Mounting a response

"OK my dear sister it sounds to me like your immune system is mounting a response and that’s exactly what you need. Even though there is another version of the virus if you’ve had it before your immune system will recognize a part of it and mount a response." Pua read the email. Squinting through her sunglasses, she grunted, kinked her head with the thought that she didn't know if the virus was a new-comer, or a return visit. She figured for as many years as she'd put in, it was the later, nodded and called Iliahi then remembered he was still at school. 

"I'm really too old to keep this up," she said, mostly to herself, though she knew they were always listening anyway. She reached for the small vial of herbs. Two rows of amber bottles, in alphabetical order, lined her small bedside table. It was the St. Joan's Wort she wanted. The glass tube filled with the pale red liquid as her thumb and finger squeezed the rubber bulb.

Keep it simple.

"I will drink it alone. You just keep making the medicine." The voice came without mail. Pua continued to address the messenger, "But you know, ninety-five is plenty old enough," She didn't finish the thought. She was weak and not in the mood to argue . 

Save some of the fire and swim. Immune system honua. In the flow. A wicked chuckle and the feel of a pinch to her cheek settled her.

Pushing the frames of the glasses up and into her hair that was unbound and spread like silver worms in a blue-black sky of pillows and quilt, Pualani Sing took a moment to look at the color of the tincture. Maybe it was the fever. Her long-time friend harvesting the tiny golden blossoms in wild fields.  

"Watch this, and tell me you don't believe I'm a magician." The two women are young and silly in her daydream. Wrapped in turquoise and purple pareau this was a hot and sunny summer day on that other island in the Salish Sea. Perfect for skimpy cottons, broad rimmed sunny hats and dark sunglasses. A quart jar was filled to its top with tiny blossoms and snipped leaves of the wild herb named for Joan of Arc, a gal who was very familiar with heat. 

"We have plenty today. Always leave enough to seed for next year. You get the hooch . I'll say a little something and leave a little something they'll like." Mostly, Ginny Long left a small song comprised of words that sounded vaguely of her native Hawaiian but with a bit of something else; not more than a few notes hummed together along with a raisin, a pinch of tobacco and shiny pebble. 

Pua had made room for the two of them in the back of the bright blue Mini Cooper. Grinning to herself, Pua said, "We were a lot slimmer in them days." Imagining them both today the Cooper would groan with their matured girth. Ginny loved this part of the tincturing process with St. Joan's wort. "It helps that I am as thrilled with small delights as I am with a good orgasm." Pua pinched her friend's cheek and let out a low roar and a very sensuous umi. Pouring the vodka slowly over the cut blossoms, Ginny used the chopstick that held her hair in a doughnut atop her head to release air bubbles and continued to pour the vodka. "Before you can imagine an icy glass of rootbeer float ... look at that!" The golden blossoms had already begun to turn the vodka red. 

"Magic." 

The alcohol was 100-proof vodka, "Nothing special, and the cheapest in the liquor store. But it's gotta be 100-proof to draw the 'ike from the la'au into the ino. No worry, this no going make you drunk." 

That conversation was from the long-time-past. Freshly clean and sober Pualani Sing was cautious. Forty, fifty years long ago. So long ago. Pua batted at the air around her, "My reputation is safe with you right. " The water bottle felt heavy today. Another sign that she was not quite herself. Her hand shook while she poured a little water into white ceramic cup. A dropperful of St. Joan's red magic was nearly invisible, but the smell was St. Joan and that reassured the goddess. 

"Once every hour. And the Star Sisters. A dropperful, too. Before you lay back." 

The row of tincture bottles were small, and Pua's hands and fingers were large. But even with the mounting effort of her body opening space to let the virus pass through, the brown fingers and brightly painted nails worked the bottles like the keys on her piano. The Star Sisters -- Stellaria -- would cool and clean. The combination would ease the fever but not interrupt its purpose. 

A small creme colored metal traveling alarm clock, much loved with big black numbers and dials on the back that still needed to be wound to work was part of the bedside table top. The smart phone and laptop could and did tell her the time, but the four-inch Baby Ben was a gift. She was a girl when the clock was new and each scratch came with a memory. Pua relished memories, and time;  she turned the small alarm dial to eleven o'clock. 

Her old friend watched from her place between the here and there.

"Rest sista, Iliahi will be back in a couple hours." The house was quiet. Breezes sweet and cool lifted the gauzy pale curtains. The waxy leaves of green ti leaves as tall as Iliahi rustled against the redwood walls adding their voices to the late morning company. 

"Iliahi will know to gather leaves for your forehead. They are the resident magicians."

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