Viola, Lovestruck

Voila slammed the door shut. I could see that she had been crying, though she kept her head down, trying to hide it.
"What's wrong?"
She ignored me and sat down at the kitchen table, pushing aside the bowls and jars that were strewn across it.
"Careful!" Stella cried, "I just got those herbs in alphabetical order." Viola glanced at me with puppy-dog eyes, pleading. I shook my head; I wasn't going to get in the middle of another argument. I was sick of always having to make the peace, just because I was the eldest. Viola slumped back down, her head buried in her arms. Stella went back to rearranging the herbs with a sigh. I heard a sniff, then another and I saw from the corner of my eye that Viola's shoulders were shaking. Stella looked pointedly at me, and I knew what she was thinking. She scooped up jars and crossed to the shelves to begin stacking them, whispering as she went "It's your turn, I did it last night." I sighed and stirred the contents of the bubbling pan once more before turning off the gas.
"You've been to see him again, haven't you?" She didn't answer, except to sniff again. I was getting sick of this, too. Everyday Stella and I told her and told her to not go to him again, but she always did and she always came back crying. Couldn't she learn?
"What did he say this time?" I sighed, passing Viola a tissue. She took a minute to blow her nose and dry her eyes - in that order, but now wasn't the time to point out how horrible this was.
"He didn't say anything. I didn't talk to him this time." She looked down at the table and traced a finger along the grain of the yew table. "He was with someone. A girl. And they were -" she sniffed again, " – they were kissing." She dissolved into tears again and I patted her shoulder, not knowing what else to do.
We knew early on that it would be hard for us to find husbands. We were 'odd'. People stared at us as we walked down the street; the children looked with interest, but their parents always shooed them away. They didn't want their babies getting cursed or poisoned by us. Why we would choose to harm little children, I don't know, but that was the town's opinion. Neighbours spied on us when while we collected flowers from the garden, complained that we let weeds grow and spread to their own gardens. They gossiped when we came back in the early morning, though we tried to hide the rabbits and birds that we had caught in the woods. Word spread. A vicar from the church came to see us, bible tucked pretentiously under his arm. We had never cared for religion, and sent him away before he was through with his sermon on 'straying from the true path'. No one came visiting after that, apart from the odd child who had been goaded into knocking on our door but they always ran away before we could answer.
We didn't mind much. We had each other. Viola seemed to miss the old days, when we played games with the other children. Perhaps it was because those days weren't a distant memory for her like they were for Stella and me.
Then she fell in love. We had told her that she mustn't let on to him how she felt. He wouldn't feel the same way, and she would just get hurt. He was the vicar's boy, after all. But she wouldn't listen to us. She said she thought he understood her, because he had a special way of looking at her. It made her feel warm inside, she said. I had never noticed this 'special look', but Viola was lost, love struck. Moonstruck, more like, Stella muttered to me. Viola would visit the vicar's son, bringing flowers for the church or gifts of bottles of elderflower juice or honey cakes, pretending they were to give to the poor. He would accept the gifts, and smile courteously, but he never said much, and there was still no 'look' that I could see. It didn't seem to put her off.
"You could always slip him a 'special' drink," Stella said, jars neatly arranged now.
"I'm not going to poison him!"
"I didn't say that, did I? Try that obsession potion that Maria's been working on." Viola looked at me, hope in her eyes again.
"Will that work?" she asked. I hesitated, but she didn't notice,
"Sure."
"And if it doesn't, we can always kill him," Stella added, with a wicked grin and a wink.