In The Sight of These Hills (Dolan Twins)

Monkshood

Chapter 14: Monkshood

"Falling from high places, falling through lost spaces,
Now that we're lonely, now that we're so far from home.
Watching from both sides, these towers been tumbling down,
I lost my mind here, I lost my patience-"

-Ben Howard's "The Wolves"

Aaron's mother was an herbalist, and even though he himself certainly didn't have a degree in it, he thought of himself as one too, if not by trade than by association.

Around their small two-bedroom house there were plants everywhere: Basil, Caraway, Cicely, Sage, Rosemary, Feverfew, Echinacea, and many, many more all in pots on counters, and tables set up, and in the kitchen, and even in the bedrooms.

They were outside in the back in a greenhouse that could be followed by a smooth concrete path from the house. The ones that required the most sunlight were placed in neat little rows along every window seal on every window in the house. Some were labeled with white note cards, but most were not. A mere glance at a plant, and Aaron's mom knew what it did, and what species it came from, as well as the scientific name.

The only place that there were none was the basement, and that was only because Aaron was the only one who could go down there. And go down there, he did.

Aaron's mother, Susan, practiced a natural form of medicine. After all, she was in the grips of her own medical problems. When Aaron was thirteen, long after his father had left him and his mother one night with no parting words, no nothing, she had been outside tending her garden as usual. She sprayed down the tulips with her hose, back and forth, and inhaled the richness of the spring air, and let the sun, low and sweet, dance on her tank top clad back. She was stretching her neck, hand at the back of it, when she paused, hearing something beyond the normal sounds of the water, the cars rushing by, and the small bugs in the grass.

Its sound was kind of like meowing. Turning her head, she tried to find the source of the sound, but it was not in her vegetable garden, or at the side of the house. Going up front she found the source of it across the street in the form of a little tabby kitten, barely two months old at the sight of it, and it looked like it was trapped, wanting to cross the road but too scared. It also looked in some state of distress, especially by how loud it was meowing, and without hesitating she stepped off the curb, eyes on the small feline, and suddenly wham.

The truck hit her with such an unnatural degree of speed that she went over the hood, the glass shattering on the windshield, and over the top of the vehicle. Her spinal cord would be severed, and even though she would spend months in recovery, and years in physical rehabilitation, Susan would never walk again.

Aaron didn't talk to anyone about his mom, not because he was ashamed of her, but because nobody ever asked.

House bound, herbs became even more of her life, and she devoted every day of her life to them. Susan got most of the seeds specially ordered online and delivered at her door, and even though she certainly did not have her medical marijuana license, there was a pot plant or two in her bedroom.

She got her way around by a motorized wheelchair that she learned to loathe and to love. It gave her the freedom of movement, yes, but was also extremely limited to flat surfaces. She would never walk in the forest again, she would never pick her own herbs and categorize them like when she was in college so long ago. She would never feel the crushed earth under her feet and relish in the sensation.

Every month she received a disability check from the state. That was their only income, besides her online herbalist business, and despite this, they made well. Insurance had paid for most of her medical bills and her equipment, so they were more blessed than some people.