Her mother would cook boiled cabbage again for dinner, and even those servings would be meager, barely enough to satisfy a single person, let alone a family. Of course, Liv’s two older brothers had left home several years earlier, so the mouths were less than they’d once been.
A white flower drifted in front of Liv’s face. She reached out and caught it in her palm. It was an apple blossom with a pale pink center. As she tilted her head to seek the source of the flower, a dozen more rained down, blotting the sky with white petals.
Beyond them, she saw a man sitting on the parapet of the building that housed the hardware store. His legs dangled over the side, and he grinned down at her.
It was Stephen Kaiser. The boy who’d rescued her from the river.
Liv laughed and turned down the alley beside the building. A steel ladder clung to the brick, and she climbed it, finding Stephen at the top. He didn’t turn when she approached.
“I thought the world had gone mad, and it was raining flowers,” Liv told him.
The roof was hot. It seeped through her thin shoes.
Stephen sat on the raised brick ledge. He patted the space beside him.
Sitting on the hot brick, she noticed a Hollywood bar in his hand. He popped a piece of the chocolate bar into his mouth, and Liv experienced a desire so rapid and overwhelming, she almost snatched the candy and ran for the ladder.
“Are you rich?” she breathed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten chocolate.
He looked up at her with those pale, snow-blue eyes. Without answering, he broke off a hunk and handed it to her.
Liv lifted it to her nose, inhaled the sweetness, and then placed the whole piece on her tongue. She should have saved it, taken a tiny bite and squirreled the rest away. She hadn’t eaten sweets in ages. Sugar was rationed, but here stood Stephen Kaiser eating chocolate with not a care in the world.
“Thank you,” she said as she swallowed the last traces of the smooth chocolate. It lingered in the back of her throat, and she wished the taste would last, but it didn’t.
“Where’s your pigtailed sidekick?” Stephen asked, taking another bite of the candy bar.
“She spends her days with her Grandma Kit, my stepdad’s mom, or she goes to the little schoolhouse for summer lessons,” Liv told him, leaning over and watching people amble down the sidewalk below. “How come you’re up here?” she asked.
“I rarely come into town,” he admitted. “When I do, it all seems so small. I hate standing on the street surrounded by buildings. Up here, I can see the whole world. Or more of it, anyway.” He held his arms out wide.
Liv gazed across the town. She could see the little schoolhouse Arlene attended. The bigger school where she spent her days ducking into classrooms and avoiding eye contact with the other students.
From the rooftop, the town looked small and drab.
“Not much to look at, is it?” he asked.
“I moved here from Kalkaska last year,” she murmured. “I miss my friends, not that I had very many, but the ones I did. I miss them, and I miss George. I miss fishing in the lake and going out on the boats. This place won’t ever be my home.”
“Is George your boyfriend?”
“Eww, no. He’s my… uncle.” She hadn’t told the lie in such a long time, it seemed to stick on the back of her tongue.
“I’ve always lived here,” Stephen muttered, bringing his heel down hard against the side of the building. A bit of brick flaked off and rained down to the sidewalk. “And yet I’ve never lived here at all.”
Liv tried to see herself in the town that stretched out before them, but knew she didn’t fit. Her family was still poor in Kalkaska, but they had a community around them. George lived in the Stoneroot Forest not far from their little house. He regularly brought Liv fresh meat and food foraged from the Stoneroot Forest. They didn’t eat like the wealthy, but they always ate and they never had to beg.
After her mother married Roy, their family shifted. Liv’s stepfather resented the charity from George. He didn’t know the truth of Liv’s birth father. He, like many others, had been told a story of an old family friend, but he sensed a deeper connection between his wife and the man who lived in the forest.
When he insisted the family move further north to the hometown of his own mother, Liv’s mother complied. The adjustment was hard. They now occupied a small shack in the most derelict part of town. Both Roy and her mother worked six days a week just to stay in clothes and food.
Liv thought of the tally-lists in each of the shops. The little scratches that marked how many loafs of bread her family had eaten, how many cans of beans they’d taken without payment.
No, Liv would never be a part of her new town.
“What now?” Stephen asked. “Shall we rob a bank? Search for buried treasure? I mean, you’ve got a second chance at life. I think I should jump on that wagon and ride with you.”
Liv widened her eyes, gazing at the boy who was revealing himself to be the most unlikely friend in this strange town. He wore shined loafers and a striped t-shirt tucked into stiff khaki shorts. His black hair was combed away from his forehead. Everything about him told a story of privilege, and yet he seemed interested in her. He wanted to be her friend.
Liv cocked her head, licked her finger and held it up before shaking her hand.
“The wind’s not right for a bank robbery. Fancy a walk in the woods?” she asked.
He cocked his head, seemed to mull it over.
“Yes. My last walk in the woods ended strangely indeed. I got to jump into a frigid river and rescue not one, but two damsels in distress.”
“Your sister said you used nettles to heal your mother’s hands. How?” he asked.
He jumped up and grabbed the thick bough of an oak tree, swinging back and forth.
“Do you really want to know?” she asked, feeling her usual discomfort.
The modern world scoffed at George’s beliefs. He told her to disregard the opinions of others. Easy enough for him. He lived in a cabin deep in the Stoneroot Forest. Liv was a seventeen-year-old attending high school. It was hard enough being poor without adding a penchant for plant healing and other forest magic.
Stephen dropped with a thud.
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t. I took an anthropology class last year, and we studied Native American tribes that used peyote. It’s a cactus they consumed in religious rituals. Some tribes called it the divine messenger. Ever heard of it?”
Liv nodded.
George had taught her all about hallucinogenic plants. In Norway, his people had consumed certain fungi during their spiritual rituals, but he had never introduced them to Liv.
“The nettles stimulate blood flow. My mom has arthritis. It’s not the most pleasant remedy, but it works.”
“How about this?” He peeled a layer of white bark off a large birch tree.
“We can use birch bark on open wounds to encourage healing. Or make it into a tea for a liver tonic. It has a lot of healing properties.”
Liv brushed her fingers over a leafy plant poking from the rocky embankment of the river.
“Mugwort,” she said. “Induces sweating, soothes the rash from a poison oak, and creates prophetic dreams.”
Stephen stopped, peering closer at the plant.
“Prophetic dreams? How?” He ripped a handful from the ground.
“Well, now you’re likely to have nightmares.”
“Why?”
“Because those plants are alive, Stephen. Intention is everything in magic. When you take a plant, communicate with it first. Get permission. And then cut gently. If possible, leave the roots so more can grow.”