Page 88 of Potion Sickness

“Tell the scholar I appreciate his gusto,” Englebert says, “but also, the answer is no.”

“Gwendolyn,” says Lily.

“No,” he says, after a pause, “but of every guess made this week, that is the one I regret declining.”

“Then what does it stand for?” I ask.

“It stands,” Englebert says, “in the program. Which is where it will remain.”

“Refusing to answer is only going to make it worse. There’s a thread about it in the town Facebook group. Dorcas has a poll going at the bakery.”

“A company requires a mystery in the off-season,” he says, “the way a field requires a cover crop.” He steps off the table and leaves the room, and that is the last word anyone gets out of him on the subject.

* * *

Pru comes by in the afternoon, and another bouquet of flowers is in the passenger seat of her car. She brings them inside.

“They need water,” she says. “My office gets too much sun.”

She gets a vase down from my mother’s cabinet. I make sandwiches and don’t ask. She trims the stems at the sink.

We have lunch at the kitchen table with the flowers between us, and it’s the longest I’ve gone without asking a question since I learned to talk.

Pru is rinsing her plate when she finally mentions it. “I’m not being mysterious to torture you.”

“I know.”

“It’s new. It’s — new things are hard, and I’m out of practice. Everything at the beginning is made of tissue paper. You breathe on it wrong and it falls apart. So I’m keeping it in my pocket a while longer.”

“I understand.”

“For the record, I know who it is,” Englebert says.

“You do not.”

“Of course I do, Marigold. I knew in the second week.” His tail curls over his feet, deeply content. “And unlike you, I shall be saying nothing, because I was asked for discretion by a member of my company, and my discretion is absolute.”

“Thank you, Englebert,” Pru says.

* * *

Genie is the on porch at Hemlock Hill when we pull in, with the Burlington paper’s review on her lap and my Byways feature folded on the little table, weighted down by an empty honey jar.

“There they are,” she says. “The reporter and the crown.”

We’ve brought two jars of honey, a crossword book, another crossword book, and, as always, a bag from the bakery. Dorcas packed herself with an itemized receipt, signed with her name affirming that there are no seeds involved. Genie inspects the bag and nods .

“You came to the show,” Pru says. “You didn’t tell us you were coming to the show.”

“The van was going and I got in the van.”

“You could have come backstage and said hello.”

“And stand in line? Half the state was in that lobby.” She waves this off. “I saw what I came to see. You were the best one. I’m allowed to say that because I’m your mother. But also, it’s true.”

She turns to me. “And Betty’s girl,” she says.

“Tiffany?”