catch his attention. Gauze was not on her shopping list today. He paused and turned around. “What can I do for you today, Mrs. Brackett?” She smiled, and gave him a short list – just three items long. Sugar, flour, and arsenic. He did a double take. Surely that didn’t say…. It did. “Arsenic?” he murmured aloud, scarcely believing what he was reading. “For rats,” Rosemary helpfully supplied, with what she hoped was a charming smile. Apparently it worked, because after Mr. Thompson had bagged up her sugar and flour, he handed her a small black box and urged her to be careful about washing her hands after laying out the poison. Money exchanged hands, and Rosemary was out the door, whistling a cheery tune back down Main Street. It was surprisingly cheerful – not the kind of thing the townspeople normally heard from Mrs. Brackett. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rosemary walked through her front door with a smile, and entered the kitchen, looking up her mother’s recipe for chocolate cake. As she began to measure out the ingredients, she thought back over her fifteen years of marriage. She remembered meeting Thomas, and how sweet and kind he had been, walking her home from school every day and taking her out on dates. She remembered how he had finally convinced her to marry him, claiming he couldn’t live without her. She remembered the birth of their first two daughters, and Thomas’s growing resentment of their femininity. She remembered everything. The first time she lost a child. She remembered the hope that filled her when the old wives of the town had told her that the next child would be a boy. How wrong she had been, and the second impromptu grave dug in the backyard. Finally, the last daughter and Thomas’s ultimatum: no more girls. No more children at all. The trials and tribulations of the last few years of their marriage… it all added up to this, her chance to change things. Rosemary looked down at the finished batter and hesitated before looking over at the small black box on the counter, her secret ingredient. She glanced around before slowly withdrawing a teaspoon from her pocket and measuring out a portion from the box, dropping it into the mixture. She stirred it carefully before pouring it into a pan and placing it ever-so-gently onto the center rack. Only time would tell how it would turn out. So, for the second time that day, she returned to the parlor and sat down in her rocking chair, and waited. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, then thirty. Her children came downstairs to kiss her goodnight, and the cake came out of the oven. She returned to the chair, and continued to wait. Rosemary had rocked for an hour by the time the cake had cooled, and she was just putting the finishing touches on the frosting when footsteps echoed down the hall. Thomas must have smelled the chocolate, she thought with a small smile. Things were working exactly as she wanted. Rosemary stepped back and looked at her creation – it was perfect. Thomas stepped into the kitchen, eyeing the cake hungrily. “Well, what’s this?” Rosemary didn’t reply, carefully washing out the icing bowl. He glared at her. “I said what is it?” She dried the bowl, still silent. He had just stepped forward, hand raised, when she turned around suddenly. “I’m sorry dear, I didn’t notice you there. Would you like a piece of cake? It’s my mother’s recipe…Death by Chocolate.” Thomas didn’t notice the tightlipped smile she gave as he devoured two slices. It tasted odd, but that didn’t stop him. He’d always had a weakness for cake, after all.
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