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

will come, and in the morning there’ll be the fun of seeing what’s been left. The last of the fall’s apples and potatoes? A few jars of honey? A paper packet of sugar? If there’s sugar and honey, I’ll make Isabelle more sweets.”
    “So they pay you for your medicine?” Hen asked, running a damp rag across the kitchen table.
    “Meager pay it is, too, most of it, but it’s what folks can pay with, and money won’t help me out here in the woods, will it?”
    “How do you know they need the medicine?”
    Grete picked up a tangled strand of twine from the counter and began working at the knots. “Notes, mostly. Some send their little ones with a message— ‘the baby has a fever’ and the like. If they have questions, they get word to me. They send an older boy or someone full grown to pick up their packages at night, so as not to get on the wrong side of the village apothecary or the priest. A woman in thewoods is always suspicious to them that are in charge.”
    “I ain’t met an apothecary worth his salt yet,” Hen said, washing her hands at the sink. “Ours is always giving Mam potions that don’t help a lick. You can do more with a cool cloth and a bit of vinegar than the apothecary can do with his whole store of roots and powders.”
    “Perhaps you’ll apprentice to a healer when you’re older,” Grete suggested. “I’d say you have the gift for it.”
    Hen reddened, then seemed suddenly fascinated with a speck on her shoe. “Be nice to have a gift for something,” she said after a moment. “But they don’t let girls apprentice, now, do they?”
    Grete harrumphed. “A bunch of fools, the lot who came up with that system. You lose half the world’s brainpower that way.”
    “It is the way it is, I guess,” Hen replied with a shrug. She picked up a small sack of something and handed it to Isabelle. “This here’s boneset, for them what’s got the fever. I’ll show you what Grete’staught me so far about measuring and pouring out. Nothing hard about it in the least.”
    To her surprise, Isabelle found she enjoyed scooping powders onto squares of brown paper and folding the paper into neat triangles. She liked using a dropper to drip liquids into tiny blue bottles, and found it satisfying to pour the red and purple syrups into jars. She enjoyed it even though Grete hovered over her, counting out drops as they dripped and making her remeasure her scoops.
    “Why aren’t you watching Hen?” Isabelle asked. Grete’s breath on the back of her neck as she shadowed Isabelle’s every move was beginning to annoy her. “Hen might make a mistake, you never know.”
    “Hen won’t make a mistake. Hen’s careful.”
    Hen looked up from the table, where she was grinding leaves into a powder, her eyes wide, as though surprised to hear such a thing said about her.
    “If Hen’s careful, then what am I?” Isabelle asked.
    Grete laughed. “You, Isabelle, are a dreamer. Youalways have to keep an eye on the dreamers. My husband was one, now, wasn’t he?”
    Isabelle turned around and looked at her. “Your husband? You’re married?”
    “Was. I’m a widow, going on fifty years now,” Grete said. “One marriage was enough for me.”
    “I won’t ever get married,” said Hen. “Don’t want to get weighed down with babies.”
    “A baby’s not a bad thing,” Grete said. “You might find you want one later.”
    “Maybe.” Hen sounded doubtful. “But Mam’s got five little ones other than me, and it’s brought me no end of troubles. I’m supposed to take care of ’em, being the oldest, but I’m always losing this one or that one, or getting the brush caught in the other one’s hair. Seems I can make a baby cry faster than any girl in the village.”
    “You’ve got other talents,” Grete told her. “How about you, Isabelle?” Grete once again peered over Isabelle’s shoulder as Isabelle poured syrup into a jar. “Do you want a man and a baby someday?”
    Isabelle shrugged.