Page 26

26

NORA

When they got to the Med Center , Anna was hooked up to oxygen but still gasping for breath. Her lips were blue and her eyes went wide when she saw Nora .

“Mommy?” she asked weakly, the word no more than a whisper on her lips.

“Yes, sweetheart— Mommy’s here now.” Anna sat carefully on the hospital bed beside her and showed her the huge flower. “ And see, I brought you something I think will help you breathe better.”

“Oh…pretty!” Anna whispered, her eyes shining as she looked at the milky white blossom. It was still giving off a silvery glow that bathed the whole room in radiance.

“I need you to sniff it,” Nora told her. The Bloom was almost bigger than Anna’s head, so she held it carefully near the little girl’s face. “ Smell how pretty it is, okay, baby? Breathe it in for Mommy .”

“I’ll…try,” Anna promised faintly. She sniffed and then opened her mouth too, breathing in the fragrance as Nora watched anxiously and sent all the prayers she could think of.

Please let her be okay. Let the flower work—let her live! she prayed, though she wasn’t even sure who she was praying to.

To her shock, someone answered her.

“Fear not, daughter. Your sacrifices have not gone unnoticed. The Bloom will do its work and your daughter will be well.”

“What? Huh ?” Nora looked around the room, but there was nobody there except Dr . Liv and her mom, who was crying silently in the corner and of course, Anna .

“What?” Liv asked, frowning. “ Is there something wrong?”

“No, nothing.” Nora shook her head. “ I just thought I heard something. Oh , look!”

The mysterious voice was forgotten when she looked back at Anna , who was still breathing in the healing fragrance of the Bloom .

It seemed to be working!

Already the blue tinge had left Anna’s lips and a healthy pink color was creeping in to take its place. Her cheeks looked pinker too and she seemed to be breathing more easily.

“Mommy, it smells so good!” she exclaimed, looking up at Anna . “ And smelling it makes me feel better.”

“That’s good, baby—keep smelling it,” Nora urged her. “ Breathe it in deep-deep-deep. Let the flower heal your lungs.”

At least, she hoped that was what it was doing.

“This is remarkable!” Dr . Liv was staring at Anna with shining eyes. “ I’ve never seen such rapid improvement. We’ll have to take some chest images to be sure, of course, but I think the Flower of Healing is working!”

“It certainly looks like it.” Nora still wanted to be cautious. Was the Bloom really healing Anna ? Then she remembered the strange voice she’d heard, promising her that her daughter would be healed. Had it been some kind of illusion? An auditory hallucination brought on by stress?

She didn’t know—she just kept watching anxiously as Anna breathed in the flower’s fragrance, filling her fragile lungs with the healing scent.

Soon, Dr . Liv was able to turn down the flow of oxygen and then remove the nasal cannula that Anna wore completely. Nora had to blink back tears when she saw her little girl breathing without help for the first time in months.

Then a Kindred imaging machine was brought in—floating on an anti-grav cart—and some new images of Anna’s lungs were taken.

Dr. Liv watched on the screen anxiously as the male tech positioned the imaging device. The Kindred didn’t use ionizing radiation to take X -rays—their method was much less invasive and safe for long exposures. So nobody had to leave the room when the images were taken. When they popped onto the screen, Dr . Liv gave a glad cry.

“Thank the Goddess !” she exclaimed.

“What? What is it?” Nora came over to see the screen as well.

“The PC growths are shrinking—look!” Dr . Liv pointed at the screen.

Nora stared, her heart pounding hard. The beautiful but deadly crystal “trees” that had sprouted in Anna’s lungs, were now half the size they had been on the last chest image she had seen.

“Take another exposure— I want to see a real-time image on this one,” Dr . Liv ordered the tech.

“Yes, Doctor .” The tech positioned the imager again and pressed the button.

“Look at this!” Dr . Liv was even more excited. “ Look —you can actually see the growths shrinking!”

Nora watched the live image on the screen and saw that it was true. The PC “trees” were getting smaller and smaller with every breath that Anna took of the Bloom’s healing fragrance. It almost looked like they were melting away, right before their eyes!

“That’s… amazing ,” she whispered faintly.

“If it keeps on like this, the PC will be gone completely.” Dr . Liv was still watching the screen. “ She just needs to keep breathing in the fragrance.”

“Just keep breathing in the flower’s smell, honey,” Nora said to Anna , who was holding the massive blossom tightly in two small hands.

“Yes, Mommy — I will!” And Anna pushed her whole little face into the center of the Bloom and breathed even deeper—which caused the PC “trees” to melt even faster.

As she watched her little girl getting healed, Nora felt like the tightness in her chest, which had been there ever since they’d first gotten the dreaded diagnosis of Pulmonary Crystalosis , was finally loosening. It was the most wonderful feeling.

“Mom—come over here,” she said to her mother who was looking at them with wet, wondering eyes. “ Come look— Anna’s getting better!”

Her mom came over and looked and started crying again. Nora shed some tears herself and even Dr . Liv had red eyes. Clearly she felt deeply for her patients and she was almost as happy and relieved as Nora felt.

But there was someone missing—someone who had become very important to her in the last few days.

Xarex was nowhere to be seen.

Nora wondered where he had gotten to. Was he still doing something on the long-range shuttle? Was there some kind of docking procedure he had to run through before he could come to find them at the Med Center ?

That must be it, she thought uneasily. But as time went on, and Anna got better and better, she became less sure. And then she began to feel hurt. Why would the big Kindred abandon her like this? He knew how upset and worried she was about Anna —why wouldn’t he be here with her to support her? He was her husband, after all!

But then again, they hadn’t been married for long—not even three days yet. And their Joining had been a marriage of convenience. Maybe he considered that his job was done now that he’d helped her get the Flower of Healing .

On paper, it sounded reasonable, but Nora just couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t help remembering how he’d held her when she cried and then later, how he had cradled her against his big body as she drifted off to sleep. And of course, there was the incredibly intense sex they’d shared on Primus Nine . How could any man just walk away from all that?

Well, Steve walked away, didn’t he? whispered a little voice in her head. The minute you took Anna , he was ready to go. Maybe it’s the same for Xarex —he got what he wanted—the chance to breed you. Maybe he doesn’t care anymore now that he’s had you. Some men are like that—they only want one thing and once they get it, they don’t bother hanging around.

But Xarex didn’t seem to be that type of guy. He’d talked about wanting her, fantasizing about her, thinking about her constantly from the moment he first met her. Could any man really turn off such intense emotions, just like that?

Nora didn’t know. She did her best to shove these negative thoughts to the back of her mind and stayed by Anna’s bedside. She didn’t even leave to go change. She asked her mother to bring her a change of clothes and slipped them on in the bathroom in Anna’s room.

Anna kept breathing in the fragrance of the Bloom and Dr . Liv kept ordering more chest images. The roots of the PC trees had dug themselves into the bases of Anna’s lungs. They were stubborn and at first Liv and Nora were afraid they weren’t going to melt. But finally, after hours of Anna breathing in the healing fragrance steadily, the last little bits of the dreadful disease were finally eliminated.

“Well, now…” Dr . Liv blew out a satisfied sigh and nodded at Nora as they looked at the screen. “ I’d still like to keep her for observation and a few more tests, but it looks to me like the Pulmonary Crystalosis is completely eradicated.”

“It’s a good thing too—the Bloom has almost faded,” Nora murmured. The brilliant light the Flower of Healing had been emitting had been slowly dimming as the hours went on and its fragrance had been growing less intense at the same time. Now it was barely glowing at all and the huge blossom was drooping.

“Oh Mommy —the pretty big rose is dying!” Anna exclaimed, having noticed the wilting of the flower herself.

“I know, honey—it just had enough power to heal your lungs. Now that it did its job, I think it’s going to go,” Nora told her. “ But don’t cry—it made you better,” she added. “ And I’ll get your crayons and paper so you can draw a picture of it. That way you’ll never forget it.”

This seemed to make Anna feel better because she nodded and took one last sniff from the rapidly fading flower.

“Thank you for helping my lungs,” she told it, stroking the drooping petals gently. “ You’re the best flower in the whole world! I’ll miss you.”

At that point, the Flower of Healing seemed to give up the ghost entirely. Its thick stalk was bent nearly double and the hand-sized petals began to loosen and drift down onto Anna’s lap.

“Well, I think that’s it,” Nora remarked, looking at the growing pile of dead petals.

“That’s it but it was enough,” Dr . Liv said firmly. “ Do you mind if I take a few of the petals to analyze? If we could isolate the healing compounds, we might be able to make some new medicine out of them.”

“Of course!” Nora nodded. “ Honey , Dr . Liv is going to take the flower now,” she said to Anna .

“Okay.” Anna started to hold it out…but as she did, the Bloom started to fade in her hands.

Nora watched with an open mouth as the petals and stalk turned translucent…then disappeared completely. The whole process was utterly silent and took less than thirty seconds from start to finish.

“Hey!” Anna looked down at her lap, where even the dropped petals had disappeared. “ What happened? Where did the pretty flower go?”

“I think it did its job honey and it was time for it to leave,” Nora said, groping for an explanation. “ It made you all better so it had to go help someone else.”

She had no idea if that was true or not, but it seemed to satisfy Anna .

“Oh…okay.” She shrugged and then yawned. “ It was a good flower. My chest doesn’t hurt when I breathe now.”

“I’m so glad, honey.” Nora sat on the side of her bed and hugged her. Anna hugged her back and then yawned again.

“I’m so sleepy!”

“Well, it’s past your bedtime so maybe it’s time to go to sleep,” Nora remarked.

“Am I sleeping here tonight?” Anna asked, yawning again. Her eyelids were already closing.

“Yes and I’ll stay with you,” Nora promised. She looked at Dr . Liv . “ I can, right?”

“Of course! I’ll get you a cot,” Dr . Liv offered.

“No need— I can curl up here with Anna if that’s all right.” Nora nodded at the hospital bed. “ There’s plenty of room.”

Dr. Liv laughed tiredly.

“That’s because it’s built for a seven-foot-tall Kindred warrior.” She frowned. “ Speaking of that, where is Commander Xarex ?” She had met him earlier when she’d come to promise to watch over Anna .

Nora shrugged, trying not to look troubled.

“Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve been wondering that myself. Maybe he’s just busy.”

“Well…maybe so.” Dr . Liv nodded. “ Do you want anything else before I go?

I’ll have the nurses keep an eye on Anna but for now, I’m going home to my hubby.”

“No, my mom can bring me anything I need,” Nora told her. She gave the other woman a smile. “ Thank you so much for taking care of my little girl. I couldn’t be more grateful.”

“I was fighting a losing battle until you brought in the Flower of Healing ,” Liv said honestly. “ I’m so thankful you were able to get it.”

“Well, I didn’t get it alone,” Nora remarked and found she was blushing as she remembered exactly what she and Xarex had done to acquire the Bloom .

Liv gave her a speculative look.

“Hmm…something tells me there’s a story there.” She yawned. “ Maybe you can tell me tomorrow.”

“Maybe.” Nora tried to smile but the more she thought about the intense sex she had shared with the big Kindred , the more hurt she felt that he hadn’t come to the Med Center to see her or Anna . Where was he?

She wished she knew.

As she curled up in the hospital bed around her already-sleeping child, she wished she could send the big Kindred a message and ask him where he had gone and why he hadn’t come to see her.