Chapter 20

They turned at the sound of the voice, and saw an older woman with short brown hair, standing just inside the room. “Good afternoon, I’m Dr. Gayle Wexler. I’m a curator here at the Library, specializing in the study of Shakespeare. I was asked to stop by and answer your questions.”

Regina spoke. “Well perhaps you could answer mine, then. Where do you get a dragon’s scale? Even in Shakespeare’s time?”

“An interesting question. And the answer lies in botany and alchemy,” Dr. Wexler replied. "You see, most so-called ‘witches’ of Shakespeare’s day were wise-women, or what we would call homeopathic medics.”

“See, Regina? I wasn’t that far off when I went to check into traditional remedies,” Dashiell chimed in. “So how does botony come in, Dr. Wexler?”

“Well, in order to keep proprietary knowledge over these remedies, and thus keep their place in society, these women would use code to describe the ingredients. Often times, they’d use the shapes of the leaves or flowers they needed. Thus, tongue of dog was a leaf known as ‘hound’s tongue,’ because of the shape. Today, we call it vanilla leaf.”

“Interesting,” Dashiell said.

“Okay, so then what else would they need?” Regina asked.

Dr. Wexler approached the table and pointed to the passage Dashiell and Regina had been examining earlier. “Well let’s see. In terms of homeopathic medicine, ‘fillet of a fenny snake’ would most likely be chickweed. ‘Eye of newt,’ assuming we’re not being literal, would be daisies. ‘Toe of frog’ is the bulbous buttercup and ‘wool of bat’ would be holly. To answer your original question, ‘scale of dragon’ could be either the flower daemomorops draco, known as ‘Dragon’s blood,’ or, even easier to find, tarragon.”

“Hmmm,” Dashiell ruminated. “Well that takes care of a lot of this. But obviously it can’t all be code. We have one very dead tiger at the National Zoo, alone with his zookeeper, as well as a dead baby and a disfigured corpse or two. I’m also concerned about ‘nose of Turk’ and ‘Tartar’s lips.’”

“Yes, that is disturbing,” Dr. Wexler agreed. “Shakespeare chose to use three items from heretics. Hence the blaspheming Jew, Tartar and Turk. All three were non-Christian, and were viewed as unclean in Shakespeare’s day. And yes, there is no herbal equivalent for the ‘finger of birth-strangled babe.’ At least none that any of the literature has been able to uncover.”

“Well, Dr. Wexler,” Regina said, “someone, or several someones, have been trying to recreate this spell.”

“To what possible end?”

“I think they’re trying to summon Hecate,” Dashiell said. “And we intend to stop them.”

Dr. Wexler laughed nervously. “But that’s crazy! Hecate doesn’t exist. You can’t summon her.”

“Someone seems to think you can,” Dashiell said. “So humor us. Tell us everything you know about her.”

Dr. Wexler sat down in a chair at the table, looking slightly shaken. “I still can’t believe you’re taking this seriously. But I’ll tell you what I know so you can catch whoever did this. Let’s see…” She fidgeted, trying to remember. “Hecate is the Goddess of the New Moon and magic. She’s the Greek Goddess of the crossroads. Both literal crossroads, and the crossroads of life and death. In some cultures, she’s known as the ‘Queen of Ghosts’ and has power over graveyards. This goes hand in hand with her role as a lunar goddess.”

“And it matches up with the use of yew in the spell,” Dashiell said. “Which has long been tied to both the moon and life and death. You say she’s tied to the new moon. That’s tomorrow night. I’m guessing by the way they’ve stepped up their boldness that they plan to complete the spell then.”

“So where would they go to do it?” Regina asked.

“Well the scene takes place in a cave,” Dr. Wexler said. “If what you were saying when I came in is true, that might indicate they would use one.”

“Well I’d guess they’re planning on casting this nearby,” Dashiell said. “They’ve been moving in on D.C. as they get their harder to find ingredients. And with the deadline, they’re likely to be doing this somewhere nearby. So where are the nearest caves?”

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