"After Ginger Snaps"
37. Fallacies
Brigitte, finally having done something about the flow, thanks to Sam, but still uncomfortable with the piece of sanitary cloth stuffed into her panties, shifts constantly where she sits, until she decides to stand up instead. This brings her almost to eye level with Sam, who is standing with his hands in his pockets. She folds her arms, almost in response.
"So, what do you think? Sam asks.
Brigitte doesn't know what exactly he's asking about.
"Fallacy of security..." she says, "I was thinking..."
Sam lights up a cigarette.
"Look, what if monkshood doesn't work?" Brigitte asks.
"You said you cured McCardy with it."
"I stuck it in his neck and he seemed to be as close to human as he ever was, yeah."
"So, there you go."
"But what if it's temporary?"
"Alright, how about this, I gotta get to the school tomorrow anyway, to tell 'em I can't do shit like this. While I'm there, I'll get McCardy's address and on my way back, I'll swing by and check to see if he's alright, how's that?"
"That works..." she says, "But still... you gotta admit, it's a pretty big what if."
"Well," Sam considers it, "Despite what a nightmare it'd be if that were the case, we really don't know if it works anyway. So it's not a fallacy of security as much as it is a fallacy of expectation."
"How?" Brigitte asks, with more force than she likes.
"Most ranunculaceae have poisonous alkaloids, and the aconites are no exception, so I wouldn't be surprised if he had just dropped dead. Like, aconitum lycoctonum, take that – Northern Wolfsbane. That was what we wanted to get. Aconitum napellus is what we used – and both poisonous. A better choice might have been, say, aconitum anthora."
"What's that?"
"Yellow Monkshood. It's root has healing properties, but still, it's poison. Not even safe in small doses. So really, the whole monkshood idea was a shot in the dark."
Brigitte stops. This isn't just a fallacy of this-or-that, this is the mother of all fallacies.
"You mean... there was every chance that the monkshood wasn't going to work anyway?"
The bitterness in her voice is evident, but Sam isn't shaken.
"Remember what I said, worst case scenario, the poison of the aconite kills her."
Brigitte hangs her head.
"That's not what killed her, in the end."
"I was there." Sam reminds her, "And as I recall, it wasn't you that killed her either."