White Nights, Chapter One
Sarah turned off the lights of her office and lit wide, white beeswax candles. The dim light would not affect the flower essence she was using to make an herbal remedy. This would be the last of the homeopathic tinctures in the current order from one of her clients, a naturopath. As she pulled a blue vial out of her green medicine bag, she heard footfalls on the carpet, slow and soft.
“Who’s there?” Sarah looked up and saw him standing in the room: dark eyes, pale complexion. “We’re closed now.”
She glanced at the door, the only exit from the office then quickly at her cell phone across the room on her desk. “How did you get in?”
“I saw the light go on, the candle I guess, and assumed you were still open for the evening.” He moved closer to her as he spoke, a captivating smell about him, musky and masculine. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Sarah rose from her chair and moved to the light switch.
“Candlelight is fine, really. It’s well, I have light-sensitive eyes.” When he spoke, his voice was a deep baritone and he drawled his words slowly, calculatingly. Something about his presence seemed hypnotic. His black hair cascaded in short curls over his forehead tickling the tops of his eyebrows. His eyes held an ageless quality, large, black pupils.
His lips barely moved when he spoke. “You see, I have an unusual medical problem that no one else can seem to cure. I was hoping you could help me.”
“Ah,” Sarah had trouble moving. “You have the wrong place. You see, I can only fill orders for others. I’m a medical herbalist, not a physician. I can recommend a good naturopath, though, if you like, but now you really must be leaving.”
Sarah flipped on the light. He winced at the brightness but kept his attention on her. “No. It’s your services that I need. Really, I’ve come quite a distance to find someone with your specialty. You’ve been well recommended.”
The animal smell of him, his closeness alone in the room with her, the quiet of the night outside made her twitchy. He moved closer to her slowly, talking in that rich baritone. This was dangerous. She liked that. She could be angry with him. Maybe that would calm the tingling that had started between her thighs. She found she couldn’t lift her hand from the light switch. He had moved close enough for her to feel his breath. It was cool. He touched her cheek.
“Can you help me?” he whispered.
Sarah stood breathlessly and then slid away from him. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” Her gaze sifted to her cell phone on her desk.
He laughed, a grumble deep within his throat. “I’ll call on you tomorrow.” And he was gone.
Sarah checked the office and slid the dead bolt into place on the front door. Holding herself still until she stopped shaking, she forced herself to return to her flower essence and herbs she had been clarifying. Losing herself in everyday work would help her shake off the encounter. But his image kept haunting her and the smell of his musk lingered.
As she added distilled water to the flower essence, she spilled the liquid over the worktable. Drying it off, she tried again. After the third time spilling the homeopathic concentrate on the countertop, she decided it was useless to try. Packing up her medicine bag, she locked up her office and headed to her car. On the drive home, her stomach rumbled. Sarah pulled into a drive through for a turkey and cheese subway which she practically inhaled on her way home.
It was after eight o’clock when she had changed into her sweatpants and tee shirt and headed into her garden. The moon shone clear and full, a blue moon. The earth smelled moist hinting of mold beneath the wet surface. Outside, the air was soft and warm. A light mist fell from lazy clouds. Kneeling on the ground, she dug around the herbs and spices, jasmine root and ginger. As she dug, her shoulders began to relax, and her breathing slowed to normal. Her smile bloomed when, while weeding under the calendula, she found a tiny plant with small delicate flowers on it, three to a branch, moonlight white and shimmering resembling small lotus blossoms.
Fascinated, she broke off a small branch and brought the flower inside. Once she turned on the light, the flowers curled in on themselves and disappeared beneath the green hood of the plant, like a cobra lowering its hooded veil. She turned off the light and opened the blinds to let in the moonlight. It opened slowly turning toward the moon. Pulling the petals off the flower, she gently let them fall into a quart bowl of water she had only days ago, purified through thaumaturgy. Setting the bowl on the window ledge that held the moon’s glow, she ambled into her study to look for reference books on herbs and herbal flowers. After two hours of searching, she could not find a notation on the plant. Nothing. Powering up her computer, she logged onto the Internet and sent a message out on her platform for information regarding the plant. She waited until almost midnight, but no response was forthcoming.
Clicking off the computer, she headed into the kitchen to check on the plant. As she stepped near the window ledge, the chimes on the aged cherry grandfather clock in the living room struck midnight, soothing, heartbeat sounds. The bowl glowed while shimmers of glitter fell from the petals into the water, a festival of light twinkling and sparkling below and from the flower petals. She sat in the chair by the kitchen table watching until her head slipped onto her arm resting on the table and the shimmering of the hypnotic liquid lulled her into a dark sleep.
When Sarah awoke at daybreak, a red glow burned the edges of the gray clouds outside the window. The bowl of thermogenic water seemed clear and undiluted, the flower petals having entirely disappeared. Much of the liquid had been lost in the process of producing a flower essence leaving a viscous distillation. As sunshine poured through the window, she stretched and yawned. Shuffling over in her slippers and bathrobe, she closed the blinds then lit a beeswax candle. By its glow, she poured the white flower essence into dark blue medicinal vials each holding two fluid ounces. Covering the containers with an adhesive back brown paper, she labeled them moon essence. She placed nine of the twelve naturopathic pharmaceuticals into her spruce green medicine bag closing the lid tightly.
Still groggy from the night’s activities, she took the three vials into her home office. She then grabbed a curved Petrie dish. Into it she dribbled a tablespoon of calendula oil that always sat on her medicine shelf. Then, carefully, she added a drop of moon essence. The oil sparkled briefly then became a honey-like consistency. Reaching over to one of her many plants in the room, she gently cut off a section of a leaf then scraped the top. Normally, calendula would help to purify a wound or abrasion of bacteria and speed up the healing process. With the moon essence added, she observed as the scrape and the cut sparkled with light: she could see it enter the leaf’s veins glowing for a moment. Within a heartbeat, the damage was gone leaving no visible sign that there had been any abrasions. She took notes. Next, she set up a new Petrie dish and tried the experiment with two drops. The healing happened instantaneously. However, when she added three drops, the leaf crumbled into dust.
Needing to mentally process her findings, she shifted to the household chores that needed doing, washing clothes, changing sheets, vacuuming the rugs and cleaning the hardwood floors. By early evening, Sarah had stocked the refrigerator and cupboards with organic, whole foods, some from her garden, and tidily stored them in various sized glass containers. By early evening, her clothes had been folded and stored, and a fresh salad loaded with vegetables from her garden had been consumed. Sarah loved a clean, organized house. That alone gave her a sense of peace in a chaotic world. She still hadn’t revisited her experiments, but after a day of cleaning and organizing, she was drained. Shuffling to her bedroom, she closed blinds, took a shower and crawled between her organic cotton sheets. Slowly, the warmth of her body permeated the spaces around her forming a cozy space that lulled her into a hard, fitful sleep. She dreamed of monsters pursing her, of running as hard as she could in slow motion, feet like lead weights going nowhere, breathlessly pursued. She dreamed of leaves curling into dust. She dreamed of the handsome stranger she met in her office.
TO BE CONTINUED