Part 6

(A different book - Mary's found me several now - listed the meaning as "your presence revives me".  After such a miserable call with her relative, I'm sure it will!)

          My first stop is, naturally, at Evelyn's canterbury bells.  They've long since finished blooming, but after drawing them I know the leaves by sight now, so weeding around them is easily done.  Nearby is the bench where I first saw Cora - I turn over the seemingly irreconsilable faces of her personality as I sit and clear out the weeds from around the honeysuckle, re-twining the vines a little more neatly around the trellis in places.  It's still blooming - it's hardly stopped all summer - so I end up dodging a few bees.  The fragrance is absolutely entrancing, its rich spice amplified by the warm summer air.  What was it they meant?  "The bond of love", I think.  I wonder if Cora knew that, if that was the reason for her abstracted expression when I saw her here?
          ...though I wonder now if it remained a bond of love that held them both here, or just obligation and responsibility, for the children, for the sake of the family's reputation.  What could have happened between them, that they cared enough for each other to be married and start a family, but had so little use for each other or that family by the time I met them?  I'm sure both Azal and Cora saw the other as a drain to their life - Azal was a social dead weight to Cora, while she presumably just spent his money and invited over guests that he hated.
          I kneel down beside the bench, clearing out some field grass that's sprung up beneath it.  Then cry out as my hand hits into something unexpectedly hard and solid - thankfully the glove kept me from getting scraped.  I continue yanking out the grass, clearing the space as best I can, and glimspe something reddish in color.  A brick?  Well that's anticlimatic.  I pull it out anyway - and hear something unexpected.  Bricks aren't usually hollow, but I could swear--- yeah, there's definitely something inside this one, rattling around.  I carefully turn the brick over and over, brushing off the mud and muck and decayed plant goo that's accumulated on it over the years.  I think--- there's definitely a too-straight crack along one short end.  I dig my pocket knife out of my bag, and prod at the thin line, trying to figure out where it continues.  Sure enough, it forms a little rectangular panel...ha!  And there's a small notch!  I poke my knife into it, and don't feel anything, so I'm guessing there's no mechanism for a real key or anything, I should just be able to hook into it and pull... if I could find something to pull it with, a skeleton key would be perfect if I had one handy, but I definitely don't.  I keep poking at it with the knife blade, trying to angle it in enough to be able to pull at it a bit.  It budged!  But not much.  I tap and scratch at the edges of the panel, hoping to loosen it.
          I fiddle with the brick long enough that it's starting to make me cranky - but it's always right when you're on the brink of giving up that things tend to work.  The panel pops off, bouncing off my arm and onto the ground with the sudden release.  I let out a very silly whoop of triumph, and eagerly peer inside.  Definitely something in there.  Keeping my gloves on, because God knows what it could be, I put my hand over the now-open end and turn the brick, shaking it gently to dislodge the mystery object.
          The shake was unneccessary, I can feel the weight of something almost as soon as I start leaning the brick over.  Keeping my hand over my lap in case whatever it is falls - and praying it's not something awful like a dead mouse or something - I lift the brick away and set it beside me.
          A bottle!  A very small brown glass bottle, with a faded label on it.  I can't make it out, most of the writing is small, and the label has wrinkled with damp and faded with age.  The cork is still wedged into the top, and I almost pry it out - but then think better of it, remembering how foul Calvin's "medicine" was, and that was something deemed okay to leave in a kid's room, this was hidden outside!
          Uh.
          It's probably very, very poisonous, whatever it is.
          On the bright side, it's unlikely to be radioactive or anything...right?  An image pops into my mind: antique glassware, glowing under a blacklight in a sealed display box at the county fair last year.  Glowing because it was made out of, or lined with, radium I think?  Which was used as a handy glow in the dark paint and things, before people noticed it was killing people.  But that was later, World War I or II.  We weren't making radioactive things in the late 1800s, were we?
          Trying to calm myself back down, I set the bottle on the ground - I've had my gloves on the whole time anyway, that makes me feel a little better.  I brush off the grime and bits of mold as best I can, then take off one glove and pull out my camera.  I lean in close, and take as close of a photo as I can - I'll see if I can't up the contrast on the faint lettering in Photoshop or something, and maybe read it that way.  With my other, still-gloved hand, I move to slip the bottle back into its hiding place.  Given that there was healthy growing grass all around it, it's clearly safe enough there, whatever it is.
          But when I slide the bottle back in, I don't hear a clear clink, like I'd expect a glass bottle hitting brick to.  Is there something else in there?  I remove the bottle again, and lift the brick up to the light, tilting it this way and that to try and get a good look.  I shake the brick a little more - and there, something falls into my hand!
          A stained and dull ribbon, wrapped around a key.  A key!  This makes me laugh, it's such a storybook thing to find in a secret hiding spot.  But then I sober, realizing that I haven't the faintest idea what the key would be for - and, in all likelihood, I'll never know.  If it was anything in the mansion, it's long, long gone...

          Later that night, after fixing myself a vague dinner, I pop my camera's memory card into my computer, and pull up the photo of the mystery bottle.  I'd expected the trip to the garden to cheer me up today, but my concern over the danger of the bottle's contents, and the sad realization that I'm unlikely to find the lock the key was meant for... I don't know, I'm probably not entirely over my illness either.  But I still feel a shadow over me, and I keep thinking about the psychic warning me of the dangerous angry presence hovering around me.  But if she's right - and a year ago, I'd just have laughed, but I've held the hand of a girl who lived a hundred years ago - if she's right about the scary male presence, she'll also be right about the gentler watchful female one too.
          The bottle.  That's a more tangible mystery to focus on.  I turn up the volume on my speakers (my poor drained iPod is charging for the night), letting it play through a nighttime playlist, quieter music to match the hour and my unsettled mood.  It starts out on "Kolniður", by Jónsi, the lead singer from Sigur Rós - not a band I listen to a whole lot normally, but one of my roommates in college was pretty obsessed for awhile, and I can understand why.  I close my eyes a moment, losing myself in the sound as the song crescendos and the singer jumps into his clear pure falsetto.  "Kolniður og myrkur úti, en í mér, ríkir óveður..."  I have no idea what the words mean, but the song feels about right to me just now.  Ominous and unsettled, brief glimpses of pure beauty and light, but surrounded by swirling shadows.
          Opening my eyes, I find the photo loaded up in Photoshop, ready and waiting for me.  Alright.  Let's see what we can do here...

          Half an hour later, I scrub at my tired eyes, and walk away to get a glass of water.  Dehydration will ensure I get a headache, and staring at a screen so closely makes me vulnerable to them.  Sitting back down, I purse my lips, taking a fresh look at the image.  Doesn't look like I'll be able to fix that spot, writing's badly smudged, and the paper was worn or torn away in that other area.  But I've got enough enhanced to identify the stuff:  thallium.  Or, at least, I'm guessing that was the active ingredient, obviously there was no governmental oversight to this stuff at the time, so God knows what all else was in there.  "From the Laboratory Research of Martin S. Heinklein. MOUSE & RAT KILLER.  FAST!  EFFECTIVE!  POISON for all rodent species and other small pests.  Our pure thallium is" and then a torn bit.  "away from children and pets.  OVERNIGHT SUCCESS!  Prepared by M.H. Chemists..." and then the smudged bit.
          Took about two seconds on the internet to determine that thallium is crazy poisonous (apparently used in assassinations and supposedly by spies in the Cold War), and that it was used both as rat poison and as a treatment for some tuberculosis symptoms in the past.  Because, you know, that's a sensible combination of uses.
          Clearly, if you are using rat poison to kill rats, you will keep it someplace you need to keep rats away from.  You don't hide it somewhere no-one will find it.
          A lump in my throat, I hesitate to type, but then look up the symptoms for thallium poisoning, the image of Calvin clearer than any words on the screen before me.