Page 41 of Offering Herself to Darkness

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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.

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