“The lost apothecary” By Sarah Penner
Warnings- spoilers for the food. Mention of suicide, death, and loss of child, possible rape, mentions of sa
“ Just because a woman has rid herself of one melody, a devious husband for instance. Does not mean she is immune to all other melodies.- Nella( ch 3)
“ You must trust your instincts more than your eyes.” -Bachelor Alf (ch 4)
“ To men a maze, I could’ve showed them all they wanted to know at Bear Alley. That a killer need not lift her long delicate hand. She need not touch him as he dies. There are otherwise her ways, vials, and victuals . The apothecary to all of us women. The brewer of our secrets. Men are dead because of us, only it did not happen as I intended. It was not her fault, the apothecary. It was not even mine. I lay blame onto my husband for his thirst for those which was not meant for him.” Ms. Chancellor (ch 8)
“ To die in the arms of a lover as I’d lie alone.”- Nella (ch 10)
“ I could not help but turn my gaze to black fryers bridge. Looking up at the stone arches that supported the structure and lifted it high above the water. I allowed myself to dream for a moment, about the release in freedom that could be so easily ceased with a single step off the bridge. A moment of freefall, a blast of frigid water. Just a moment to be done with this curse, and all the others. To seal the secrets inside and to protect what has been entrusted to me. Just a moment to suck the loss in root out the bones'' - Nella (ch 10)
“ It was a bitter thing to swallow. The realization that I was little more than an empty vessel for Fredericks lust.” -Nella (ch 13)
“ It seemed I couldn’t sort truth from lying any part of my life.”- Caroline (ch 14)
“ People like us need to stick together, and keep at it.” -Gaynor (ch 14)
“ I resolved to continue digging, to push through the dark and look inside at all.”- Caroline (ch 14)
“ The world is not coming to us. There are a few places for a woman to leave an indelible mark.”-Nella (ch 15)
“ The registers important because the names of these women might be otherwise forgotten. They are preserved here, and your pages if nowhere else.” -Eliza (ch 15)
“ The earth knows a secret to disguise. And Minnie would not believe that the Lowfields they tend or the trellis vines under which they kiss, hold poison within their stems. One only need no to look.”- Nella (ch 15)
“ A woman does not need to hide behind a wall if she has no secrets and has done no wrong.”-Nella (ch 15)
“ like a dog with a mouth full of sharp teeth, yet never once attacks. My mothers knowledge was a weapon she never once used.”-Nella (ch 15)
“ I feel like I was protecting myself because he meant to do me harm.”-Eliza (ch 15)
“ His unwelcome touch as much as it repulsed you, why was it different from see a stranger on the street?”-Nella (ch 25)
“ First there was trust, then there was betrayal. You cannot have one without the other. You cannot be betrayed by someone you do not trust.“-Nella (ch 15)
“ This was two decades ago, for the grief is still tender. Like a bruise. Have you ever grieved? Is a terrible, exhausting lonely thing.”-Nella (ch 15)
“ It happens often little Eliza. For that does not make it any less terrible.”-Nella (ch 15)
“ While my story is terrible, every woman has faced a man’s wickedness to some degree.”-Nella (ch 15)
“ I am an apothecary and it is my duty to dispense remedies to women and so over the years they have come to me. And I have sold them what they wish. I have protected their secrets. I’ve Born the brunt of their burdens.”-Nella (ch 15)
“ And where as I thought long ago that issuing pain may ease my own. I was wrong.”-Nella (ch 15)
“ It is a strong puzzle. For as much as I have worked to fix woman’s melodies, I cannot fix my own.”-Nella (ch 15)
“ For this kind of pain, no such tincture exists.”-Nella (ch 15)
“ I may not have been perfectly happy with our life. But I wasn’t the one who threw it away.”-Caroline(ch 16)
“ I guess I’m just not happy. My life has been so safe. So damn predictable.”-James (ch 16)
“ I needed to sit and think for a few minutes. With the steady dim of conversation around me.”-Caroline (ch 16)
“ Not everything in my life was how I imagined it would be. And that I hadn’t lived up to my own potential. And worst of all I’d been to scared to even try.”-Caroline (ch 16)
“ You are unspoiled child, and I am not the kind of company you want to keep.”-Nella (ch 17)
“ Did everything reinvent itself overtime? It was the beginning to seem like every person, every place carried an untold story with long until truths resting just below the surface.”-Caroline (ch 18)
“ Truth be told I was scared. Who knew what was behind that door. Like the lead female character at the start of a horror movie I feel sure the smart thing to do was to run. But I was scared of doing what I was supposed to be doing. Tired of taking a predictable, low risk, responsible route. Instead it was time for me to do what I wanted to be doing.”-Caroline (ch 18)
“ I was not his toy, his plaything.”-Eliza(ch 19)
“ The curse of magic, they believe, is that for every reward there is a great loss. For every spell that goes right there is something else, in the real natural world that goes terribly wrong.“-Tom(ch 19)
“ The demon who decided, long ago, to crawl its way through my body. Crunching and curling my bones. Hardening my knuckles. Wrapping his fingers around my wrists and hips had begun finally to move upward into my skull.”-Nella(ch 20)
“ In my skull it took another form. And agitation, a trimmer, I persistent tap, tap, tap.”-Nella(ch 20)
“ Longing is something I am much equated with, I would manage just fine.”-Nella(ch 20)
“ Why do we go to such lengths to protect the fragile minds of children? We only robbed them of the truth and the chance to become numb to it. Before it arrived with a hard knock on the door.”-Nella(ch 20)
“ Perhaps it was the quantity of non-poison that proved deadly.”-Nella(ch 21)
“No one seemed interested in me. No one even noticed me. I could therefore no help but think it a good day.”-Nella(ch 23)
“To dive into the icy depths of the river Tims. To make myself one with the shadows of Black Fruers Bridge.”-Nella(ch 23)
“Had all of my life led me to this destiny. That fateful moment when the cold would braid around me and pull me under.”-Nella (ch 23)
“I had to go back for her. I had to go back for little Eliza.”-Nella (ch 23)
“Where to begin with this ignorant child. Had she no sense.”-Nella (ch 23)
“I meant even then to protect her.”-Nella (ch 23)
“How much had happened in the recent days, and none of these good.”-Eliza (ch 25)
“ But death was permanent. What earthly objects would I need.”-Nella(ch 27)
“ From the moment of her arrival this childhead unwillingly began to unravel me. Take suppose something inside of me.”-Nella(ch 27)
“ These women were not queens in great heiresses. Rather they were meddling women whose names would not be found in gilded lineage charts.”-Nella(ch 27)
“ No, I would not do it. Obliterate them as easily as I did the first batch of conformities powder. History may dismiss these women but I will not.”-Nella(ch 27)
“ And it was in that I was reminded of more good than bad. Of more life than deaths. Of more blood of births than of deaths.”-Nella(ch 27)
“We began to run. Together.”-Nella(ch 27)
“ We were happy yet unfulfilled. It was possible, I understood now to be both at the same time.”-Caroline(ch 30)
“ This was my burgund. And if there was anything that I learned in recent days it was that secrets wreaked havoc on lives.”-Caroline(ch 30)
“ Thank God. I finally got my answer. I was not pregnant. I was very much not pregnant.”-Caroline(ch 30)
“ Death was close. So close I could feel the coldness of its outstretched arms.”-Nella(ch 32)
“ The seconds preceding my death were not as I expected. Within me there were no no memories of my mother, my lost child, or even Frederick. There was only one memory. A single young one, hardly formed. Little Liza in the first time she appeared at my doorstep.”-Nella(ch 32)
“ Everything placed on the body removed something from it. Call forth or repress it.”-Nella(ch 31)
“ Still shattered it was my still beating heart.”-Nella(ch 31)
“ Her little heart must’ve thought that by bringing the devastation upon us with her mistake she must be the one to take the fall.”-Nella(ch 31)
“ Oh how I wish I’d been gentler with her about the ghost of Mr. Amwell. How I wish I had softened my tone, gained her trust, convinced her what was real and what was not. I wanted more than anything to reverse time and pull her back up or to me.”-Nella(ch 31)
“ It was just me, alone with the end I had always imagined.”-Nella(ch 31)
“ If there was anything in the last few days Tommy. It was shining new light on old truths hidden in dark places.”-Carolins(ch 32)
“ I need to choose me. I need to prioritize me. Not your career, not a baby, not stability and not what everyone else wants of me.”-Caroline(ch 32)
“ I’m going to stop hiding from the truth, which is that my life isn’t what I wanted it to be.”-Caroline(ch 32)
“ It's okay to change, not okay to hide. To bury parts of our self.”-Caroline(ch 32)
“ Now having distanced myself physically and emotionally from this man, I was able to see through him to his real Nature. And it reeked of deceit and unfairness.”-Caroline(ch 32)
“ I could not leave without confessing the life of her, the loss of her.”-Nella(ch 33)
“ But if there’s one thing I do know is the importance of chasing dreams. Believe me, if you want something different, the only person holding you back is you.”-Gaynor(ch 34)
“ You might not be able to see it but I do. You’re talented, you’re intelligent, you’re capable.”-Gaynor(ch 34)
“ But these sorts of questions-especially those about the subtle, mysterious interactions between two women. History doesn’t record the intricacies of women’s relationships with one another; they’re not to be uncovered.”-Caroline (ch 30)
“ It had rescued her, and in some strange way, it had done the same for me.”-Caroline(ch 36)
“ The unknown had once been an unpleasant concept to me, but I now see the opportunity in it.”-Caroline(ch 36)
“ Thinking of all the vial had taught me: that the hardest truths never rest on the surface.”-Caroline(ch 36)
