Mandrake and Other Temptations

I sat where the ferns stood guard— solemn sentries on wood pedestals— my back pressed against her bookcase, cradled in the soft hush of the window seat as snow rehearsed its silence just beyond the glass. Like a priestess reading spells I turned the musty pages of her herbal catalog— wild ginger, mandrake, devil’s claw, some deadly and some to heal— and I whispered their names like charms. The home medical book’s cracked spine braced like a body in pain, pages rife with disease and disfigurement. I turned them slowly, queasy and thrilled, pausing at cancers, wounds and gangrene— the skin peeled back to show the truth. The National Geographics were stacked beneath the window seat— their yellow spines a secret sign. I slid one out, heart thudding, and found her there: bare-breasted, brown-skinned, beaded and beautiful— looking straight into the lens as if she knew I was watching. I found her country in the atlas— bordered in darker green, its name full of silent letters. I traced the rivers with one finger, imagining the smell of the air, what flowers bloomed, what stories told. I didn’t care about capitals— I cared about color. The Doré Bible was heavy, so I opened it in place, its pages edged in tarnished gold. There he was— Satan on the cliff’s edge, offering the kingdoms of the world to a weary, windblown Christ. The sky behind them looked like it might break. I still sit there in my mind sometimes— back against the bookcase, snow falling soft beyond the glass. I didn’t know what I was gleaning— only that it felt like something sacred: a body unlaced by illness, a country shaded green, a woman’s calm and candid gaze, the devil’s offer trembling in light. I was small, and ready.