From the woods, I heard the whoosh of the flame finding fuel, finding the box of matches in the glove box, or the last cans of gas. The truck caught fire, then the house did.

The kerosene lamp would burst. The woodstove would glow for one last time. The little stained-glass window would shatter into a million shards. All the books would burn, all my pictures of Mama and Lisbeth. The loft where I had made love, the window where I had looked out on the woods and wanted more. The maps, the dead phones, the last grow light, the postcard with the address in California.

I turned away from the fire and carried Jamey up the hill. No voices called back to me. No one ran after me.

It was quiet in the grow room, I remembered. And though I preferred working outside, feeling the sunbaked soil in my hands and the light warm on my back, the dirt in the basement room was warm, too, heated by the lights. When I cupped a tiny plant with its root webs and thick, dark globe of dirt, warmth radiated through me. I would hold each plant in my hands longer than necessary, each time I transplanted them to a bigger container. It was like holding a baby chick, something alive and beating with hope and potential. I imagined I could feel them breathe. I imagined that it mattered that I was down there, that I mattered. And when I was in there, in the grow room, I couldn’t hear the shouting from the farmhouse above. I couldn’t hear my mama crying, or smell the vomit or smoke or worse. I was making medicine, I told myself. I was making medicine.

I was a witch, I had told myself when I was even smaller, not too much older than Starla, the first time my mama had taken me out to Lobo’s farm, to meet the magic man. I was a witch girl, and only I knew the secrets of the wild plants. They whispered to me, like wind through the long grass. Slippery elm bark for sore throat, boneknitter for sprains, jewelweed for poison ivy, elderberry for cold.

I broke a pebbled leaf of spearmint for Lisbeth to chew the first time we met, in the fields behind the elementary school. She trusted me, took the sweet taste from me. The bright surprise of lemon balm, the peppery wild onion. Only I knew where the nettles grew, gathered willow bark by the stream. Only I could heal the maiden’s heart, find the warmth in the cold cold room, deep underground.

I carried Jamey.