#Chapter 95: Herb

Evelyn The scent of crushed herbs clung to my hands and wafted around us, earthy and sharp, as I ground more into the mortar. Admittedly, I was just glad that the medical wing no longer smelled of blood. I did not miss the absence of pained groans either. My muscles ached from hours bent over the worktable, ceaselessly crushing, mixing, and then testing the various concoctions that resulted, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. If I stopped, I’d think. I refused to slip into the many swirling thoughts that plagued me. Even then, hours into these experiments, I felt my mind drifting ceaselessly toward the thoughts I was trying so to avoid. I batted away memories of Logan’s mother’s face in those last moments or the way some of her ragged last words had been wielded to blame me as if I’d put the wolfsbane in her veins myself. Chris was quiet beside me as I worked. He had arrived several hours before to tend to his own tasks, which mostly involved refilling the significantly dwindle