from his stroll.
    The next morning, Ivy recognized telltale signs of his adventure. Flux’s first and only visit to her garden resulted in a persistent rash. It began as blisters and soon formed red itchy welts, concentrating themselves upon the taster’s heavy-lidded eyes but soon spreading merrily about his entire face. The punishment for his excursion was straightforward—the glossy vine that clung to the garden walls was none other than Ivy’snamesake. And since none of Cecil’s poultices seemed to alleviate his discomfort, he resigned himself further to bed. Here he breakfasted and lazed away the day, occasionally calling on a little wooden whistle for Ivy to prepare for him a tray of assorted brandies.
    Sadly, Mr. Flux never felt entirely well again for the complete year he lived there. The yellowish cast his skin possessed upon arrival became more pronounced, spreading alarmingly to the whites of his eyes. He complained of sharp pains while reclining in bed. (Shoo had taken to introducing Ivy’s silvery pushpins into his mattress while he slept, and it resembled more a pincushion than a pallet.)
    In fact, never once did Mr. Flux think of leaving the Hollow Bettle for more predictable digestive arenas. In a thin convalescent’s voice, he would remind the Bettle’s lone maidservant that the Tasters’ Oath to which he’d sworn prevented his