A Brief Tale About A Girl Who Had To Taste Things

It was in the spring, when the hills around Saxe-Kline smelled of cow and the castellan’s family was busy with taking inventory, that the mice discovered seedlings in the kitchen of Fleeter Castle.

The castle cook, Annalise, dug up a belladonna plant as soon as she realized there was an infestation and put the plant up on a shelf in the kitchen to use on the little beasts. As she turned around, the castellan’s three-year-old granddaughter, Jutta, crept into the kitchen.

How she had escaped the ever-watchful gaze of an uncle, parents, and a grandfather was a mystery, but she wasn’t doing any harm. The cook let her silently crawl under the table.

Annalise remarked, “Someone is going to come looking for you, you know. Are you hungry?”

Jutta shook her head and pulled a piece of bark from her pocket. She popped it in her mouth.

“Dear, lunch will be soon, and your parents don’t want you eating bark.”

Jutta made a face but didn’t move.

Well, toddlers were a stubborn lot and Jutta was probably the most stubborn. Besides, bark wasn’t poison. The cook returned to preparing lunch.

She turned around just in time to see the girl pull the belladonna plant down from the shelf and lift it to her mouth.

“Jutta, no!” Annalise jerked it out of her hands. “That’s poisonous. Don’t put that in your mouth.”

Jutta wailed, but the cook put the plant up on a higher shelf, well away from anything the girl could climb on, and pushed her out of the kitchen.

She figured that was the end of it. The girl’s mother collected her immediately and the cook finished her work before leaving on personal errands.

That evening, Jutta grew sick. Her eyes shrunk to pinpoints and she curled up in a corner of the dining room, moaning softly in pain. Her family went into a panic. Her mother stuffed tar water down her throat to make her void her stomach and her father cradled her. Even the servants fretted. No one could figure out what could have possibly happened to make her so ill so suddenly.

And then Annalise remembered the belladonna plant. She ran into the kitchen and found someone had pushed a chair against the shelves and pulled the belladonna plant to the edge.

There were little bitemarks in the deadly leaves.

Utterly horrified, Annalise ran back into the dining room and reported her discovery.

“I swear I thought that was out of her reach. She must have snuck in-”

Her father pulled the little girl up to his chin. “Did you eat Annalise’s plant?”

Jutta whimpered. “I just wanted to taste it.”

“I told you it was poisonous!”

“How do you know if you don’t try it?”

“Jutta!” every adult protested. The girl moaned and retched.

She survived the night and no one had the heart to punish her. Clearly, poisoning yourself should teach you to not eat certain plants.

Unless you are Jutta.