This Poison Heart

Both the turret and the stairs leading to it are cluttered with belongings, including many paintings of the same woman, who also resembles Briseis. While her moms head off to do chores, Briseis remains in the attic, curious about the woman in the paintings. She begins to open the letter from her birth aunt but is interrupted by a scream. She hurries outside to find Angie laughing; Thandie tripped and scattered newspapers everywhere, but the laugher abruptly stops when they realize that Thandie has fallen into poison ivy. Briseis, who also came into contact with the plant, advises cleaning off the oil, but privately, she doubts that the poison ivy will affect her at all. This expectation is confirmed when she feels the same cool-water sensation that she always experiences when encountering poisons. When no rashes appear on her skin, she feels that she is “missing something. Something important” (73). Angie leaves to purchase calamine lotion and Thandie lounges in bed, but both adults encourage Briseis to continue exploring.

Briseis reads the note from Circe, which references the “gifts” in their family. The note also states that Briseis’s biological mother had hoped to “save her” but that they cannot “escape [their] fate” (75-76).