Linnea's Arc

Chapter 2 of 14

By morning the line outside had doubled. Linnea watched through the window as sick neighbors leaned on canes and coughed into their sleeves. The plant sat on the sill, its blue and purple blossoms open, its roots holding maybe four doses. Four. Linnea counted eleven people waiting. Every one of them believed today was their day. Soraya came in with bread and set it down untouched. "You didn't sleep." "I can't give them what I don't have," Linnea said. "If I pull too much, the plant droops. Yesterday it took an hour to stand back up. If I drain it dry, I lose the only thing that keeps the brew alive." Soraya knelt by the pot and touched a leaf. "Then we need more of it. Where did this one come from?" Linnea had never thought to ask. The plant had simply always been there. But they remembered the curling tendrils, the way the stems bowed and dropped tiny seed-pods into the soil each spring. Linnea dug a finger into the dirt and found three hard little pods buried near the base. "Cuttings," Linnea whispered. "It seeds itself." They worked fast. Linnea split the root ball into four sections, each with its own crown of leaves, and pressed them into separate pots. Soraya filled the pots with soil and water. Then Linnea did the hard part. They fed a fresh brew into each young cutting and waited to see if the small roots could hold it. An hour passed. The doses stayed bright green. The cuttings drank and did not spoil. "It works," Soraya said, gripping Linnea's shoulder. "You can make as many as you need." But the cuttings were young. Each new plant held only a single dose, not four. Linnea now had five plants that together stored eight doses. Better. Not enough for eleven, and the cuttings would need weeks to grow full roots. Still, it was a start Linnea could build on. The shop could grow. That was when the door opened without a knock. A woman stepped in wearing a sharp dark suit and pearls, out of place among the sick and the mud. She scanned the room like she was pricing it. "You're the healer," she said. Not a question. "I'm Mia. People talk. They say you cure anyone who walks in, and you don't charge." She smiled, bright and practiced. "I can fix that. I can make you famous. Line out the door, every day, for years." Linnea looked at the eleven neighbors already waiting, then at the eight doses on the sill. The line was already too long. Fame would only make it longer. "I don't want a crowd," Linnea said. "I want to cure the people in front of me." Mia's smile didn't move. "You will," she said. "Whether you want to or not." She left a cream-colored card on the table and walked out. Linnea stared at the card. The cuttings had solved one problem. This woman had just made a bigger one.