“Mrs. Fitch's Compassionate Tea---contains plant essences only. Listed below, the ingredients: Matricaria recutita, rosehips, passion flower, fennel, and more. Especially beneficial for ladies' ailments. Add harp song when in season.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“Lavender's thoughts returned to the poetry, and Robert reading it, canting, rich-toned, about hands, kisses.
It shall be you.
Having no smelling salts nearby, Lavender moved matters to a more pragmatic realm. "I must warm the tea," she told Robert. For the pot had sat, untouched, for some time, and had surely cooled.
(In the kitchen, she loosened her collar, to alleviate her overheated state, to avoid becoming a sweaty brook.)”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“Garden season deepened. The lantern flies winked and blinked. Poppies flaunted their scarlet robes. Ants feasted in the peonies, and protected them from invaders. The pear tree blossomed. Lavender sensed her mother's presence, just past the first layer of fragrant air. In the parlor, the harp stood, silent, as before. But its silence didn't grieve Lavender. Its magic had wintered her through part of the journey that brought her to where she was now.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“The garden awoke in spring, glorious. Rhubarb, bellwort, bloodroot, blue squill; violets carpeted the earth, and in the woods, trilliums, twayblade, cowslips, cress, lady's slipper, wild iris, wild ginger, wild pussy willows, wild, wild everything. Robert Trout and his fiancée, Lavender, walked often there, and by the river. Her mother's old haunts. All of it a wonder to Robert, for his constant travels over the past years had begun to render most landscapes an indistinct blur. He'd not attended closely to the earth's springtime bounties; there was never time. Now he was like a boy, exclaiming over each tender sprout, each clump of new moss, and "Look, here's one with a thousand tiny white stars." Lavender told him the names of the many early blooms. And their meanings. It was her school of flowers, she quipped. "And here is one named especially for you, Robert---a trout lily. For us." They stopped. She showed him its lovely mottled leaves, creamy belled petals. "And see," she continued, "how it bows its head, as if too bashful to reveal its face. And like we humans, these beauties sleep at night and open themselves in morning's light.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“This was my errand in Kingston," he said. "Look inside."
Lavender opened the case. A ring sparkled within. An exquisite one, gemstones patterned in a daisy cluster, gold band. She gasped at the diamond flower's intricate beauty.
"Try it on," Robert urged. "Left hand, wedding finger."
Her cheeks flamed.
It fit. Then she felt terrible. "I shouldn't have doubted you, Robert."
His eyes, beloved constellations. "No, you shouldn't have doubted me. But now, if you could just say yes, I'd be forever----"
"Yes," she said. "Forever.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“March winds blew benevolent, and nearing the day of shamrock observance, with all its anxiousness and pomp due to the Orange menace, the snowdrops bloomed, and shoots of tulip bulbs angled towards the sky. And rain. The Village Crier had cried correctly---the Farmer's Almanac too---early spring!”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“Lavender, at one snuff party, said she dreamed of growing flowers that soared to the sky, titan delphiniums, for if her mother was "up there," in the place called heaven, those tall blue blooming spires might form a ladder, allowing her mother to step down for a visit to earth.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“Generosity was an art, it seemed, that needed honing, cultivating---like floriculture. But just now she'd been blunt as borage. Austere as thistle. But perhaps sweetbrier, too, during in order to heal?”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“To my garden I thee hie---
For soon all summer's beauties die;
For lasting gems, for future frock
Seek not the soaring bee---
Look down!----the rock.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“Though the garden brought no profit in winter, it had its own beauty. The white canopy over the glass house sparkled on bright days. The gazing ball grew a crystalline moon. Downy snow on the herb beds and flower gardens caught the light in soft, variant blues and mauves. Reddily clustered berries against the drifts formed a pretty picture. A frosted crescent blanketed the bench where Lavender and her father used to sit, listening to Amaryllis Fitch's divine harp concerts. And the winter garden wasn't silent, either. Chickadees in their black caps twittered about, and Lavender left a pan of seeds out for them. Rabbits' tracks crooked across the slumbering perennials and bulbs.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“She drank the rest of the tea, still reeling from Whitman's words.
Then the harp began to play---lustily, with stirring effect, seeming to fancy itself an entire symphony---"Ode to Joy.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“And the thought of her garden---ballast and bread, those blooms and vines and spinney sprigs. Herbs that comforted, cured. Growing conditions had been ideal that summer. Resplendent. Delphinium spires soared their prettiest periwinkle blue; roses clambered over the arbor, luxuriant ivy slumped languidly like legions of lounging ladies. Myrtle gleamed so waxen Lavender almost saw a miniature of her face reflected back in its leaves. Ferns forested. Hollyhocks hollered their joy. Aromatic too, pears from her mother's tree. Even the moss spread ardent, brashly ambitious. The borage grew boisterous. And yarrow, always yarrow. And purple lavender, her namesake. Though some flower dictionaries ascribed a wary, ambiguous meaning to lavender, her mother long ago had asserted the contrary, that lavender equated calmness, serenity.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“Sun so generous it shall be you,
Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you,
You sweaty brooks and dew it shall be you,
Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you,
Broad muscular fields, branches of liveoak, loving lounger in my winding paths, it shall be you,
Hands I have taken, face I have kissed, mortal I have ever touched, it shall be you."


Robert stopped, and surveyed her face. Waiting, Lavender supposed, for a response.
"The passage strikes me as amorous and carnal, Sir. The parlor grows cold. We need more fire." She rose quickly and scratched around with kindling and sticks Arlo Snook had, in his habitual way, stacked neatly by the fireplace. The task allowed her to turn away from Robert, for in truth, Whitman's words unsettled her, their anatomy parts she'd heard only in ladies' physical education at Cobourg Academy.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“In the other story, the real one that must be nurtured with the gentleness of a seedling plant, two days hence would bring leaves, grass and Robert Trout. His visit must remain clandestine, his company continue; there were too many questions, too much poetry to hear, more harp song perhaps. And the genial hum of him. Peculiar to feel such kinship with a stranger. And sympathy for his rootless plight filled Lavender like an interior stream---a rill and beck that coursed through her veins and chased the coracle of her heart along at a pace so rapid she trembled at the risk of it capsizing, tossing her onto the shores of some barren, alien planet.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“Moss was one of those things that, once one was aware of it, was everywhere. She knew its subspecies from botanical books: bearded moss, bog moss, grizzled emerald, twisted moss. Reindeer moss. Emerald tufted stubble. Toothless moss. Maidenhair. Wooly fringe. It was the earth's pantry, feeding its surroundings. Expansive green mother. Lavender recalled one species in her own garden that, to the touch, felt like her mother's hair. Mother-hair moss. In a floriography book, Lavender had read that moss stood for motherhood, charity. All the more to adore.
She perused the ground, found:
pocket moss
pincushion bristle
wasted-tea moss
stubble-on-a-boy's-chin moss
prickly oracle moss
heart's tussle

Oh, the tales moss told.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“Your mother was a different flavor of cake, Lavie. Lovely, but a little fey, if I may say.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“Mr. Whitman's poetry is timeless, and its profundity defies death."
That, then, was Mr. Whitman.
"And what name ascribes to his powerful book, Sir?"
"Leaves of Grass," Robert asserted with such intensity, such rapture, the unharmed half of his face reddened almost as deeply as the damaged side.
Leaves? Grass? Lavender's pulse quickened with the possibility that the book might pertain to botany. "At the train station you assured me I'd hear Whitman's words," she said. "And"---again, what boldness surged from her lips---"I mean to hold you to it."
"Hold me to it, please, Miss Fitch. Time may not permit just now, but I'd like nothing better than to share Walt Whitman's genius. It makes a vast improvement over the topic of death--- though he expounds most lyrically on that topic, among a vast range of others."
Again, Lavender wished she could preserve Robert's words, like beets in brine, or painted images on canvas, or a face suspended, by mercury vapor, on a silver plate, so she could more fully reflect upon them later.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“While Lavender wasn't keen on listening to a sermon (if this Whitman was, in fact, a clergy), she longed to study the book of Robert's face further, a book pulled, half burnt, from a fire. So much was written there, from the depths of suffering, Lavender didn't doubt, to ecstasy's heights, and the deep, innate sensibility required to worship---his word---at her floral cart, to see it for what it was, a little cathedral on wheels. She'd never met anyone who grasped flowers' import and beauty---profound, fleeting---to that extent; it was like meeting a kindred soul. Kindred, yet at the same time he seemed to her like someone who'd tumbled, in his best clothes, from some faraway constellation. She'd never met anyone like him.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“The onlookers' rudeness irked Lavender. How quickly their veneer of courtesy fell away. Beholding the man, they acted as if they viewed an exhibit in some monstrous hall of wonders. Terrible as the ruined side of his face was to look upon, balancing it, the good half was nothing short of godlike.
He stopped in front of her floral cart. As if swished away by some invisible magician's wand, the gawking masses faded, leaving only quietude---a radical privacy---as though a glass dome ventilated with fresh oxygen closed over the two of them, and they alone existed in the world.
"Your flowers steal my breath away," he said.
He wished to make a purchase.
"How many bouquets or tussie-mussies, Sir?"
"All of them," the man said, then pointed to the sachet that had, earlier, toppled into the dirt. "What is this?"
"A scent-filled sachet."
"Sewn with your own hands, I presume?" the man asked.
She nodded.
"What fills it?"
"Achillea millefolium. Yarrow. It heals. Protects. It's also known as a love charm."
"Heals, you say?" The man sighed. "If only it could." Then he inquired the cost---of everything.
Normally, Lavender ciphered like the wind, but a tallying void struck. She told him... a number... some totted up, air-castle sum bolted from her mouth.
He paid her. The sum almost overflowed her hands. She transferred the bounty into her coin purse.
"I worship at your cart," the man declared. "And tomorrow, with even the slightest sliver of serendipity, you shall hear Mr. Whitman's divine words.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“Then the tall, frock-coated gentleman turned to fix Lavender squarely in his gaze. Her eyes locked reciprocally. Then full shock---his face---half heaven, half ravaged! The ravaged half the shade of beets. Burnt. Scarred. Quite horrific. Deeply unsettling, this damage. Bystanders near Lavender, noting his disfigurement, pointed rudely. Several children sent out squeals of fear and repugnance, and ducked away. But Lavender held her eyes steady, captivated by the man's deep, intense expression suffused with intelligence, kindness and sorrow. Such a complex visage she'd never before witnessed, a face like a book pulled from a fire, half charred, half intact, a volume needing much study to fathom. What calamity had inflicted this damage? He hardly seemed of the world, more like he'd fallen from some distant star.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“Tall, with an erect, stately, equestrian bearing, the lady possessed an esoteric beauty. If botanic, she'd be a night-blooming cereus. She was peerless as a lady in a sonnet. Or a willowy figure who'd leapt to life and stepped forth from the pages of Godey's Lady's Book. If Allegra Trout hadn't been a medium, she'd have been a fashion plate, or priestess.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden

“In addition to the rose stems, she'd stashed some stalks of yarrow---Fitch's yarrow, harp-song yarrow, as local people called it. They bought it for protection, healing or, often, a love charm. Lavender knew yarrow's other, more shadowy names: werewolf's tail, witch's weed, bad man's plaything.”
― Jeanette Lynes, The Apothecary's Garden