María enters the widow’s shop and feels an immediate easing as the cool, dark space envelops her. As her eyes adjust, she notes bundled herbs, jars, and a mortar and pestle, along with layered scents that evoke other places and memories. The widow speaks from the shadows, and when María turns she recognizes the woman from a childhood encounter, unchanged by the passage of ten years.

The widow asks what brought María to the shop. Weighing trust against the city’s gossip, María says she needs a tonic and touches her stomach. The widow bluntly asks whether it is to conceive or prevent a pregnancy, assuring discretion. Emboldened, María admits she is not with child and wants to remain that way. The widow begins to prepare a tonic without judgment.

As the widow works, María mentions they have met before. The widow questions this with a nearly teasing smile, saying she would remember María, which makes María blush. María repeats that the widow has not changed at all. Asked her name, María gives “María,” not her married title, signaling a private, personal identity within the shop’s dim safety.

The widow finishes the preparation, bottles it, and asks for payment. María produces three reals she had skimmed from the Countess Olivares’s purse, noticing the widow’s hand is cold, which makes her flush. The door bursts open with light as the countess calls for María, remaining on the threshold with the baroness, impatient to leave.

The widow places the bottle in María’s hand and, loud enough for the countess to hear, notes the tonic does not keep and must be renewed every fortnight. María understands this as an invitation to return. She hesitates at the bright threshold, wanting to linger in the dark, but moves to go, pausing to ask the widow’s name.

The widow, sweeping up the remnants at her table, finally gives her name: she is known as Madame Boucher, but tells María she may call her Sabine. The smile that accompanies the introduction shows a wolfish point to her teeth, leaving María with the tonic and the promise of continued, clandestine visits.