Free The Apothecary by Maile Meloy

Shiskin was standing in the kitchen doorway. “What are you doing with the samovar?” he asked. His accent was more Russian than Sergei’s, less British, and he was even bigger up close. His body filled the door frame and his hands looked the size of baseball mitts.
    “Making tea, sir,” Benjamin said. “Sorry to intrude.”
    “You are Sergei’s friends?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    He gazed past us to the dirty dishes in the sink. “My wife is in Russia,” he explained. “I am not a good housekeeper.”
    “We don’t mind, sir,” Benjamin said. “If you and Sergei want to sit in the parlour, we’re about to do an experiment.”
    Mr Shiskin’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What experiment?”
    “We’ll show you,” Benjamin said, with the air of a magician about to do a trick. “It’s science . Please, have a seat in there.”
    The two Shiskins removed themselves reluctantly to the little front parlour, and Benjamin and I stuffed the crushed leaves into the samovar’s teapot and filled it with boiling water from the urn. We could hear the Shiskins talking together, and I heard the words “science competition” mixed in with the Russian.
    “You think it’ll work in the samovar?” I asked.
    “I don’t know,” Benjamin said. “We’ll have to pour it into something else.”
    I handed him the only clean teacup from a row of hooks, and we filled it with the pale greenish brew. “Just don’t smell it yourself,” I said. “Or we’ll start confessing everything.”
    Benjamin took the cup in one hand, held a tea towel over his face with the other, and headed into the parlour. I followed.
    “The very fascinating thing about this herb,” Benjamin told the Shiskins, through the towel, “is the way the smell changes, over time. It starts out very sharp and exhilarating. Here, please try.” He held the cup out.
    Mr Shiskin leaned away. “Why do you cover your face?”
    “I’m getting a cold, sir. Please, smell the tea before it changes.”
    “You smell it first. It might be dangerous.”
    “Oh, I’ve already smelled it,” Benjamin said.
    “And you are sick!”
    “An unrelated winter cold. I don’t want to infect you.”
    Mr Shiskin crossed his thick arms over his chest. “We are Russian. We don’t get colds.”
    Sergei said something imploring to his father and the older man finally sighed, uncrossed his arms, and leaned over the diminishing steam from the cup. He seemed startled by the smell, and looked up sharply at Benjamin.
    “Where did you get this plant?” he asked.
    “In—in the park.”
    Mr Shiskin lunged from his chair towards Benjamin, surprisingly agile in spite of his size and his wooden leg. “Chush sobach’ya!” he said. “ You smell it, and then tell me again where you found it!”
    I backed into the kitchen, and Benjamin backed up after me, holding the teacup in front of him like a weapon. Mr Shiskin seemed even bigger and more powerful now that he was angry.
    Sergei was mortified. “Leave them alone, Papa!” he said. “They’re going to let me on their science team!”
    “They are not your science team!” Mr Shiskin said.
    Sergei ducked in front of his father, arms spread wide, and stood protecting us. “Three years we have lived here,” he said, “and this is the first time my friends ever came to visit, and now you chase them out!”
    “They are not your friends,” his father said, pushing him aside. “They invent this to get to me.”
    I stumbled backward in a panic, and my sleeve caught the silver spout of the samovar. I tried to steady the urn, but it crashed to the floor. The hot water spilled out of the teapot, and the whole kitchen was filled with the bracing, minty smell of the leaves. There was no avoiding breathing it in.
    “Where did you get this plant?” Mr Shiskin asked again.
    The giddy feeling came over me: the compulsion to blurt out the answer. I bit my tongue until it hurt, but I couldn’t stop myself. “At the Chelsea Physic