Read Online The Bottle Stopper by Angeline Trevena - Free Book Online Page A

corridor, she could see straight outside; the door from the hall to the shop was open, as was the front door beyond. She wandered through.
    Uncle Lou was leaning on the railings, looking down the street. The air was full of shouting and screaming, with people running past to involve themselves in whatever was happening.
    Maeve balled her hands into tight fists and stepped up next to Lou. Every part of her wanted to scream, to tear him apart with her bare hands. But she simply swallowed, and forced her voice into a neutral tone.
    “What's going on?” she asked.
    Lou pointed down the street to a tight crowd of people. “They caught some guy who raped and killed his wife. Been battering her for years apparently.”
    Maeve peered down the road. She could see the accused man, his face covered in blood, being dragged along. He was screaming, kicking his legs out, fighting for his life.
    “What will they do to him?”
    Lou shrugged. “Kill him. Maybe drown him, or just kick him to death.”
    “Won't the administration try him first?”
    “The administration don't care about what we do. They're never going to come and investigate the death of a slum woman. It's mob justice down here. No trials, no appeals, just the death penalty. What do the administration care if another cockroach dies?”
    Maeve looked back at the crowd.
    “Mind the shop, I'm going to watch. You don't often get entertainment this good.”
    Maeve watched him clatter down the steps. Slowly, she relaxed her aching hands, and rubbed at the deep fingernail imprints in her palms.

19
    Maeve settled herself onto her rag cushion, and pulled over her basket of fresh plant cuttings. She unwrapped the hemlock, and stared at it. With its clusters of small white flowers, and its feathery leaves, even its mottled stem, it looked so innocent. No one would guess what it was capable of.
    She looked down at her hands. Was she capable? Able to kill indiscriminately? To take innocent lives to save her own?
    She picked up her knife and chopped the hemlock down, mixing it among the other plants. If she didn't look, if she didn't know which bottles contained the lethal plant, then she wasn't choosing who would die. That was destiny's job. She may be putting the gun in its hand, but destiny would be pulling the trigger.
    Maeve picked up a bottle, and held it tightly. She put it back on the pile, picked it up again.
    “Here goes,” she said, dunking it into the barrel of water. She listened to the bubbles fight their way from the bottle, waited for them to cease, and lifted the full bottle out. She reached behind her, and blindly grabbed a cutting from the basket. Screwing her eyes closed, she stuffed the plant into the bottle.
    She opened her eyes, and inspected the medicine. No hemlock. She sighed. This wasn't going to work. Sitting the bottle on the floor, Maeve stood and wandered to the doorway. She looked back at the plant cuttings.
    “I can't do this,” she said.
    Maeve walked up the hall, and hovered outside the door to the shop. She listened for customers; she'd been punished before for walking in while Lou was haggling a sale. She reached out and touched the handle, taking a last glance back towards the storeroom, before turning the brass globe in her hand.
    She swung the door open and stepped through. Uncle Lou was stood by the window, staring at her.
    “Where are you going?” he asked. “It can't be next door. Your friends there are either dead or disappeared. Guess they didn't like you very much.”
    “I need more plant cuttings.”
    Lou frowned. “You were out yesterday getting some. What are you up to?”
    He moved quickly, and grabbed Maeve by the wrist. He wrenched her arm up above her head and marched her back to the storage room.
    “There. What's that?” He pointed at the basket of cuttings. “Trying to sneak off somewhere? I need bottles on my shelves. I'll teach you to be so damn bone idle.”
    Lou lifted Maeve over to the barrel, and thrust her head