Page 10 of Potion Sickness

“Then I’ll be brief.” He tips his head at her wineglass. “Let me get you something better than that. The good stuff. They must have a bottle in the back they’re saving.”

“This is a pub in Duskboro, Damien. They’re not saving anything.”

“You know, in the city, there’s a little place in the West Village–”

“We’re not in the city.”

“No,” he says. “No, we’re not.” He laughs. “You were luminous tonight, by the way. The letter scene. I’ve stood on stages with Tony winners, Prudie, actual Tony winners, and–”

“Dorcas is back,” Pru says.

Dorcas is indeed back, standing over him with a pint in one hand.

“That’s my chair,” she says.

Damien relocates with a bow that gets a single laugh somewhere on the opposite side of the room. Skye, from her position near the wall, catches the bow on her phone. She’s been filming everyone intermittently all night, including forty seconds of Englebert silently drinking his cream that I suspect will do numbers online.

Pru watches Damien go, then looks at me.

“Don’t,” she says.

“I said nothing.”

“You made a face. Hannah is rubbing off on you,” she says, standing up. “I’m going to get another drink.”

Tiffany, I notice, has watched the entire exchange from a nearby table and is fixated on Pru. She’s been in a mood all evening, since Englebert coached the witches for twenty minutes during rehearsal and spent most of them on Moonbeam.

She catches me looking and comes over.

“You should be writing this down,” she says, tilting her head toward Damien. “This is the story, right there. Famous actor chasing the washed-up lawyer around a pub. Very dignified. Very Broadway.”

“I’m off the clock.”

“Journalists are never off the clock. You told me that in tenth grade. You were insufferable about it, even back then.” She turns the stem of her glass. “But seriously, though. You know what nobody’s asked me tonight? Not one single person? Nobody has asked me how the understudy work is going. I run every line she runs. I stay for every note she gets. If Prudence Wardwell trips on a curb tomorrow, this whole production is my two hands, and the cat has never once—” She stops herself, recalibrates, and smiles. “I’m just saying. Somebody at this party should be interviewing the person doing two jobs.”

“I’m off the clock,” I repeat, and head to join Pru at the bar.

Annabel is on the last stool, with Skye beside her, and Skye is asking questions.

“—so like, the shop, it’s books but it’s also. The other stuff. The jars.”

“The apothecary side, yeah,” Annabel says.

“Teas, tinctures, salves. Depends what somebody needs.”

“But it’s, like, local stuff. Traditional,” Skye says, picking at her napkin. “Because I read that small towns up here have, like…Remedies. Old ones. That actually — that people say actually work.”

“Some things work,” Annabel says, carefully. “Chamomile works. Arnica works. My grandmother’s cold remedy works, mostly because it’s fifty percent honey.”

“Right. Ha. Right.” She pauses. “But like, if someone wanted something more… I don’t know. Specific. Is that a thing you can do? Do people ask you for specific stuff?”

“People ask me for all kinds of things,” Annabel shrugs. “Come by the shop. First consultation’s free and so’s the tea.”

“Okay. Yeah. Maybe. I mean… yeah.”

I collect my IPA and don’t linger. The poor girl is twenty-three and dating a man twice her age whose face has been professionally maintained for her entire lifetime. Of course she’s working up the nerve to ask a witch about beauty potions. She probably heard about it from Tiffany.

I feel briefly, uselessly sorry for her, and then Gabe pulls out the chair next to him and pats it, and I stop thinking about Skye at all.