Holding Wonder Part 14

"I know," said Ruth. "The Pain. Rather that. It wouldn't be too long. The exhaustion-" "What's the matter, Ruth?" asked Thiela, troubled. "You never talked like this before."

"Sorry." Ruth's smile was pinched. "Nice dreams?"

"Oh, wonderful!" Thiela's eyes shone. "So many about Gove and the kids. Gove had a slick little black moustache this time!" She laughed softly, not to waken the napping pain. "You can imagine how odd it looked with his blond blondness!"

"I used to dream like that, too," said Ruth, "But now- Oh Thiela! Do you suppose my brain is beginning to rot?" She lifted herself up on one wavery elbow. "It's not only nightmares doubled and tripled, but nightmares oozing putrescence and slime! Horribleness I had no idea I was capable of imagining, let alone living through!" She fell back against her pillow, careless that sudden movement could start the Pain smoldering sooner.

"Oh!" said Thiela. "Oh, how awful! Dreaming is about the only thing that keeps me sane. If my dreams should turn against me-" She shook her head. "But surely the, doctors-"

"Dream pills?" Ruth rubbed her tears against the pillow. "Dream pills? A blue one for love? A green one for adventure? I've never heard of a pill for dreaming."

"Sleep too deep for dreams?" suggested Thiela.

"Any deeper than Suspension?" asked Ruth.

"Ask anyway," urged Thiela, "you never know. In this, advanced age-"

Evening pouring softly through the windows was an event to celebrate. "Look!"

cried Thiela. "The sunset! The sunset!" She bounced on the bed. "Oh, Ruth!

Twelve hours and moving as much as we have and no Pain! No Pain!

"Yet," said Ruth wanly.

"Oh, come!" chided Thiela. "The conscious Now is all we can live at one time anyway and we are still conscious. Oh bless Gwen! She helped them find this-."

"This stop-gap." Ruth could not let go of the dread waiting so closely the other side of waking.

"Watch me! Watch me!" cried Thiela, a happy child. "Watch me walk! Clear to the window!" Daringly, she dangled her feet over the side of the bed and wavered upright, clutching at the footboard. "Look! Look! All the way!" She shuffled and staggered and half-fell the four steps to the window. She leaned panting against the window frame and melted slowly down to the floor, holding herself chin-high to the window sill.

"The sky's still there," she reported to Ruth who lay, eyes closed, flatly pillowless on the bed. "And the Mescalita Mountains, still as bare and rocky as they ever were. And the old umbrella tree has grown back from the roots. I knew they couldn't get rid of it by chopping it down. It's a thicket now, almost head high, and full of blossoms. Smell the lilac-like?"

"No." Ruth let the one word out grudgingly."I've dreamed of the smell," said Thiela. "It still means spring to me. I remember gathering big handsful of the blossoms and getting as drunk as a bee on the smell." She sighed and laughed. "But handsful or not, there were always plenty of flowers left to change into chinaberries to use in wars in the summed And did you ever bite down on a softening chinaberry?"

"No." Ruth refused to move anything but her tongue.

"I did once and I thought I was going to die because it was so squishy, mealy, nasty! Tasted just like my Aunt Sophronia!"

"Tasted like your aunt!" Ruth's eyes flipped to Thiela in outrage.

"Yes," Thiela laughed at having roused her. "Aunt Sophronia was called the Weed Woman. She concocted the awfullest things you ever tasted out of all sorts of weeds she gathered from the ditch banks-right out there, they were.

You know, of course, that they used a corner of our old ranch to build this hospital-research unit on. They took over the whole ranch when they established the s.p.a.ce Base here in our county." She sobered and sighed. "I never dreamed that I'd be here in Suspension some day with all of everything-"

She shook back her hair. "Anyway, Aunt Sophronia used to make up those horrible messes and managed to pour them down us kids in the spring for tonics and summer for blood thinners and fall for blood thickeners and in winter just to empty her bottles for the spring crop of weeds." Thiela melted on down to the floor and leaned back against the wall. "My blood could use a little thickening about now," she whispered as she crept, hampered by gown and robe, on her hands and knees back to her bed. She climbed into it wearily, "Ruth, how long has it been?"

"I don't know," said Ruth.

"They say we age very little in Suspension," said Thiela. "And Gove and the kids are as close as yesterday to me still. Time-" She fell silent, watching the light drain out of the room. Her eyelids drooped, trembled, stilled and suddenly opened. "Ruth! We're going to sleep! Just think! We're going to real sleep! And we'll wake up in a real morning after a real night!" She sat up and hugged her knees to her chest, laying her cheek on them. "To sleep!"

"Perchance to dream." Ruth's voice was flat. She turned her face away from Thiela. "Dreams. Dreams! Oh, Thiela! I'm scared! I don't want to sleep. I don't want to!"

"Maybe it's only the dreams in Suspension," comforted Thiela. "Maybe after the Gwen-shot and with real sleep-"

Ruth's head rolled on the white sheet, but she didn't answer.

Thiela was suddenly awake in the night. "Out of suspension again? So soon?"

she thought confusedly. Then she sat upright in bed. "Asleep!" she whispered, delighted. "Oh! Asleep! Awake!"

Then the sound came-the cry, the anguish, the agony vocalized. Her heart lurched and she crumpled the sheet to her chest with her spasmed hands. Then she was unsteadily out of bed and shaking Ruth's writhing shoulders with both hands. "Wake up!" she cried over the tensely tw.a.n.ging moan that sc.r.a.ped her bones. "Wake up, Rut!!" But Ruth had become so lost in her anguished dreaming that she twisted out of Thiela's hands, her ghastly vocalizing aching Thiela's ears. One flailing arm swept Thiela from her feet and she scuttled on all fours, terrified, to the far side of the bed, groping for the call bell.

Then there was light and voices and comings and goings and a painful awakingfor Ruth.

The next evening Thiela cried to Ruth, "What's the use of having days and nights again if you don't use them?"

"I won't sleep," said Ruth, the words ragged with repet.i.tion. "I won't sleep."

"You'll have to, sometime," said Thiela. "If you'd only let them try to help you. If you don't sleep-"

"I won't sleep. I won't sleep."

"Oh, G.o.d!" Thiela whispered into her cupped hands. "Help me to help-" She slid to the side of the bed. "We could go see Eileen and Glenda," she suggested.

"They say we can walk that far if we feel like it."

"I won't sleep," reiterated Ruth.

"You're not sparkling as a conversationalist tonight," sighed Thiela. She put a quick hand on Ruth's arm to be sure she didn't misunderstand. "Like Aunt Sophronia," she went on. "She had only one topic of conversation-weeds. She was always loudly on the defensive, of course. She maintained that weeds were like old maids-unclaimed treasures. She never actually killed anyone with her brews-at least I don't think so, though some claimed she eased Old Man Ornsdorff out of life a trifle earlier than-" She broke off, conscious of a change in the silent figure on the bed. She took a deep breath and went on as though she hadn't noticed the sharpened attention.

"I remember some fellow from the State U spent a lot of time with her one summer. He said lots of weeds and herbs have traces and sometimes more than traces of chemicals used in medicines. That's why the Weed Woman's concoctions worked sometimes.

"The day before he left, he leaned on the corral fence and watched a Servicer launching. That was a Servicer for the first s.p.a.ce platform, you know. Even then the Base was being built, but they hadn't taken all of the ranch yet.

Well, he laughed and said, 'Look!' There was Aunt Sophronia coming down the lane, her dress-skirt gathered up by one hand into a bag for a big bunch of weeds. She held her load so high that it showed her bare knees with her cotton stockings rolled down over the white elastic she tied on for garters. Her other hand was dragging a big branch of sagebrush. You boil their leaves down to a solution, if you can stand the stench, and comb it through your hair daily and it'll never turn gray. Anyway, the fellow said, 'Look, the Weed Woman and a Servicer launching. Can you get a bigger contrast?"

"But he got his Master's degree with a thesis on folk medicine. That thesis was almost pure Aunt Sophronia except that he eliminated the double negatives.

Probably ruined a few recipes in so doing, too." Thiela smiled a softy reminiscent smile. Ruth was flaccid again, her face turned away. "He sent her a microcopy of the thesis. She couldn't-or wouldn't understand what it was-so she gave it to me and I put it with my other treasures. Let's see-two quail eggs, a snake vertebra, an Apache tear-unpolished-and a piece of pine gum. It was the first microcopy I'd ever seen and it fascinated me. Of course we had no viewer, but I'd hold it up to the light and squint and pretend I could see the pictures of the red-tops and the sore-eye weeds and the wet-a-beds. What awful names we had for pretty flowers. It didn't matter-weeds, you know.

"And the bladder vines. We used to tromple on them and shriek when we heard the pods break. It was thrillingly dangerous because they were poison and ifone drop or their juice hit you in the left nostril, you'd die. We all knew that for gospel truth. Left nostril, of course, because that is the side your heart is on."

"Sleeping potions-" Ruth's voice jerked out the words almost with a question mark on the end.

"I suppose so." Thiela eased herself back into her own bed. "It's been so long. I'd even forgotten Aunt Sophronia until the umbrella blossoms reminded me. It comes back in bits and snippits. But I remember Aunt Sophronia had a remedy for whatever ailed you."

"Whatever?" Ruth turned fretfully away.

"Well, I'd hesitate to stack her stuff up against this Research Unit and the Pain, but she'd be in there whaling away at the problem with both hands." Of course, Ruth finally went to sleep and woke in a state beyond screaming and so near to madness that Thiela bit toothmarks into her own underlip as she struggled to hold Ruth's hands to focus her attention and bring her back to sanity.

"If this is part of the Pain," said Thiela to the doctors, "then it may come to the rest of us. Is there nothing you can do for Ruth?"

"You have this remission of pain," they said. "That is a step forward."

"But how soon to slip back?" Thiela's smile bent a little. "And what value is it to Ruth in her present state?"

They made more notes and padded away with low murmurs.

Thiela lay back on her pillow and thought. She glanced over at the bed which was empty of Ruth. Ruth was elsewhere in the Research Unit being labored over as she fought sleep and the madness that lay in it. Being wakened at five minute intervals was helping a little.

"Aunt Sophronia," Thiela spoke aloud to the ceiling. "Surely you have something for what ails-" Memory began to jiggle something in a remote corner of her brain.

For what ails you-for what ails you!

"Aunt Sophronia, that's the same bottle you poured out of for Mrs. Drummond."

"So-so? So-so?" Pushing the heavy cork in.

"And for Tow Lewton."

"So-so? So-so?" Putting the green bottle on a high shelf.

"Tow hasn't got a 'falling dawn feeling right here."'

"So-so? So-so?" Beginning to strip the leaves off a redbell plant.

"And Mrs. Drummond doesn't have a stone bruise on her heel."

"Talk too much. Go home."

"I want to know." "Special bottle," peering over her gla.s.ses. "Good for what ails you."

"Hoh! Can't work for everything!"

"Talk too much!" Down came the bottle. Slopping spoon thrust into the astonished mouth. "Good for what ails you!"

All the way back to the house with the awful taste of Aunt Sophronia in her mouth. Supper table.

"What's the matter, punkin? Not a word out of you all evening. Sick?"

"No." Hard to say. "No, papa. I'm not sick."

Good for what ails you! You talk to much!

The Nurse answered Thiela's ring as bright-eyed and brisk as though it wasn't three o'clock in the morning.

"What did they do with our personal effects we decided to keep when we first went into Suspension?" Thiela asked.

"I'm not sure," said the Nurse. "That was before my time. I'll ask tomorrow."

"Tonight," said Thiela. "Now. You find out, and if they're here at the Unit, please bring me my old cigar box with the palo verde seeds glued on it, and a microcopy viewer, too, please."

"Tonight? Now?" The Nurse glanced at her wrist watch.

"Now," said Thiela. "Now. Time out of Suspension is what I probably haven't much of."

The Nurse swooshed away on silent soles and the faint crackle of her uniform.

Thiela lay back against the pillow. What was it Aunt Sophronia used for the green bottle? Such unlikely things were possible. So many unclaimed treasures.

As she lay there, she became conscious of a returning tide-just a faint flush of sensitivity up her legs, as though she waded in water a trifle too hot-or too cold. She had never decided whether the Pain was cold or hot. The tide receded and then lifted again, a little farther this time, to surge just below her breathing. But this surge was not quite so sharp. Maybe it would never be so sharp again. But sharp or not, there was a time lapse before it ebbed again and, by then, the Nurse was back with the plastifilm covered cigar box. She pulled the tab that loosened the plastifilm and stripped it from the box for Thiela.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" she said, "A bead came off."

"It doesn't matter," smiled Thiela, euphoric because of Pain withdrawn. "It's really a seed, you know, a palo verde seed. Thanks. Thanks so much."

The microcopy was there among the quail eggs, the snake vertebra and the Apache tear-unpolished, but the pine gum was a dry resinous pinch of dust in one corner of the box. The microcopy was brittle with age and crudely primitive-looking, but tenderly, gently handled, it submitted to the viewer with only a few aching crackles, and Aunt Sophronia's carefully de-double-negative narrative presented itself.

For egg-sucking dogs-For removing rust-For warts-For the tobacco habit-For pin worms-For moths in wool -For riley water-For colic-For heartburn-Forscalds-For what ails you- "Why look!" cried Thiela to herself. "It's jack-o'-lantern blossoms, mostly!

Jack-o'-lanterns! I remember. They have p.r.i.c.kles on them and blue flowers. Not many plants have blue flowers. The leaves are like fingers and p.r.i.c.kly on the back and the backs of the flowers are p.r.i.c.kly, too. We used to pull the heads off the flowers and press them to our clothes and they'd cling because of the p.r.i.c.kles. And, after the flowers, little yellow b.a.l.l.s come on the plant.

That's why we called them jack-o'-lanterns. Tiny things, no bigger than the tip of a finger and so brittle they shattered when you pinched them. The seeds rattle inside and dust your fingers when you crush them."

Thiela switched the viewer off. "And they always bloom at the same time as the umbrella trees!"

She moved slowly, furniture by furniture, to the window and, leaning on the sill, breathed deeply of the heavy lilac-y fragrance of the umbrella tree outside the window. "If I can get enough blossoms and a bottle-a green one-and a big spoon-"

Pain sloshed about her ankles and seeped up her shins. It retreated slowly.

"Get them in time," she whispered, "maybe Ruth can sleep without terror."

There are certain advantages to being a combination National Monument and Relic and Medical Research subject. Slightly aberrant behavior is overlooked or smiled upon gently. Thiela got her blossoms, and a green bottle and a big spoon and a free hand in a tiny kitchen alcove usually reserved to the Staff.

With one eye on the microcopy and one on the walloping kettle and a nose crinkled against the heavy herb-y near-stench, Thiela labored against Ruth's nightmares, and the ever sharper inflooding of the Pain. But finally, leaning heavily against the small metal table, her robe decorated with a press-on blue flower and several splashed-on stains, she steadied herself until she was sure she could pick up the big green bottle and the big spoon without immediate danger of dropping them. She eased herself into the wheel chair, slipped the bottle and spoon between her and the side of the chair, and briskly spun down the hall.

Ruth was sleeping. Thiela raised her eyebrows at the Nurse.

"She's due to be wakened in two minutes," she said, checking the clock above the bed. "Or sooner if she appears disturbed."

"I'll waken her," said Thiela. "I have something important to discuss with her. Privately. You go have some coffee."

"But I'm no supposed-" protested the Nurse.

"I won't tell," said Thiela, smiling. "Suspension is one sure way of keeping a secret a long time. Trot along. I insist. I'll count the seconds."