My husband's foster sister was a walking disaster.
Every time she wreaked havoc, my husband brushed it off with the same tired excuse: "She's still a child."
When she saw that I worked as a school doctor, she clamored to be my assistant. Reluctantly, I agreed.
On her very first day, the chaos began.
A student came in with indigestion. I instructed her to fetch digestive aids; instead, she handed the poor child potent laxatives.
When caught, she blinked up at me with wide, innocent eyes.
"Well, if their stomach is emptied out completely, isn't that digestion?"
Later, with exams approaching, a stressed student sought help for insomnia. She gave them heavy-duty sleeping pills. The student slept until noon the next day, missing the exam entirely.
I pleaded with my husband to transfer her elsewhere.
He refused, shielding her as always.
"She's just a kid, Katherine. Be patient. Teach her, and she'll learn."
Then came Christmas.
She swapped the school's prepared mushroom soup ingredients for a batch of wild, unidentified mushrooms she'd found.
Luckily, I caught it in time. I dumped the soup before it could be served, averting a mass poisoning.
But word of her incompetence spread. Students and staff mocked her, whispering whenever she passed.
Unable to handle the gossip, the fragile "child" left a suicide note for my husband and jumped off a building.
My husband, Dominic Henson, read the note in silence. He handled her funeral without shedding a tear or speaking a word.
I thought he was grieving in his own way.
I was wrong.
On the seventh day after her death—the day her spirit was said to return—he tied me to a chair.
He cooked a pot of mushroom soup large enough for ten people and forced it down my throat.
He didn't stop until my stomach ruptured.
I was stuffed to death, drowning in agony.
Dominic cradled her urn in one arm and downed a bottle of poison with the other.
"Mushrooms don't kill people," he sneered, his eyes cold and dead. "If you hadn't been so nosy, Caroline wouldn't have died."
He stroked the urn. "She was pregnant with my child. My flesh and blood. Because of you, I have nothing left. I'm going down there to find her."
My vision blackened. Consciousness slipped away. His low, hateful murmur was the last thing I heard.
"Katherine Fox, if there is a next life, let's never meet again. Next time, I will have the courage to be with Caroline properly..."
When I opened my eyes, I was back.
——
The school corridor stretched before me. Christmas decorations hung from the ceiling. The sterile smell of antiseptic clung to the air.
This was the day Caroline tampered with the menu.
In the distance, she glanced around furtively before slipping into the kitchen. My body went rigid.
A thought struck like lightning.
I didn't hesitate. I spun on my heel and jogged straight to the surveillance room.
On the monitor, black-and-white footage showed Caroline Henson pulling a box of wild mushrooms from beneath her coat. She dumped them into the boiling soup pot.
My breath caught.
I really was reborn.
In my previous life, I had followed her into the kitchen. I had caught her in the act, scolded her, and dumped the soup.
I had saved everyone.
And in return? Dominic demanded I apologize to her because her feelings were hurt when people called her stupid.
She had been at the school less than a month.
First, she nearly dehydrated a student with laxatives.
Then, she caused another to fail a crucial exam with sleeping pills.
And finally, she tried to poison the entire student body.
If I intervened now, if I continued to clean up her messes, the cycle would only repeat.
In the last timeline, Caroline—spoiled rotten by Dominic—couldn't handle the mockery resulting from her own stupidity. She killed herself, and Dominic tortured me to death for it.
Phantom pain ripped through my abdomen. My stomach bursting. Soup flooding my lungs. The chair legs scraping against the floor as I convulsed.
A violent shudder wracked my body.
On the screen, Caroline hid the empty jar and sneaked out of the back exit.
I stared at the simmering pot of mushroom soup.
In my last life, Dominic claimed mushrooms couldn't kill people. He called me nosy.
This time, I wouldn't be nosy.
My hand reached out.
I turned off the monitor.
