Welcome back to Mercy's Quiet Rebellion: Secrets of the 1776 Apothecary.
In Chapter 1, Mercy Hathaway took in a wounded stranger carrying dangerous intelligence. Now, as British soldiers grow increasingly watchful, the quiet safety of her apothecary is about to be tested. Secrets hidden behind locked doors have a way of attracting attention.
Chapter 2: The Search in the Backroom
The chamomile had dried to a pale whisper in its jar, and still Mercy's hands moved through the familiar motions of her craft. She measured powdered valerian into a folded paper, the small brass scale tipping gently under the weight. Four days since she had stitched Jeremiah Finch's shoulder in the cramped back room. Four days of listening for the tread of boots outside, of watching Patience watch her with those bright, too-observant eyes.
"The feverfew is running low," Patience said from the workbench. She did not look up from the mortar, but her hands had slowed on the pestle. "And the wound salves. You said we'd begin them three days ago."
Mercy folded the paper packet with a single crease. "We'll begin them tomorrow."
"You said that yesterday."
"Patience."
The girl's jaw tightened, but she said nothing more. The pestle resumed its grinding, a steady stone-on-stone rhythm that filled the shop's close air. Outside, the morning had given way to a grey midday, the light through the small windows thin as watered milk. Mercy set the valerian packet aside and reached for the rosemary, her fingers brushing the locked cabinet where she kept the stranger's coded message still undelivered. Silas had not returned. The miller had never received his intelligence. And Jeremiah Finch lay in the back room with a wound that was healing too slowly and a fever that came and went like an unwelcome visitor.
She had begun a recipe that morning, a common tonic for nervous complaint, but the proportions were wrong. Too much skullcap, not enough lavender. Any competent herbalist would see the error. Silas would know to read the excess as a signal, the missing ingredient as a location. She had not yet decided what intelligence to encode, but the framework was there, waiting, and the act of writing it felt like laying a snare.
The first sound of boots on cobblestone reached her before she saw them. A rhythmic, unhurried tread, too regular for a single man. Mercy's hand stopped on the rosemary jar.
Patience heard it too. Her pestle went still.
"Customers?" Patience asked, but her voice had gone thin.
Mercy did not answer. She moved to the front window, her skirts brushing the floorboards, and peered through the small panes. Four soldiers in the red wool of His Majesty's army, their white crossbelts stark in the grey light. At their head, an officer she did not recognize, his coat darker than the others, his bearing rigid. Major Davies, she would later learn. He had the face of a man who enjoyed being thorough.
The shop bell rang as the door swung open.
"Madam," the major said, stepping inside. His men waited on the cobblestones, their muskets held at rest. "I am Major Davies. We are conducting a search of the establishments along this street for contraband and seditious materials. I trust you will not object."
Mercy's heart had become a small, tight fist. She felt it in her throat, in the pulse at her wrists. But her hands, when she folded them at her waist, were steady. The back room door was closed. The bolt was drawn. Jeremiah Finch, if he was conscious, would know to keep silent. If he was not conscious, silence would keep itself.
"You are welcome to search, Major," she said. "Though I keep only herbs and tinctures here. Nothing seditious."
Davies surveyed the shop with the slow, practiced gaze of a man who had searched many rooms. His eyes passed over the jars, the scales, the bundles of dried yarrow hanging from the rafters.
"You are an apothecary, then."
"I am."
"A respectable trade." He moved toward the workbench, where Patience stood frozen beside the mortar. "And this is your shop girl?"
"My apprentice," Mercy said. "Patience Woolsey. She is learning the craft."
Davies nodded, his attention already shifting to the jars. He lifted a small bottle of lavender oil and held it to the light.
"You make all your remedies here?"
"I do." Mercy stepped closer to the workbench, positioning herself between the major and the back room door. "I have been preparing a new tonic for nervous complaints. A complex formulation. The skullcap must be harvested at precisely the right moment, you see, or the tincture loses its efficacy."
Davies set down the lavender oil and turned to her.
"I did not ask about skullcap."
"No," Mercy said. "But you are a man of duty, Major. You understand precision. The timing of a harvest is not unlike the timing of a patrol, I imagine. Both require a certain attention to detail."
His eyes narrowed, but she had caught his interest.
"You speak of patrols as though you know something of them."
"I know only what I observe from my window," Mercy said. "The garrison has been here six months. One notices patterns. The morning patrol passes at eight. The evening patrol at six. The officers change their routes on Tuesdays."
Davies smiled, a thin expression that did not reach his eyes.
"You are observant."
"A widow alone must be."
Patience had not moved from her place by the mortar. Her hands were pressed flat on the workbench, her knuckles pale. She was staring at Mercy with an expression that was not quite fear and not quite awe.
"I will need to inspect the back room," Davies said.
Mercy's stomach dropped, but her voice remained even.
"Of course. It is only storage. Drying racks, a cot for nights when I work late. Nothing of interest to the Crown."
She moved toward the door, her hand finding the bolt.
The room was dim. The single window, high on the wall, let in a shaft of grey light that fell across the cot where Jeremiah Finch lay.
He was still.
So still.
Mercy did not look at him.
She looked at Davies.
"You sleep here?" Davies asked.
"On occasion. When a batch requires tending through the night."
He nodded slowly. His gaze swept the room once more, then returned to her.
"You run a fine, honest establishment, Mistress Hathaway. It is a comfort to know there are still loyal subjects in this colony."
"I am loyal to my craft," Mercy said.
Davies smiled again, and this time the expression was almost warm. He believed her. He saw a woman, a widow, a harmless keeper of herbs.
"We are finished here," he told his men.
The soldiers turned and filed out into the grey street. The door swung shut. The bell rang once, then was silent.
Mercy stood in the center of the shop, her hands at her sides.
The quiet rushed back in.
"You knew they were coming," Patience said softly. "You knew, and you just stood there and talked about skullcap."
Mercy turned.
"I did not know they were coming. I only knew they might."
"And the back room?"
Mercy did not answer. She walked to the workbench and picked up the recipe she had begun that morning. The coded one, with its deliberate errors. She folded it twice and tucked it into her apron pocket.
Later, she would finish it.
Later, she would find Silas Thorne.
But now she looked at Patience and saw the question in the girl's face, the question she was not yet ready to ask aloud.
"We'll begin the wound salves tomorrow," Mercy said. "As I promised."
Patience opened her mouth, then closed it.
She looked at the back room door, then at Mercy, and something in her expression shifted.
Not understanding.
Not yet.
But the beginning of it.
The first thin crack in the surface of what she had believed.
"Yes," Patience said. "Tomorrow."
Outside, the grey light thickened toward afternoon. The cobblestones were empty now, the soldiers gone. Mercy stood at the window and watched the street until the tension in her shoulders began to loosen, and behind her, in the back room, Jeremiah Finch breathed on.
Mercy's Quiet Rebellion continues with Chapter 3, Fever Like Obadiah's, as Mercy faces a challenge far more personal than British soldiers—a fever that awakens memories she has spent years trying to forget.
— Tami Roberts