Belladonna: Poison Garden, #0

By Jennifer Allis Provost

Belladonna is the short story prequel to Poison Garden, an urban fantasy series featuring Eliza Moore, a private investigator who can talk to the dead.

Eliza "Eli" Moore is the scion of the famed Moore line of seers, and she wishes everyone would stop talking about that. She just opened her own detective firm, and wants nothing more than to live a nice, quiet, non-magical life.

Then her first case falls into her lap, and it's a doozy: someone is using belladonna to murder the residents of a nearby assisted living facility. As a seer, Eli is familiar with poisons; in fact, she still tends her grandmother's poison garden. Knowing how deadly belladonna can be, Eli takes on what she hopes will be her last supernatural case.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bellatrix Press
• Release date: Feb 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215004180

Jennifer Allis Provost

Jennifer Allis Provost writes books about faeries, orcs and elves. Zombies, too. She grew up in the wilds of Western Massachusetts and had read every book in the local library by age twelve. (It was a small library.) An early love of mythology and folklore led to her epic fantasy series, The Chronicles of Parthalan, and her day job as a cubicle monkey helped shape her urban fantasy, Copper Girl. When she’s not writing about things that go bump in the night (and sometimes during the day) she’s working on her MFA in Creative Nonfiction. Connect with her online at www.authorjenniferallisprovost.com

Book preview

Belladonna

Poison Garden

Jennifer Allis Provost

Copyright © 2021 by Jennifer Allis Provost

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Contents

1. Author's Note

2. Belladonna

About The Author

Also By Jennifer Allis Provost

Author's Note

Hello, and thank you for picking up my short story!

Belladonna follows Eliza Eli Moore, the scion of a line of powerful seers that just wants to leave all that supernatural nonsense behind. To that end, she’s become a private detective, and has opened an agency along with her best friend, Tessa. Then they get their first case, and it centers on a poison Eli and Tessa are quite familiar with: the titular belladonna.

If you enjoy delving into Eli’s adventures, links are at the end of the story for the rest of the Poison Garden series. Happy reading!

Belladonna

Thank you for seeing me. I didn’t know where else to turn.

I smiled and nodded. Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do with clients? Smile, nod, and make them feel comfortable? Honestly, I had no idea.

How long have you been in business? the client in question, Spencer Cortez, asked. He’d probably sensed my confusion, which was laced with a healthy dose of imposter syndrome along with a drop or two of terror. He was the first client who’d contacted my new private investigation business, and dammit, I was not going to scare him off.

Not long, but we’re quite experienced. I broadened my smile. Based on the hesitation in Spencer’s eyes, that had not been a smart move.

You should put your business’s name on the door, Spencer said. It would make this place easier to find. Right now, it looks like a regular apartment.

That’s a great idea, I said; actually, this was a regular apartment, and I’d lived here for the past four months. After I’d completed my private investigator training and gotten my license, I repurposed the living room into an office and shoved all my belongings into the bedroom. The business didn’t even have a formal name yet. I was just Eliza Moore, Private Investigator.

Getting back to the case, why do you need a private investigator at all? I asked. Forgive my bluntness, but is it all that unusual for the residents of an assisted living center to pass away?

For these particular residents, it is unusual. Spencer frowned. Many of our residents are frail, but have you ever known an elderly person who was still young, maybe not in their body, but in all the ways that matter? Someone that still had that spark, that extra something that made them vibrant?"

I thought about my gran, and swallowed the lump in my throat. Yeah. I have.

Now imagine if all those vibrant, full-of-life people you know started dropping like flies. He shook his head. The elderly get written off a lot, treated like they’re expendable. Like they don’t matter, but they matter to me. Everyone matters.

He paused, his pursed lips betraying he thought he’d gone too deep, too fast. On the contrary, I appreciated frank emotion.

You’re absolutely right, I said. Everyone does matter. Spencer’s shoulders relaxed. Why haven’t you gone to the police?

The police won’t believe me, not without evidence. That’s what I need you to find.

I wrote evidence? on my notepad. Did you approach anyone at the center about your concerns? Coworkers, doctors, supervisors?

When I voiced my concerns, my supervisors pointed out the residents’ ages, their various medical conditions, and told me I was out of line. He laughed through his nose. I’m just a physical therapist, low on the totem pole. All those doctors with their degrees and their egos think they’re giving everyone the best care money can buy. When I noticed things weren’t going like they said they should, they said I was letting my imagination get the better of me.

But you don’t think it’s your imagination.

No. I don’t. He leaned closer, and continued, My abuela used to talk about a bruja she knew that could do things, like speed people along to the afterlife. I think that’s what’s happening here. I think a bruja got inside our place, and they’re doing something to the residents.

I flipped to a clean sheet in my notepad. Have you seen any indicators of supernatural activity?

Spencer blinked. "You believe me?