Suzie’s House 522 : Another Degree of Separation

Drew eyed the thick, green brew in a teacup with some misgivings. Although Sonoma did her best to make the stuff taste good, she didn’t always succeed. Since he’d never been a fan of slimy food, he suspected this was going to be particularly vile.

“Just hold your nose and down it as fast as you can. But don’t throw up! You are not allowed to throw up.” Sonoma returned his glare with stubborn insistence.

“Couldn’t we just settle for an activated charcoal latte?” He raised an eyebrow hopefully.

“That’s just a fad. It might clean out your gut and prevent stuff like your blood pressure medicine from being absorbed, but it won’t re-balance your brain chemistry.”

He would have asked exactly what the chemistry involved might be, but then she’d hit him with a very high wall of biochemistry jargon. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with it.

“All at once?” He could already feel his gorge rising.

“All at once. If nothing happens I will pronounce you cured, and go home.”

“Home to Montana?” He probably shouldn’t have felt so hopeful. Sonoma and Trent had brought him into their home, fed him, clothed him, nursed him through the worst part of his life without complaint. He should be glad to be able to return even a fraction of their care.

“Oh yes! My back is already much better now. Plus Trent says we can flight directly from Madison to Missoula. Well, almost direct. There’s a little twelve hour layover in Denver, but that’s no skin off our noses. We’re just waiting on you. So drink up!”

He chugged it. Turned out ground up flax seed and whatever else she’d put in there wasn’t nearly as bad as boiled okra. His stomach didn’t even rumble as he filled it with the thick green stuff. He probably didn’t even really need to hold his nose, though he’d had no intention of risking it.

“That wasn’t so…” It hit him… like a drug.

Frozen time. Melting walls. Bizarre patterns on the kitchen wall. Ghosts walking through the room. The whole nine yards.

“Crap!” He gripped the kitchen table so hard it turned his knuckles white. Tears threatened to squeeze through his eyelids. He wanted so very, very much to be done with this. “It didn’t work.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. Look at me.”

Drew forced his head to move her direction despite the logginess and sense of unreality. He let himself blink as she flashed the beam from a tiny flashlight across one eye then the other.

“Well, you know we aren’t there yet.” Sonoma sat back. “But you may not realize just how close we are. A week ago you would have been frozen to the spot for hours.”

“Oh.” The ghosts filtered out of the room as she talked. Her voice came through loud and clear. The feeling of unreality washed out as fast as it had flooded in. Drew sat back in his chair. “So…”

“Sorry, we can’t do anything more today.” Sonoma stood up. “But if you’re willing to try it again tomorrow…:”

“Yeah, sure. Anything to be myself again.”

She patted his hand as she passed his seat on her way to the den.

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