Today's Reading
CHAPTER THREE
As I panned across the windows of the terraced houses through the telescope, the woman screamed again, so I moved my head back for a broader view in time to see the rear window of the house opposite mine slam shut. I stared at it, then lowered my head back to the eyepiece, adjusted the focus, and saw through the dimly lit window two figures: a woman kneeling, holding her head, and a man standing over her. They were in the rear half of a small room. There was a sofa, an open laptop on a coffee table, a television, and a desk covered with books and papers. I could see right through the room to the windows at the front of the house, and through those to the streetlight outside. For a moment, I marveled at the power of the telescope, then pulled back to focus on the woman. Her long dark hair was falling forward to cover her face. She was swaying back and forth on her knees and flexed feet. But even though the light was low, I knew it was Psycho.
The man was leaning down, trying to see her face, his mouth moving rapidly. Suddenly, he grabbed her hair and dragged her head backward, forcing her face up, and when he raised an arm above his head, his fist clenched, I uttered three words. I hadn't spoken aloud for days, so they came out as a croak.
"Leave her alone."
After a suspended moment, he let go of her hair, dropped his arm, and left the room, and I felt a small victory as I watched him through the front windows on the street outside, walking away. I moved the focus back to Psycho. She was standing now, pushing back her hair, rubbing her hands on her thighs. She walked to the rear window and looked out over the gardens. I adjusted the focus for a clearer view of her face and frowned. For someone who'd just been struck to the floor, she didn't appear cowed at all. If I was to hazard a guess, I would day her expression of was on fury.
I noticed a trickle of blood crawling slowly from her hairline to her cheekbone. She noticed as well because she touched it, inspected her fingertips, and put them into her mouth. My stomach muscles tightened at this, and I released a long-held breath. As if she'd heard me, she looked in my direction, and even though I knew she couldn't see me, I ducked down among the plants, and in so doing, accidentally brushed the back of my hand across a leaf, causing the
plant's fine hairs to embed in my skin. Hissing with annoyance, I deftly pulled out the hairs, then took a phial from a leather pouch around my neck and applied some cream. Within an hour, there would be blisters and swelling, but I hoped I'd acted quickly enough to prevent the poison from entering my bloodstream. I crouched among the plants for a further five minutes, cursing my stupidity, then cautiously peered over the railings, but the light was off in the room and Psycho was gone.
Over the following weeks, I often felt compelled to interrupt a task to look through the telescope at Psycho's window, a forgotten mist bottle or propagation brush hanging loosely in my hand, and justified these frequent breaks in my routine as necessary checks on her safety. She wasn't at home much during the day but often had visitors in the evening—all men—so after the attack, I decided to stop observing the other neighbors and only record these appearances, jotting down the time of arrival, the duration of stay, and a brief description of their activity. I also made a detailed study of each man. This I did scientifically, as if cataloguing the taxonomy, morphology, and toxicity of a plant, attributing a classification to each of them and giving them the common name of a poisonous plant. I knew I was not a good judge of character, but I did know plants, and one thing was increasingly obvious: these men were toxic.
Specimen A. The man with the ridged scar and cowboy boots, who'd hit her and made her bleed the night it all began. She seemed frightened of him but let him into her flat anyway. I named him Castor. Toxicity classification: blood. Fatal.
Specimen B. Perhaps a personal tutor, who sat beside her at her desk, leafing through books and making notes. I noted that she seemed to find these lessons difficult, because she often stood abruptly to pace the room, her arms gesticulating. He touched her a lot when she did this, which I assumed she liked, because at the end of each lesson, they shared a meal. I named him Foxglove and gave him the toxicity classification of neuromuscular—a group of poisons that attack the brain. Also fatal.
Specimen C. The eccentrically dressed young man with long blond hair, with whom she was always arguing and who spent the entirety of every visit sprawled on her sofa, drinking red wine from a bottle. He always seemed to be in despair, and she always seemed to be shaking her head and rolling her eyes at him. I named him Jimsonweed and gave him the toxicity classification of nerve—a group of poisons that are hallucinogenic and can cause mental confusion, headaches, coma, and eventually death. Fatal.
Specimen D. A muscular young man with dark eyes and an urgent manner. She always seemed to be persuading him to sit down, but he always jumped up again and stood rigidly before her, as if his muscles were coiled too tight. I named him False Hellebore and gave him the toxicity classification of muscular—a group of poisons that attack the muscles and the organs that rely upon them. Also fatal.
Incidental visitors such as meter readers and deliverymen were named Poison Ivies and classified as skin irritants: nonfatal.
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