The sun was high overhead, baking the dry earth with an abundance of calidity. My bonnet was soaked with perspiration, and my stay and petticoat were also drenched.
I wondered when my next bath would be. Mother said I could upgrade my bathing days, but I asked myself if that meant I would only get three per month.
I shook my head and continued on with my work with stiff, sensitive limbs. My knuckles were dry and cracked; dried blood coating my blisters. I still had not developed those calluses that Mother promised.
Weed after weed I pulled, digging into the hot, rocky soil with my uneven fingernails. I daydreamed of jumping into the well of cool, clean water. I ached for rain or snowflakes to replace this preposterous heat. But I knew that I had to clean up the abandoned garden before Mother and I would officially move into this coffee house. She was in ‘aberration’ over this garden. So I wiped away the sweat trickling into eyes and kept digging.
It was early evening before I finally finished. I collapsed on the ground, rather melodramatically, and nursed my aching fingers. All seventeen woven baskets were stuffed with perennial, aggravating weeds.
My stomach clenched painfully. I had eaten a small breakfast of leathery green beans and one overripe potato. I couldn’t stop myself from imagining a table loaded with roast duck, gravy, curried eggs, apricot stew, pheasant with mushrooms, sweet corn, and warm apple cider. For a moment I hoped it was beginning November, but I reminded myself that I was stuck in pestering mid-July. No Thanksgiving for several more months.
A sigh escaped me right as Mother came out onto the back porch and spotted me sprawled on the dirt and debris. “Luscinda!” she scolded in a brusque voice. I scrambled to my feet and gathered up all my baskets. Mother examined my hands as well as the back of my dress, then pursed her lips. She gathered up my baskets into her arms and went back inside, leaving me standing there, grimy and exhausted.
I went to the well and hauled a bucketful of drinking water. It was tepid rather than cold, but I didn’t mind. I gulped some down with a ladle then dumped the rest over my head. Dripping, I went back to my spot on the dirt to allow myself to dry in the sun. My apron, undergarments, gown, and stay were filthy, anyways. Maybe Mother would do the washing sometime tomorrow. Meanwhile I could borrow some extra clothing from her.
I stared out over our new, weed-free land. Only the soil and rocks remained. Except—
I squinted. A stick, perhaps as long as my arm and as wide, was poking out at an unrefined angle. I groaned and crawled over to it. It was carved and polished like a Mayan staff, with minuscule pictures and foreign inscriptions. I tried to remember if I had ever noticed it, but my memory was blank. How had I not noticed it while I was working?
I grasped the end of the staff and pulled with all my remaining strength. I could sense the earth loosening up around it. I yanked it again and again, twisting it and pushing it forward until, finally, it was freed and shot into the air. I caught it, awkwardly, and analyzed it. The bottom surface had a rusted latch. I bit my lip and dug my fingernail into the cracks, trying to open it. It didn’t take long for the lid to come off in my hands. The staff must have been hollow.
I shook the staff, holding my hand under it. A skinny, tinted vial settled in my palm. I threw the hollow staff aside and twisted off the lid as easily as if it had just been oiled. I tipped the vial and watched the drops of blood fall onto my fingers. Blood?
I swallowed painfully and put the lid back on. What was this? I turned the vial over in my hands and caught the scrawled note pasted at the bottom.
Cure - 2012
