After Uranus’s downfall, Chronos went slowly mad. Obsessed with the idea his children would destroy him, as he had destroyed his own father, he ate the babies his sister/wife Rhea gave him as quickly as they were born. But she saved the last one, Zeus, and hid him until it was time for him to fulfill Chronos’s fears by becoming the ruler of a new crop of gods.
Rhea knew Chronos’s madness was the work of creatures he himself had created, by committing the world’s first murder; the goddesses of revenge, known as the Furies. Their names were Alecto (who Perseveres in Anger), Maegara (the Jealous One) and Tisiphone (the Blood Avenger.)
They were dreadful beings. To placate them, men sometimes called them the Eumenides, or Kindly Ones.
But this is just a story.
By the Mark
All naming is already murder.
—Lacan.
Hepzibah, she called herself, mouthing the syllables whenever she thought no one else was looking. Hep-zi-bah. A powerful name, with strength in every note of it; a witch’s name. She whispered it in each night’s darkness, dreaming of poisons.
Outside, across the great divide between schoolyard and backyard, she knew her garden lay empty, sere and withered, topsoil still bleak with frost. Snow festered, greying, on top of the trumpet-vine’s dead tangle. Behind that, the fence; further, a sloping away. Down past graffiti in full seasonal bloom, down into the mud at the base of the bridge, into the shadows under the pass, where the “normal” kids fought and kissed and loudly threatened suicide.
Into the Ravine.
One month more until spring. Then the nightshade bushes on either side of the property line would be green, each leaf bitter with possibilities.
But here she sat in Wang’s homeroom class, textbooks laid open on the desktop in front of her: Fifth Grade English like an endless boring string of Happiness-Is-To-Me, When-I-Grow-Up-I, My-Favorite- Whatever Journal exercises, Fifth Grade math like hieroglyphics in Martian. Real reading matter poking out from underneath, just barely visible whenever she squinted hard enough—Perennials and Parasites, A City Garden Almanac; roots and shoots, pale green print on pale cream paper, a leftover swatch of glue from where she’d ripped the school library slip off the inside back cover still sticking its back pages together. She sat there scanning entries while Mr. Wang reeled off roll-call behind her, desperately searching for something, anything she could recognize from that all-too-familiar tangle of weeds along the winding path she usually took home, wasting as much time as possible until Ravine finally turned to driveway and the house—
—“her“ house—
—that place where she lived, on Janice and Doug’s sufferance, reared itself up against the sky like a tumor, a purse-lipped mouth poised to pop open and swallow her whole.
“Diamond, Jennifer,” Wang droned, meanwhile, back in the world nine people out of ten seemed to agree was real. “Edgecomb,
Caroline. Garza, Shelby. Gilford, Darien. Goshawk . . . ”
Daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus); Looks like: Star-shaped bright yellow corona of petals around a bonnet-shaped bell, with long, tulip-like stem and leaves. Toxic part: Bulbs, which are often mistaken for onions. Symptoms: Nausea, gastroenteritis, vomiting, persistent emesis, diarrhoea, and convulsive trembling which may lead to fatality.
“Often mistaken for onions . . . “ like the kind Doug insisted on in his micro-organic salad, maybe. So no one’d be likely to question her having them, even away from the kitchen. Even hidden somewhere in her room . . .
She frowned, tapping the textbook’s covering page. “May lead,” though; not good enough. Not nearly good enough, for what she had in mind.
“Herod, Kevin. Hu, Darlanne. Isaak, Stephanie.”
Oleander (Nerium oleander); Looks like: Smallish, wide-spread pansylike blooms on thin, tough stems with floppy leaves; Toxic part: Entire plant, green or dried—when a branch of an oleander plant is used to skewer meat at a barbecue, the poison is transferred to the meat; Symptoms: Nausea, depression, lowered and irregular pulse, bloody diarrhoea, paralysis and possibly death.
Nausea, depression—nothing new there, she thought, with a black little lick of humor. But Jesus, wasn’t there anything in here that didn’t come naturally (ha, ha) attached to having to roll on the floor and shit yourself to death? Anything that just made you . . . God, she didn’t know . . . fall asleep, sink into peaceful darkness, just drift off and never wake up?
Aside from those pills in Janice’s cupboard, the ones she’d probably miss before you even could swallow ’em? A little voice asked, at the back of her mind. No, probably not. ‘Cause that’d be way too easy.
And if she wanted easy, then why play around with plants and leaves and tubers at all? Why not just straddle the rough stones of the St. Clair East bridge, shut her eyes and let go, like any normal person?
Choose her spot, avoid the trees, and there wouldn’t be anything to break her fall but gravity. A mercifully short plunge, brief downward rush of wind and queasy freedom, with maybe one short, sharp shock as her head met the rocks below . . .
“Jenkins, Jason. Jowaczyk, William. Lien, Elvis.”
Deadly Nightshade (Atropa belladonna); Looks like: Drooping white bloom over broad, veiny leaves, berries couched in beds of wispy leaflets; Toxic part: Entire plant, especially bright black berries; Symptoms: Dry mouth and difficulty in swallowing and speaking, flushed dry skin, rapid heartbeat, dilated pupils and blurred vision, neurological disturbances including excitement, giddiness, delirium, headache, confusion and hallucinations. Repeated ingestion can lead to dependency and glaucoma.
Not exactly deadly, then, is it? She thought, annoyed—and raised her head right at the same time that Wang raised his voice, all eyes already skittering to check her reaction: “Heather Millstone.”
(You mean Hepzibah. Don’t you?)
“Present.”