short fiction · 2026-10-26

The Apothecary's Ledger

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

Mara measured the tincture in drops, not drams. Three drops of rose-oil for the widow's grief — she slept through the night for the first time in months. Seven drops for the young merchant who came shaking, and he left humming, his hands steady on the reins. But the apothecary's own vial, half-empty on the upper shelf, had no label. She had tried four drops, then eight, then sixteen. Each dose brought the same fever: her pulse racing at the sound of footsteps on the cobblestones, her fingers staining everything they touched with a hunger she could not name. The ledger recorded only numbers. It did not record that the cure and the poison were the same liquid, drawn from the same flowers, differing only in the measure — and in who was doing the measuring.