(“So I am asleep,” Conor said.)
(Quiet, said the monster. Here he comes. And Conor saw a sour-looking man with heavy black clothes and a deep, deep frown climbing the hill towards them.)
Along the edge of this green lived a man. His name is not important, as no one ever used it. The villagers only ever called him the Apothecary.
(“The what?” Conor asked.)
(The Apothecary, said the monster.)
(“The what?”)
Apothecary was an old-fashioned name, even then, for a chemist.
(“Oh,” Conor said. “Why didn’t you just say?”)
But the name was well-earned, because apothecaries were ancient, dealing in the old ways of medicine, too. Of herbs and barks, of concoctions brewed from berries and leaves.
(“Dad’s new wife does that,” Conor said as they watched the man dig up a root. “She owns a shop that sells crystals.”)
(The monster frowned. It is not remotely the same.)
Many a day the Apothecary went walking to collect the herbs and leaves of the surrounding green. But as the years passed, his walks became longer and longer as the factories and roads sprawled out of town like one of the rashes he was so effective in treating. Where he used to be able to collect paxsfoil and bella rosa before morning tea, it began to take him the entire day.
The world was changing, and the Apothecary grew bitter. Or rather, more bitter, for he had always been an unpleasant man. He was greedy and charged too much for his cures, often taking more than the patient could afford to pay. Nevertheless, he was surprised at how unloved he was by the villagers, thinking they should treat him with far more respect. And because his attitude was poor, their attitude towards him was also poor, until, as time went on, his patients began seeking other, more modern remedies from other, more modern healers. Which only, of course, made the Apothecary even more bitter.
(The mist surrounded them again and the scene changed. They were now standing on a lawn atop a small hillock. A parsonage sat to one side and a great yew tree stood in the middle of a few new headstones.)
In the Apothecary’s village there also lived a parson–
(“This is the hill behind my house,” Conor interrupted. He looked around, but there was no railway line yet, no rows of houses, just a few footpaths and a mucky riverbed.)
The parson had two daughters, the monster went on, who were the light of his life.
(Two young girls came screaming out of the parsonage, giggling and laughing and trying to hit each other with handfuls of grass. They ran around the trunk of the yew tree, hiding from one another.)
(“That’s you,” Conor said, pointing at the tree, which for the moment was just a tree.)
Yes, fine, on the parsonage grounds, there also grew a yew tree.
(And a very handsome yew tree it was, said the monster.)
(“If you say so yourself,” Conor said.)
Now, the Apothecary wanted the yew tree very badly.
(“He did?” Conor asked. “Why?”)
(The monster looked surprised. The yew tree is the most important of all the healing trees, it said. It lives for thousands of years. Its berries, its bark, its leaves, its sap, its pulp, its wood, they all thrum and burn and twist with life. It can cure almost any ailment man suffers from, mixed and treated by the right apothecary.)
(Conor furrowed his forehead. “You’re making that up.”)
(The monster’s face went stormy. You dare to question me, boy?)
(“No,” Conor said, stepping back at the monster’s anger. “I’d just never heard that before.”)
(The monster frowned angrily for a moment longer, then got on with the story.)
In order to harvest these things from the tree, the Apothecary would have had to cut it down. And this the parson would not allow. The yew had stood on this ground long before it was set aside for the church. A graveyard was already starting to be used and a new church building was in the planning stages. The yew would protect the church from the heavy rains and the harshest weather, and the parson – no matter how often the Apothecary asked, for he did ask very often – would not allow the Apothecary anywhere near the tree.
Now, the parson was an enlightened man, and a kind one. He wanted the very best for his congregation, to take them out of the dark ages of superstition and witchery. He preached against the Apothecary’s use of the old ways, and the Apothecary’s foul temper and greed made certain these sermons fell on eager ears. His business shrank even further.
But then one day, the parson’s daughters fell sick. First the one, and then the other, with an infection that swept the countryside.
(The sky darkened, and Conor could hear the coughing of the daughters within the parsonage, could also hear the loud praying of the parson and the tears of the parson’s wife.)
Nothing the parson did helped. No prayer, no cure from the modern doctor two towns over, no remedies of the field offered shyly and secretly by his parishioners. Nothing. The daughters wasted away and approached death. Finally, there was no other option but to approach the Apothecary. The parson swallowed his pride and went to beg the Apothecary’s forgiveness.
“Won’t you help my daughters?” the parson asked, down on his knees at the Apothecary’s front door. “If not for me, then for my two innocent girls.”
“Why should I?” the Apothecary asked. “You have driven away my business with your preachings. You have refused me the yew tree, my best source of healing. You have turned this village against me.”
“You may have the yew tree,” the parson said. “I will preach sermons in your favour. I will send my parishioners to you for their every ailment. You may have anything you like, if you would only save my daughters.”
The Apothecary was surprised. “You would give up everything you believed in?”
“If it would save my daughters,” the parson said. “I’d give up everything.”
“Then,” the Apothecary said, shutting his door on the parson, “there is nothing I can do to help you.”
(“What?” Conor said.)
That very night, both of the parson’s daughters died.
(“What?” Conor said again, the nightmare feeling taking hold of his guts.)
And that very night, I came walking.
(“Good!” Conor shouted. “That stupid git deserves all the punishment he gets.”)
(I thought so, too, said the monster.)
It was shortly after midnight that I tore the parson’s home from its very foundations.
THE REST OF THE SECOND TALE