Read Online Falling In by Frances O'Roark Dowell - Free Book Online

women’s problems,” Grete explained, standing. “You steep it in alcohol and water for fourteen days, shaking it every day, to make a tincture. A dose is maybe five or ten drops, no more than thirty drops a day.”
    Grete took a few more steps, then reached down again to pull up another plant. “Snakeroot. You dry the roots, then pound them into a powder. It’ll cure an earache or a toothache in no time, but if too much is taken, it’ll make you ill.”
    And so the lessons continued for the rest of the morning. Isabelle liked the names of the plants—bugwort, richweed, squawroot, dog rose—but quickly scrambled the various uses and doses and preparations. Did you dry pennyroyal or boil it? Prescribe drops of feverfew or brews? She didn’tmuch care, and after a while stopped paying attention.
    “Are you hearing anything I’m saying, Isabelle?” Grete demanded after giving a lengthy lecture on something called a whig plant.
    “My brain is full,” Isabelle told her. “It’s too stuffed to take in one more fact.”
    Grete sighed. “You too, Hen?”
    But Hen shook her head. “I think it’s fascinating, miss.”
    “Well, I suppose it’s time for lunch, by the look of the sky,” Grete said, picking up her basket, now full of roots and stems and leaves and berries. “Hen, this afternoon we can work in the kitchen. I’ll show you how to go about drying the roots and leaves, and how to boil syrups. Isabelle—” Grete stared at Isabelle quizzically, as though she couldn’t think of one single thing for Isabelle to do. “Perhaps—perhaps this afternoon you should rest. There’ll be work you can help with later.”
    Isabelle almost protested that she could help too, that her ankle was fine—she’d been on it allmorning, hadn’t she?—and then decided against it. She could see herself on the front porch reading a book, rocking back and forth, maybe eating something chocolate. Did Grete have chocolate?
    “There are some small cakes, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Grete said, and Isabelle took a step back. Yes, that was what she’d been thinking. But how could Grete know?
    Grete had to shake Isabelle awake when she finally had work for her to do later that afternoon. Isabelle wiped a bit of drool from the corner of her mouth and rubbed her eyes. She’d been reading one of Grete’s books. To her surprise, when she’d stood in front of the bookshelves and began pulling books, she found they were all handwritten, each one in the same slippery blue cursive, the kind that looked pretty but turned out to be hard to decipher. So Grete was an author, Isabelle had thought, and grabbed several books at random to take with her to the porch.
    The story she’d been reading was about a girl who wandered along a wooded pathand made friends with all sorts of things—bluebirds, squirrels, butterflies, trees. Everything she met had a secret to tell. After a while, carrying all the different secrets made her sleepy, and just as the girl lay down beneath a butterfly bush to take a nap, Isabelle had felt her eyes grow heavy too.
    Grete picked up the book from Isabelle’s lap. “Do you know it’s impossible to finish this book? I fell asleep three or four times while writing it, and I’ve never been able to read through it since the moment I jotted the last period.”
    “Is it magic?” Isabelle asked, suddenly feeling more awake. “Maybe the book casts a spell on the person reading it.”
    Grete looked away for a moment. “Couldn’t say.” Waving Isabelle toward the kitchen, she ordered, “Come along inside. Hen and I’ve been hard at work, and now here’s the part where you can help.”
    In the kitchen, Grete pointed to a wide array of pots and jars on the counter. “As you can see, we have syrups and tinctures and powders and leaves.Hen and I have boiled and chopped and sorted and pounded, and now it is time to package things up and put them on the porch. Tonight, while we’re asleep, the folks