Karly stood before the large, storefront window of the apothecary shop for a long minute. She was admiring, once again, the scarves decorating the various objects of the display. It was early spring, and the seasonal exhibit now rang out in the diverse colors of the impending blooms. There were apple-crate shelves supporting bottles of liquid in rose pink and butterscotch gold, alongside baskets of decorative soaps in violet, teal and candy red. An aged wicker chair supported a carefully disorganized stack of lady’s hats, collected from vintage memories of magnificent theatre, riverboat rides, far away cities and trips to the zoo.
The center of the display was a marionette, in the form of a large, spotted dog. It was a dalmatian, Karly decided, made from painted wood, with leather for its joints and ears. The dog-puppet was suspended from the ceiling, the strings holding it in mid-flight as it jumped over a pickling crock of dried hydrangeas – a brilliant and colorful obstacle for the starkly beautiful black-and-white dog. The backdrop of the whole thing was a parchment dressing screen, on which were hung several colorful hand fans. Some of these were fully open to show bright painted scenes from folklore and song, others partially folded, their stories collapsing in corrugated abstraction.
But Karly admired the scarves. Not because of their prominence, as they were simply draped about and under the other things which made up the giant diorama. Karly felt that she had seen nothing – not in her entire twelve years – so beautiful as these simple bolts of cloth. They flowed in a random, liquid form over and engulfing the half-concealed objects beneath, a coy game of peekaboo between art and physics; lazy cats melting into the potted plants of a sunny window box.
There were perhaps a dozen scarves in the window. Several were of a light blue, spread about like the reflection of the sky in placid waters, cool and sweet. A few of them were died in broad stripes of yellow – warm, lemony bands flanking a single strip of white, undyed cotton. The were three in different shades of orange, colors which Karly decided to name “freshly pulled carrot,” “washed carrot,” and “peeled carrot,” as they ranged from darker to lighter in shade.
Then there was the red one. It was the only one she didn’t like, and the girl wondered why it was even included in the display. It was at once the color of blood, rage, and violence. It looked like the coals of resentment that glowed beneath the kettle of hate, like the burning eyes of some ancient demon, crouching to strike the innocent passers-by from its dark, awful recess.
Karly tried to see the lighter side, scouring her memories for images of happy things in that hue. Roses, symbols of love, in deep, wine red. But, no, those have thorns – mustn’t forget those awful things. The warmth and safety of a bright red campfire is nice. However, once escaped, the same fire would engulf an entire forest, along with any house which might inadvertently wander into the fire’s infernal path. The beautiful berries of the holly bush, of course, which used to deck the halls at Christmas. Why didn’t we have them anymore? Oh, yes, Karly recalled: She had eaten a few of them, when she was five or six, and gotten so sick the doctor was called to treat the poison. She gave up trying to rationalize the choice of window dressing and turned her steps inside.
The apothecary sat on a tall stool behind the counter, drinking from a slender cup while he read the morning paper. Karly stopped abruptly at the sight of him. All describable features faded to grey leaving only a crimson swath: he was wearing one of the red scarves draped loosely about his neck. She felt her face flush slightly, as though an odd breeze, somehow both hot and cold, had brushed her cheek, and the quiet metronome in her chest sped slightly in response.
“Hellooo, there!” The baritone voice had a lilt to it, which lent a disarming lightness in spite of its depth (and the apothecary’s girth.) “What can I do for you today?”
Karly’s heart began to slow a bit, a palpable echo of hospitality ringing after the man’s words. She felt unexpectedly safe, realized she had quickly judged the apothecary by nothing more than a scrap of colored cloth, and blushed again. She quickly gathered her wits and recalled her mission.
“I need tea, please,” pause, “tea for an upset stomach.”
“Oooh,” he nodded, “I have just the thing.” He reached behind him, without looking, and opened a drawer. His hand dipped inside briefly, then knuckled the drawer closed in a single, smooth motion, swinging around to deposit a small packet on the counter. “Ginger,” he declared, “is the mother of all herbs.” He chuckled, saying, “This is my own blend. Drink it hot or cold.”
Karly was peering down the row of drawers now, floor to ceiling, filling two full walls of the shop. “You have so many of them,” she asked, “how do you keep track?”
A deep laugh rolled from the apothecary’s chest, “Well, you know… I’ve been at this a while. I don’t recall everything here all the time, but I always seem to find things when I need them.”
The apothecary drawers, although ranked by size, were of various colors, some with labels, others not. With the miss-matched handles and knobs, the whole array made a kind of random mosaic; a euphonious chatter composed entirely from discordant, clashing voices, like the colorful flow of crowds at the open-air market, blent together in the early light of a summer morning.
“What’s in that one?” Karly pointed at a greenish drawer, with a yellow knob.
The apothecary turned in his seat to look. “Happiness.” He said simply.
“Really? You have a drawer of happiness?”
“Oh, I have many kinds of happiness here.” The apothecary gave a bouncy nod. “There are over a thousand drawers in this shop, most of which are divided into several additional boxes inside. Then there are the jars, pots and crocks on the other wall. In the back room, there are bags and pallets containing ingredients for more things than even I can imagine, and I can imagine a great many things. Many of these are, indeed, some form of happiness.”
Karly had her elbows on the counter, hands under her chin in captive attention. “Like what?” she asked, “What else do you have in here?”
“What do you need?” He shrugged, and continued without waiting for an answer, “I have treatments for all of the common ailments – cold and flu, fever and chills. I have an elixir for arthritis and another for aching backs. I something for the pain one gets in her head from worrying too much, and the same thing can be used to treat menstrual cramps.” He was pointing as he talked, at drawers in the immediate vicinity of the chair. Now he stood and began to move slowly down the long counter. “I have chamomile and valerian, if you are anxious or cannot rest. I have echinacea, gingko, milk thistle, Saint John’s wort, to treat everything from asthma to gout to problems of the liver. I have ginseng.” He paused. “You know what that’s for?” Karly shook her head. “Everything! All of these ingredients have a variety of uses, and ginseng has the most!”
As he walked, Karly had followed slowly down the long counter, occasionally looking up at the apothecary, but mostly at the counter-top, where she had been tracing the grain of the wood with her finger. She almost bumped into him where he had stopped, at the open flap of the bar gate, stepping out into the room. She looked up, but he was now turning to point in various directions.
“I have potions, ointments, and elixirs for doctors, too. Treatments for colicky babies, and elderly digestion. I have cream for severe burns, powders to stop bleeding, and strong drinks to prepare a patient for surgery. These things make the world a better place, don’t you think?” Karly made noises of agreement into a non-existent pause. “But the usefulness of other things can be hard to see at times – at least to see them in their fullest extent.”
Karly was getting curious again, a fact which must have shown on her face. The apothecary continued, sounding somewhat like a carnival barker extolling the virtues of his marvelous wares.
“I have a drawer over there that has keys to various interesting things, and another that has only buttons. Somewhere in that corner is a cure for cancer, although I haven’t actually assembled it yet. There are drawers of summer sunshine, autumn leaves, and candied peel for winter’s baking. In this room are the tears of a parent, and alongside them is the first homerun of the season. The jars hold clean bandages, romantic connections, found socks, future generations of holiday gatherings, and empty space for the thoughts of our elders. Somewhere in this shop are unwritten novels, repaired cartwheels, rodeo rides, bridges to faraway shores, warm regards, the rise and fall of governments – each of them waiting to be placed in the hands of the right person.”
Although Karly was somewhat dazzled with the wonder of it all, she had a nagging question. She asked, “Can we go back to the happiness?”
“Ah. You are interested in that, are you? So, what do you think might be in that drawer?” The apothecary began moving back to his original position, eventually to sit in his ancient, spindly chair with a slight squeak.
Karly thought it over. “I don’t know. Something that makes me happy, I guess…?”
“And what makes you happy, Karleen?”
“Warm things?” It was a questioning sort of answer. “I think happy, warm things.”
The apothecary turned and reached, removing the whole box, and setting it on the counter in front of the girl. “Lucky you.” He said simply.
Before Karly even looked into the drawer, she could smell its contents. She perked-up visibly. “That smells gooood!”
It was like opening a pie cupboard in late December, with the warm, spicy steam of a mince spilling out and caressing your face. The smell was that of a magical, foreign land, whose roads were paved with cardamom shells and cinnamon bark was used for writing paper. The smell was the texture and color of her grandfather’s tweed jacket, seen every Friday when he would take grandma dancing at the speakeasy on 57th Street. It was like hot apple cider, served with rum cake.
Karly was somewhat disappointed when she looked at the actual contents of the box, which had three compartments of dry, brown, crumbly stuff. (But she was still excited.)
“What is it?”
“Cinnamon, clove, and garam masala.” He was beginning to scoop a little of each into a small muslin bag.
“This is ‘happiness’?” She seemed skeptical.
“Is it not? You seemed to like the smell – wait until you taste it.” He smiled, rising and walking a short distance down the bar. He lit a burner under a large water kettle and returned. He explained, “We make a pot of tea, and add a teaspoon of this mix to it. We will let it steep for a while, then add honey and cream. It’s known as ‘chai’.”
While the apothecary set about the rest of the tea preparations, Karly asked a new question. “Why are there so many colors on the drawers? And the knobs have been painted too – why?”
The apothecary looked up and down the row before answering, as though refreshing his memory regarding the look of the shop. He explained, “The drawers have gotten moved around over the years, for convenience. At one time, all of the drawers of a single color would have been grouped together. There was a brown cabinet, a green cabinet, a lavender cabinet, and the several natural wood colors of course. Because I get into some drawers much more frequently than others, I’ve moved those closer to my stool, for easy reach.”
Karly laughed out loud. “I thought it meant something!”
The apothecary gave one of his deep, resonant laughs. “Well,” he continued, mostly not. A few of the drawers have been painted for other reasons, but very few. The knobs are another story. The handle used to open each drawer is color-coded to indicate who is allowed to open that drawer.” Karly’s mind was racing, her eyes scanning the drawers, as he continued. “The blue knobs, and there are only a few, are available to anyone who is aware of them, anyone who is given any access can use the contents of those drawers.” Karly listened intently, spotting the blue knobs scattered about. “The orange knobs are for the fully trained alchemist, and only they should be granted access to such important things.”
Karly suddenly made a connection, but held back, asking only, “the knobs painted yellow with the white strip – who opens those?”
“Ah – those are for students. Anyone who has chosen to study under the apothecary, and who has been accepted, is free to peruse the daffodil handles, as we call them.”
“These colors are the same as the scarves in the window!”
“Correct.” The apothecary raised an eyebrow but made no remark as he poured the water into the teapot.
“I love the scarves. They’re beautiful. Well, mostly.” She paused, but then continued in childish disregard of tact. “I don’t like the red one.”
The apothecary let out a robust laugh this time, and asked, “They’re technically pashmina, by the way. But – why not? You don’t like red?”
Karly’s brows knit, and she said, “Well, it’s a scary color. Anger, blood, fire – all scary things. I can’t think of anything that is not at least partly bad. Like, the way red roses have vicious thorns! Red means danger, don’t you see?”
The apothecary nodded, thoughtful for a moment. “What about strawberries, then? I don’t believe those are dangerous.” He smiled before continuing, “You are, in part, correct.” He spoke in a low voice now, in a conspiratorial tone, as though he was about to give secret information. “Red is a very powerful color, with – it’s true – elements good and bad. The saffron-red pashmina is granted to the alchemist of the highest level. It is red, in part, because it is so easily seen, although that’s true of the orange pashmina as well. In the great scheme of things, red is the deepest color, the root, if you will, of all colors. The slowest vibration, of which all other vibrations are harmonics. It is the outermost color of the rainbow, and the last color of the fading sunset.” Karly was rapidly losing interest in the metaphysical lecture and had begun searching for any drawers with red knobs.
She only found one. “What’s in that drawer?” She pointed. “The black drawer, with the red knob?”
In his usual habit of deliberation, the apothecary looked at the drawer, the only black drawer, at the far bottom corner of the wall behind the counter.
“And why is it the only black one?” Karly was getting more curious by the moment. “Is the cabinet it came from gone?”
“No,” A slow sigh, then, “That one seems to have darkened of its own accord. The black drawer is for any and all things, evil.” He gave the tea a stir and put the lid back on.
“Well,” Karly had only the vaguest of notions of what evil might be, but nothing she could think of would fit in that small box. “What’s in it?”
The apothecary didn’t answer. He got up from his chair, walked casually down the length of the counter, and retrieved the drawer. He set it wordlessly between them.
The presence, up close, of the evil drawer was more than a little disconcerting, and Karly was regretting her curiosity. She held her gaze high and kept it there while a lump in her throat rose, then slowly receded again. She felt a wave of dread, fear, anger. Then a pang of inexplicable guilt, and a resignation to follow through with her original inquiry. She looked into the drawer.
“It’s empty!” She said, both relieved and confused.
The apothecary looked into the drawer, tipping it slightly to see every corner. “So it is.”
Karly stared blankly back.
“You see, Karly, this is no ordinary drawer.” He pushed it slightly to one side, but only enough to make a clear space in which to pour the tea. “In this particular box,” he nodded his head slightly, “things come and go. We can put things in it, but we have no guarantee that they’ll stay.” He poured two cups of the chai, adding cream and sugar as he spoke. “This is why only I can open the drawer – we never know what we may or may not find.”
“But why?” Karly was perplexed. “You said it was for everything evil – why have such a drawer? Why keep it?” Then she took her first sip of chai, and abruptly exclaimed, “Oh my God!” looking at the cup in her hands, “This stuff is amazing! Happiness indeed!”
The two laughed for several moments. Finally, the apothecary spoke up.
“Why keep the black box, you wonder? This is hard to explain. Sometimes we need exactly such a place. I think it’s easier if I just show you.”
The apothecary produced a small notepad from somewhere behind the counter and slid it across to Karly. Then he handed her a pen.
“What is your worst fear? Your darkest memory? You have something – we all do. Something you would never tell anyone.” He paused, waiting as Karly thought for a few moments. When she looked back to his face, the apothecary said, “Ok. You don’t need to write it all down, but I want you to put a word on the paper. Or draw something. Or just put some mark – anything on the paper, and you will find that it will become attached to this dark thing that you carry.”
Karly had come up blank, with nothing specific to write. She felt that she wanted to do this thing, however, as though she had some compelling reason for it, a reason that was just a teeny bit out of reach at the moment, a fuzzy shadow in a low corner nearby. Her hand moved quickly on the notepad, leaving a squiggle that she knew, somehow, would mean something to her later.
“Now put that in the box.”
She dropped it as instructed. The little note fell slowly, tipping back and forth not unlike the motion of a falling feather. It fell for a long time, slower and slower, getting smaller in the distance. Now it was just a small, white dab on an inky-black backdrop of empty space inside the drawer of evil. Eventually, it hit the bottom with a loud “clang,” like the locks of a heavy prison door banging together in the still silence of some remote, timeless night.
“Thank you.” Said the apothecary. “You will know when it’s time to come back and look into that drawer.”
She said nothing, sipping her chai in silence, feet swinging below her as she sat, waiting for the apothecary to speak again.
But he did not. Instead, he stood, and returned to the end of the counter, replacing the drawer in its slot. He came out from behind the counter, and walked up to the window display, reaching around the dressing screen. After a bit of rustling about, he pushed the screen back into its proper place, and returned to his stool. In his hand he held one of the blue scarves, which he proceeded to fold carefully on the bar.
Then he pushed it over to Karly, saying, “You’ll know when it’s time to open that drawer, Karleen. Save this, and show it when you come in.”
***
Karleen woke up, the memory of the black and red apothecary box vivid in her mind. She got out of bed, brushed her teeth, then made her way downstairs to the kitchen. She ate a light breakfast, then moved out to the garden to sip her tea and continue the process of waking up, slowly merging her reality with the larger world around her.
The house was too quiet these days. With her youngest in college, and the rest of the family estranged or gone, Karleen feel simultaneously free of her daily obligations and imprisoned by her inner shadows. And for some reason, today, she was thinking about an apothecary, and black drawer, and a note that she couldn’t quite recall.
Was it a dream? Or was she remembering something that actually happened to her twelve-year-old self? She had so few memories from that time, and even fewer from her life before that. She had lived with her grandparents then, she knew that much, although she was unable to recall why. It was a peaceful time, she thought, even if she couldn’t quite remember to what other part of her life she was comparing. Curiosity won out, however, and she decided to start her weekend by looking through boxes, long stored in the deep recesses of the closet under the stairs.
The first box held nothing but sheet music from grandma’s piano bench. That was it. Pages upon pages of chords and notes, like so many ants on endless sheets of paper. She stacked them carefully and dumped them back in the box. The second was full to the brim with toys, scrapbooks, photos, documents, awards, schoolwork and an embroidered pillowcase, all of which had been packed be grandma at the end of middle school.
Karleen paused for a few moments to admire Juniper, the exuberant dalmatian of her early childhood, now subdued in a framed print. Then she replaced the contents of that box and moved on. Next, she discovered grandpa’s collection of hand-painted lead toys. It was a very heavy box, although made somewhat lighter by the presence of several cigar boxes in the bottom. These, in turn, held greeting cards from about a decade of birthdays and Christmases, which gave Kathleen a spark of hope: she had packed this box herself, after grandpa had passed away.
Sure enough, the next box was gold. In it was Missy, her favorite doll, and a tiny, doll-sized blanket. There were candles, which she had kept hidden as a girl since she would be in big trouble if she were ever caught with fire. There were small collections of shells, stones, and a few interesting coins of little collector’s value. But most of all, and at no little surprise, was the blue scarf.
She held it up to the light of the open closet door, seeing how the old fabric filtered the light into so many pinholes. She felt the fabric – was it cotton? Or a very soft wool? Even after more than three decades of storage, the color was a striking, vibrant blue, the reflection of the sky in placid waters, or the deep cracks in a glacier of ancient ice. Holding it up to her face, she could feel the soft presence of distant hands, working the cloth with care, fashioning it into this device – what was it called? A pashmina, wasn’t it? And there was a smell, under the veil of musty closet and time and dust – a warm, glowing smell – the scent of happiness.
Karleen began to cry. She didn’t feel silly about it, or self-conscious (there was nobody at home, anyway.) She knew that this meant something, and she felt memories sparkling like fireflies under a table of imaginary glass. She felt the memories, not as ones connected to the scarf itself, but deeper, and she knew also that the scarf was the key.
It was time. Karleen gathered the scarf, her shoes, and her wits, and moments later was out the door. She was filled with hope that she might find the black apothecary box, and dread that she might find something waiting inside.
Mar 29 2023
The Black and Red Apothecary Box
Karly stood before the large, storefront window of the apothecary shop for a long minute. She was admiring, once again, the scarves decorating the various objects of the display. It was early spring, and the seasonal exhibit now rang out in the diverse colors of the impending blooms. There were apple-crate shelves supporting bottles of liquid in rose pink and butterscotch gold, alongside baskets of decorative soaps in violet, teal and candy red. An aged wicker chair supported a carefully disorganized stack of lady’s hats, collected from vintage memories of magnificent theatre, riverboat rides, far away cities and trips to the zoo.
The center of the display was a marionette, in the form of a large, spotted dog. It was a dalmatian, Karly decided, made from painted wood, with leather for its joints and ears. The dog-puppet was suspended from the ceiling, the strings holding it in mid-flight as it jumped over a pickling crock of dried hydrangeas – a brilliant and colorful obstacle for the starkly beautiful black-and-white dog. The backdrop of the whole thing was a parchment dressing screen, on which were hung several colorful hand fans. Some of these were fully open to show bright painted scenes from folklore and song, others partially folded, their stories collapsing in corrugated abstraction.
But Karly admired the scarves. Not because of their prominence, as they were simply draped about and under the other things which made up the giant diorama. Karly felt that she had seen nothing – not in her entire twelve years – so beautiful as these simple bolts of cloth. They flowed in a random, liquid form over and engulfing the half-concealed objects beneath, a coy game of peekaboo between art and physics; lazy cats melting into the potted plants of a sunny window box.
There were perhaps a dozen scarves in the window. Several were of a light blue, spread about like the reflection of the sky in placid waters, cool and sweet. A few of them were died in broad stripes of yellow – warm, lemony bands flanking a single strip of white, undyed cotton. The were three in different shades of orange, colors which Karly decided to name “freshly pulled carrot,” “washed carrot,” and “peeled carrot,” as they ranged from darker to lighter in shade.
Then there was the red one. It was the only one she didn’t like, and the girl wondered why it was even included in the display. It was at once the color of blood, rage, and violence. It looked like the coals of resentment that glowed beneath the kettle of hate, like the burning eyes of some ancient demon, crouching to strike the innocent passers-by from its dark, awful recess.
Karly tried to see the lighter side, scouring her memories for images of happy things in that hue. Roses, symbols of love, in deep, wine red. But, no, those have thorns – mustn’t forget those awful things. The warmth and safety of a bright red campfire is nice. However, once escaped, the same fire would engulf an entire forest, along with any house which might inadvertently wander into the fire’s infernal path. The beautiful berries of the holly bush, of course, which used to deck the halls at Christmas. Why didn’t we have them anymore? Oh, yes, Karly recalled: She had eaten a few of them, when she was five or six, and gotten so sick the doctor was called to treat the poison. She gave up trying to rationalize the choice of window dressing and turned her steps inside.
The apothecary sat on a tall stool behind the counter, drinking from a slender cup while he read the morning paper. Karly stopped abruptly at the sight of him. All describable features faded to grey leaving only a crimson swath: he was wearing one of the red scarves draped loosely about his neck. She felt her face flush slightly, as though an odd breeze, somehow both hot and cold, had brushed her cheek, and the quiet metronome in her chest sped slightly in response.
“Hellooo, there!” The baritone voice had a lilt to it, which lent a disarming lightness in spite of its depth (and the apothecary’s girth.) “What can I do for you today?”
Karly’s heart began to slow a bit, a palpable echo of hospitality ringing after the man’s words. She felt unexpectedly safe, realized she had quickly judged the apothecary by nothing more than a scrap of colored cloth, and blushed again. She quickly gathered her wits and recalled her mission.
“I need tea, please,” pause, “tea for an upset stomach.”
“Oooh,” he nodded, “I have just the thing.” He reached behind him, without looking, and opened a drawer. His hand dipped inside briefly, then knuckled the drawer closed in a single, smooth motion, swinging around to deposit a small packet on the counter. “Ginger,” he declared, “is the mother of all herbs.” He chuckled, saying, “This is my own blend. Drink it hot or cold.”
Karly was peering down the row of drawers now, floor to ceiling, filling two full walls of the shop. “You have so many of them,” she asked, “how do you keep track?”
A deep laugh rolled from the apothecary’s chest, “Well, you know… I’ve been at this a while. I don’t recall everything here all the time, but I always seem to find things when I need them.”
The apothecary drawers, although ranked by size, were of various colors, some with labels, others not. With the miss-matched handles and knobs, the whole array made a kind of random mosaic; a euphonious chatter composed entirely from discordant, clashing voices, like the colorful flow of crowds at the open-air market, blent together in the early light of a summer morning.
“What’s in that one?” Karly pointed at a greenish drawer, with a yellow knob.
The apothecary turned in his seat to look. “Happiness.” He said simply.
“Really? You have a drawer of happiness?”
“Oh, I have many kinds of happiness here.” The apothecary gave a bouncy nod. “There are over a thousand drawers in this shop, most of which are divided into several additional boxes inside. Then there are the jars, pots and crocks on the other wall. In the back room, there are bags and pallets containing ingredients for more things than even I can imagine, and I can imagine a great many things. Many of these are, indeed, some form of happiness.”
Karly had her elbows on the counter, hands under her chin in captive attention. “Like what?” she asked, “What else do you have in here?”
“What do you need?” He shrugged, and continued without waiting for an answer, “I have treatments for all of the common ailments – cold and flu, fever and chills. I have an elixir for arthritis and another for aching backs. I something for the pain one gets in her head from worrying too much, and the same thing can be used to treat menstrual cramps.” He was pointing as he talked, at drawers in the immediate vicinity of the chair. Now he stood and began to move slowly down the long counter. “I have chamomile and valerian, if you are anxious or cannot rest. I have echinacea, gingko, milk thistle, Saint John’s wort, to treat everything from asthma to gout to problems of the liver. I have ginseng.” He paused. “You know what that’s for?” Karly shook her head. “Everything! All of these ingredients have a variety of uses, and ginseng has the most!”
As he walked, Karly had followed slowly down the long counter, occasionally looking up at the apothecary, but mostly at the counter-top, where she had been tracing the grain of the wood with her finger. She almost bumped into him where he had stopped, at the open flap of the bar gate, stepping out into the room. She looked up, but he was now turning to point in various directions.
“I have potions, ointments, and elixirs for doctors, too. Treatments for colicky babies, and elderly digestion. I have cream for severe burns, powders to stop bleeding, and strong drinks to prepare a patient for surgery. These things make the world a better place, don’t you think?” Karly made noises of agreement into a non-existent pause. “But the usefulness of other things can be hard to see at times – at least to see them in their fullest extent.”
Karly was getting curious again, a fact which must have shown on her face. The apothecary continued, sounding somewhat like a carnival barker extolling the virtues of his marvelous wares.
“I have a drawer over there that has keys to various interesting things, and another that has only buttons. Somewhere in that corner is a cure for cancer, although I haven’t actually assembled it yet. There are drawers of summer sunshine, autumn leaves, and candied peel for winter’s baking. In this room are the tears of a parent, and alongside them is the first homerun of the season. The jars hold clean bandages, romantic connections, found socks, future generations of holiday gatherings, and empty space for the thoughts of our elders. Somewhere in this shop are unwritten novels, repaired cartwheels, rodeo rides, bridges to faraway shores, warm regards, the rise and fall of governments – each of them waiting to be placed in the hands of the right person.”
Although Karly was somewhat dazzled with the wonder of it all, she had a nagging question. She asked, “Can we go back to the happiness?”
“Ah. You are interested in that, are you? So, what do you think might be in that drawer?” The apothecary began moving back to his original position, eventually to sit in his ancient, spindly chair with a slight squeak.
Karly thought it over. “I don’t know. Something that makes me happy, I guess…?”
“And what makes you happy, Karleen?”
“Warm things?” It was a questioning sort of answer. “I think happy, warm things.”
The apothecary turned and reached, removing the whole box, and setting it on the counter in front of the girl. “Lucky you.” He said simply.
Before Karly even looked into the drawer, she could smell its contents. She perked-up visibly. “That smells gooood!”
It was like opening a pie cupboard in late December, with the warm, spicy steam of a mince spilling out and caressing your face. The smell was that of a magical, foreign land, whose roads were paved with cardamom shells and cinnamon bark was used for writing paper. The smell was the texture and color of her grandfather’s tweed jacket, seen every Friday when he would take grandma dancing at the speakeasy on 57th Street. It was like hot apple cider, served with rum cake.
Karly was somewhat disappointed when she looked at the actual contents of the box, which had three compartments of dry, brown, crumbly stuff. (But she was still excited.)
“What is it?”
“Cinnamon, clove, and garam masala.” He was beginning to scoop a little of each into a small muslin bag.
“This is ‘happiness’?” She seemed skeptical.
“Is it not? You seemed to like the smell – wait until you taste it.” He smiled, rising and walking a short distance down the bar. He lit a burner under a large water kettle and returned. He explained, “We make a pot of tea, and add a teaspoon of this mix to it. We will let it steep for a while, then add honey and cream. It’s known as ‘chai’.”
While the apothecary set about the rest of the tea preparations, Karly asked a new question. “Why are there so many colors on the drawers? And the knobs have been painted too – why?”
The apothecary looked up and down the row before answering, as though refreshing his memory regarding the look of the shop. He explained, “The drawers have gotten moved around over the years, for convenience. At one time, all of the drawers of a single color would have been grouped together. There was a brown cabinet, a green cabinet, a lavender cabinet, and the several natural wood colors of course. Because I get into some drawers much more frequently than others, I’ve moved those closer to my stool, for easy reach.”
Karly laughed out loud. “I thought it meant something!”
The apothecary gave one of his deep, resonant laughs. “Well,” he continued, mostly not. A few of the drawers have been painted for other reasons, but very few. The knobs are another story. The handle used to open each drawer is color-coded to indicate who is allowed to open that drawer.” Karly’s mind was racing, her eyes scanning the drawers, as he continued. “The blue knobs, and there are only a few, are available to anyone who is aware of them, anyone who is given any access can use the contents of those drawers.” Karly listened intently, spotting the blue knobs scattered about. “The orange knobs are for the fully trained alchemist, and only they should be granted access to such important things.”
Karly suddenly made a connection, but held back, asking only, “the knobs painted yellow with the white strip – who opens those?”
“Ah – those are for students. Anyone who has chosen to study under the apothecary, and who has been accepted, is free to peruse the daffodil handles, as we call them.”
“These colors are the same as the scarves in the window!”
“Correct.” The apothecary raised an eyebrow but made no remark as he poured the water into the teapot.
“I love the scarves. They’re beautiful. Well, mostly.” She paused, but then continued in childish disregard of tact. “I don’t like the red one.”
The apothecary let out a robust laugh this time, and asked, “They’re technically pashmina, by the way. But – why not? You don’t like red?”
Karly’s brows knit, and she said, “Well, it’s a scary color. Anger, blood, fire – all scary things. I can’t think of anything that is not at least partly bad. Like, the way red roses have vicious thorns! Red means danger, don’t you see?”
The apothecary nodded, thoughtful for a moment. “What about strawberries, then? I don’t believe those are dangerous.” He smiled before continuing, “You are, in part, correct.” He spoke in a low voice now, in a conspiratorial tone, as though he was about to give secret information. “Red is a very powerful color, with – it’s true – elements good and bad. The saffron-red pashmina is granted to the alchemist of the highest level. It is red, in part, because it is so easily seen, although that’s true of the orange pashmina as well. In the great scheme of things, red is the deepest color, the root, if you will, of all colors. The slowest vibration, of which all other vibrations are harmonics. It is the outermost color of the rainbow, and the last color of the fading sunset.” Karly was rapidly losing interest in the metaphysical lecture and had begun searching for any drawers with red knobs.
She only found one. “What’s in that drawer?” She pointed. “The black drawer, with the red knob?”
In his usual habit of deliberation, the apothecary looked at the drawer, the only black drawer, at the far bottom corner of the wall behind the counter.
“And why is it the only black one?” Karly was getting more curious by the moment. “Is the cabinet it came from gone?”
“No,” A slow sigh, then, “That one seems to have darkened of its own accord. The black drawer is for any and all things, evil.” He gave the tea a stir and put the lid back on.
“Well,” Karly had only the vaguest of notions of what evil might be, but nothing she could think of would fit in that small box. “What’s in it?”
The apothecary didn’t answer. He got up from his chair, walked casually down the length of the counter, and retrieved the drawer. He set it wordlessly between them.
The presence, up close, of the evil drawer was more than a little disconcerting, and Karly was regretting her curiosity. She held her gaze high and kept it there while a lump in her throat rose, then slowly receded again. She felt a wave of dread, fear, anger. Then a pang of inexplicable guilt, and a resignation to follow through with her original inquiry. She looked into the drawer.
“It’s empty!” She said, both relieved and confused.
The apothecary looked into the drawer, tipping it slightly to see every corner. “So it is.”
Karly stared blankly back.
“You see, Karly, this is no ordinary drawer.” He pushed it slightly to one side, but only enough to make a clear space in which to pour the tea. “In this particular box,” he nodded his head slightly, “things come and go. We can put things in it, but we have no guarantee that they’ll stay.” He poured two cups of the chai, adding cream and sugar as he spoke. “This is why only I can open the drawer – we never know what we may or may not find.”
“But why?” Karly was perplexed. “You said it was for everything evil – why have such a drawer? Why keep it?” Then she took her first sip of chai, and abruptly exclaimed, “Oh my God!” looking at the cup in her hands, “This stuff is amazing! Happiness indeed!”
The two laughed for several moments. Finally, the apothecary spoke up.
“Why keep the black box, you wonder? This is hard to explain. Sometimes we need exactly such a place. I think it’s easier if I just show you.”
The apothecary produced a small notepad from somewhere behind the counter and slid it across to Karly. Then he handed her a pen.
“What is your worst fear? Your darkest memory? You have something – we all do. Something you would never tell anyone.” He paused, waiting as Karly thought for a few moments. When she looked back to his face, the apothecary said, “Ok. You don’t need to write it all down, but I want you to put a word on the paper. Or draw something. Or just put some mark – anything on the paper, and you will find that it will become attached to this dark thing that you carry.”
Karly had come up blank, with nothing specific to write. She felt that she wanted to do this thing, however, as though she had some compelling reason for it, a reason that was just a teeny bit out of reach at the moment, a fuzzy shadow in a low corner nearby. Her hand moved quickly on the notepad, leaving a squiggle that she knew, somehow, would mean something to her later.
“Now put that in the box.”
She dropped it as instructed. The little note fell slowly, tipping back and forth not unlike the motion of a falling feather. It fell for a long time, slower and slower, getting smaller in the distance. Now it was just a small, white dab on an inky-black backdrop of empty space inside the drawer of evil. Eventually, it hit the bottom with a loud “clang,” like the locks of a heavy prison door banging together in the still silence of some remote, timeless night.
“Thank you.” Said the apothecary. “You will know when it’s time to come back and look into that drawer.”
She said nothing, sipping her chai in silence, feet swinging below her as she sat, waiting for the apothecary to speak again.
But he did not. Instead, he stood, and returned to the end of the counter, replacing the drawer in its slot. He came out from behind the counter, and walked up to the window display, reaching around the dressing screen. After a bit of rustling about, he pushed the screen back into its proper place, and returned to his stool. In his hand he held one of the blue scarves, which he proceeded to fold carefully on the bar.
Then he pushed it over to Karly, saying, “You’ll know when it’s time to open that drawer, Karleen. Save this, and show it when you come in.”
***
Karleen woke up, the memory of the black and red apothecary box vivid in her mind. She got out of bed, brushed her teeth, then made her way downstairs to the kitchen. She ate a light breakfast, then moved out to the garden to sip her tea and continue the process of waking up, slowly merging her reality with the larger world around her.
The house was too quiet these days. With her youngest in college, and the rest of the family estranged or gone, Karleen feel simultaneously free of her daily obligations and imprisoned by her inner shadows. And for some reason, today, she was thinking about an apothecary, and black drawer, and a note that she couldn’t quite recall.
Was it a dream? Or was she remembering something that actually happened to her twelve-year-old self? She had so few memories from that time, and even fewer from her life before that. She had lived with her grandparents then, she knew that much, although she was unable to recall why. It was a peaceful time, she thought, even if she couldn’t quite remember to what other part of her life she was comparing. Curiosity won out, however, and she decided to start her weekend by looking through boxes, long stored in the deep recesses of the closet under the stairs.
The first box held nothing but sheet music from grandma’s piano bench. That was it. Pages upon pages of chords and notes, like so many ants on endless sheets of paper. She stacked them carefully and dumped them back in the box. The second was full to the brim with toys, scrapbooks, photos, documents, awards, schoolwork and an embroidered pillowcase, all of which had been packed be grandma at the end of middle school.
Karleen paused for a few moments to admire Juniper, the exuberant dalmatian of her early childhood, now subdued in a framed print. Then she replaced the contents of that box and moved on. Next, she discovered grandpa’s collection of hand-painted lead toys. It was a very heavy box, although made somewhat lighter by the presence of several cigar boxes in the bottom. These, in turn, held greeting cards from about a decade of birthdays and Christmases, which gave Kathleen a spark of hope: she had packed this box herself, after grandpa had passed away.
Sure enough, the next box was gold. In it was Missy, her favorite doll, and a tiny, doll-sized blanket. There were candles, which she had kept hidden as a girl since she would be in big trouble if she were ever caught with fire. There were small collections of shells, stones, and a few interesting coins of little collector’s value. But most of all, and at no little surprise, was the blue scarf.
She held it up to the light of the open closet door, seeing how the old fabric filtered the light into so many pinholes. She felt the fabric – was it cotton? Or a very soft wool? Even after more than three decades of storage, the color was a striking, vibrant blue, the reflection of the sky in placid waters, or the deep cracks in a glacier of ancient ice. Holding it up to her face, she could feel the soft presence of distant hands, working the cloth with care, fashioning it into this device – what was it called? A pashmina, wasn’t it? And there was a smell, under the veil of musty closet and time and dust – a warm, glowing smell – the scent of happiness.
Karleen began to cry. She didn’t feel silly about it, or self-conscious (there was nobody at home, anyway.) She knew that this meant something, and she felt memories sparkling like fireflies under a table of imaginary glass. She felt the memories, not as ones connected to the scarf itself, but deeper, and she knew also that the scarf was the key.
It was time. Karleen gathered the scarf, her shoes, and her wits, and moments later was out the door. She was filled with hope that she might find the black apothecary box, and dread that she might find something waiting inside.
By andybrannan • Fiction, Stories 0