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By Root 1131 0

Complete Book of Divination and Mediation with Plants and Herbs, but it didn’t appear in the botany book that had been given to Hallie. The plant was called Phantasia. Much of the biology in her book was over her head, but Garnet found the elegant and precise drawings more interesting than she might have expected and the uses for the plants absolutely fascinating. She had, of course, thought about flowers as decorations and gifts; she had been aware that her mother used herbs as seasonings when she cooked; and certainly she understood the role that fruits and vegetables played in her health. But this was completely different: It was as if some plants and some herbs were medicines. It was as if others were—and the word lodged itself in her mind—magic. They affected how people behaved if they ate them or drank them. But it wasn’t like the way alcohol or drugs might change your behavior; that was random and unpredictable. She had seen adults drunk at her parents’ parties, and she had seen what alcohol did to people on TV shows and in movies. According to this book, however, some plants or combinations of plants, properly cured or steeped, could make people fall in love. Grow violent. Have visions. The book talked about making people act on their dreams, and dreams in this case had nothing to do with ambition. It was as if, with the right herbs in the right doses—the right tinctures—you could make someone’s nightmares feel real by the light of day.

Moreover, she realized that her book was part of a small encyclopedia. It said VOLUME I on the spine. She went to the back of the book to see how many volumes there might be and had to read something twice because it looked so strange. It seemed there was at least a second book. This one was called The Complete Book of Divination and Mediation with Animals and Humans. It was Volume II. She made a mental note to ask Anise about that, if she ever got out of Anise’s doghouse. These women seemed to be interested only in plants—just look at all those greenhouses. But maybe she was mistaken. Maybe they did have other … interests.

Over her shoulder she heard Hallie coming down the stairs in her clogs and then joining her in the living room. Her sister sat on the carpet beside her and glanced at the books, but she wasn’t especially interested. She rolled her fingers around her bracelet and then touched Garnet’s wrist.

“How come you’re not wearing your bracelet?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I’m just not.”

“You should.”

Garnet put her forehead down on the rug and closed her eyes. She breathed in the aroma of the books. She was home, the women weren’t here right now. What did it matter if she wasn’t wearing her bracelet?

“How does Dad seem to you?” Hallie asked. “He seems to talk less than ever.”

“I know.”

“He talks even less now than he did, like, two or three weeks ago,” said Hallie.

“Since the night he got hurt in the basement.”

“Yup. But you know what’s weird?”

Garnet waited. Everything these days was weird.

“He’s changed, but maybe it’s just who he is now. I’m getting used to it. In some ways, it’s like when he was still flying planes and gone a lot of the time. Know what I mean?”

Garnet knew precisely what Hallie meant. Before Flight 1611 had crashed, it was more normal having their father gone than it was having him home. Or, at least, it was as normal. The reality was that, for most of their childhoods, their father had been away from home three or four days a week. They—Mom and Hallie and she—were accustomed to being a household of three, and their mother had the single-mom drill down to a science. She knew how to run the house just fine when Dad was flying. In some ways, things even went a little easier when it was just the three girls. Dad wouldn’t suddenly be there wanting to bring them to and from dance class when their friend Samantha’s mom was already planning to pick them up at school and bring them to her house until Emily was finished at work. Dad wouldn’t suddenly want dinner to be a perfect replica of what the school nurse said dinner was supposed to look like,