The plant is burning.
And I am fading.
I fall to my knees as darkness closes in.
I awake to a splitting headache, stabbing pain in my arm, and a smell so astringent, my nostrils burn.
I squint at my surroundings.
I’m lying in an unfamiliar bed with a kerosene lamp lit on the nightstand, along with a chipped bowl of murky liquid and a wrung-out rag. There’s a wooden crate nearby, as though someone has recently sat upon it, and a low-burning fire crackles in the grate. Shadows move across the walls, which are covered in hand-drawn charts and reference guides.
Mistress Bramble stands with her back to me, hunched over her rickety table, muttering quietly as she grinds something in a stone mortar, the pestle scraping against the sides of the bowl.
The curtains are drawn over the windows, blocking out the world beyond. It could be day or night for all I know.
The thought induces panic.
I try to sit.
My arm aches.
The room spins.
Nausea lurches up my throat.
“Lie back down,” Mistress Bramble says without turning around. Like she has eyes in the back of her head.
I dare a glance at my arm but it’s covered in a damp cloth.
“I—I need to go home,” I say. “My dad?—”
“Is asleep, I reckon,” she replies. “You’ll be home ’fore the crow caws.”
“So it’s still night then.”
She gives me an affirming grunt.
I sink against the pillow, cold sweat prickling my brow. I take steadying breaths as Mistress Bramble pours liquid into the bowl. She mixes and grinds, then rubs some of the substance between her thumb and forefinger. Seemingly satisfied, she clomps to my bedside with the bowl in one hand, strips of linen in the other.
She lowers herself onto the crate and removes the damp cloth.
Nausea rises again, more forceful this time.
My arm is mangled—the lacerations raw and deep.
Mistress Bramble clucks her tongue then uses her hand to scoop the paste from the bowl. It looks like mud and smells like turpentine.
My muscles tense.
I brace for the pain.
But instead, as she presses the damp mixture against my wounds, there isn’t any pain. Just sweet, heavenly relief.
I relax with a sigh.
“I ain’t rightly sure what possessed you to fool with a plant like that,” she says.
“What is it?” I ask.
