Chapter 3 - Blood and Soil
On the third night, the true trial began.
At 2:00 AM, the emergency alarm on Abigail’s monitor shrieked, tearing through the quiet mansion like a serrated blade. Her core body temperature had spiked to a lethal 104.8 degrees, a violent febrile response triggered by an aggressive secondary infection.
Dr. Montes and two night nurses rushed into the room, preparing intravenous bags of broad-spectrum antibiotics and cooling blankets.
“Her body is rejecting the current regimen!” Montes yelled over the noise of the alarms. “We need to transport her to the regional hospital ICU immediately! Get the helicopter ready!”
“She won't survive the flight, Patricia!” Leonardo shouted, panic tearing through his voice as he watched Abigail thrash in the bed, her small frame convulsing with chills. “Her blood pressure is too low!”
“If we stay here, she dies in this bed tonight!” Montes countered, her hands shaking as she tried to find a viable vein in the girl’s collapsed arm.
Brenda moved.
She didn't shout. She didn't panic. She walked to the small refrigerator in the corner, retrieved a jar of deep purple, thick syrup she had prepared the previous afternoon from crushed elderberries, wild honey, and dried roots she had brought from Oaxaca, and carried it to the bed.
“Step back,” Brenda said firmly to Dr. Montes.
“Get out of the way!” Montes screamed, pushing Brenda’s shoulder. “She is in septic shock! Your potions will choke her!”
Brenda did not fall back. She turned to Leonardo, her gaze fierce and burning with absolute authority.
“Leonardo!” Brenda called out, using his first name for the very first time. “Hold your daughter’s head! Look at me! Do you want her to die under needles in a cold machine, or do you want to give her a chance to fight?”
Leonardo looked at the needle trembling in Montes’s hand, then at the terror in his daughter’s wild, fevered eyes. He made his choice in a fraction of a second.
He stepped forward, grabbed Dr. Montes by the arm, and firmly pulled her back from the bed. “Let Brenda work.”
“You are insane!” Montes cried out. “I am documenting this! This is murder!”
Ignoring the shouting, Brenda sat on the edge of the bed. She placed her left hand over Abigail’s heart, feeling the racing, desperate flutter of the child’s chest. With her right hand, she took a wooden spoon, dipped it into the dense purple syrup, and pressed it gently between Abigail’s trembling lips.
“Drink the mountain, little one,” Brenda chanted softly, her voice dipping into a low, hypnotic tone that seemed to vibrate through the bed frame. “Drink the deep earth. The root does not break in the frost. The root waits for the morning.”
Abigail swallowed weakly. Once. Twice.
Brenda then reached into her basin, pulling out towels soaked in cold water mixed with crushed clay and eucalyptus leaves. She wrapped the clay-soaked cloths around Abigail’s wrists, ankles, and forehead, pulling the intense heat away from the girl’s vital organs.
For fifteen agonized minutes, the only sounds in the room were the high-pitched beep of the monitor and Brenda’s continuous, soft chanting in her native Zapotec dialect. Leonardo stood at the foot of the bed, his nails digging into his palms so hard that blood welled beneath his skin.
Then, slowly, miraculous in its quietness, the alarm tone changed pitch.
The red numbers on the monitor began to tick downward.
104.2... 103.1... 101.8... 99.6.
Abigail’s thrashing ceased. Her eyes fluttered shut, her breathing deep, even, and natural. Sweat broke across her forehead, washing away the pale, gray hue of septic fever and leaving behind a soft, healthy flush.
Dr. Montes stood frozen, her hypodermic needle suspended in mid-air, her eyes wide with total disbelief.
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Brenda wiped her own brow, pale and exhausted from the expenditure of energy, but her eyes were bright. She looked up at Leonardo, who had dropped to his knees beside his daughter’s bed, tears finally spilling over his rough cheeks.
“The night is over, Leonardo,” Brenda whispered softly. “She stayed.”
