"Holy Mother Anna, are you--"

As she pushed through the whipgrass-woven gate in the alcove's low mud-brick wall--high enough to keep the goats out--she saw the old woman on hands and knees in front of the stone bench where they'd sat together a moment ago. The Holy Mother's sapbalm pouch lay on the ground, an indistinct black splotch in the dim starlight, like a dead hedge chicken. A few yellow thumb-sized balls of waxy sapbalm lay scattered from the open bag mouth, glowing. The Holy Mother's long blonde hair hung like a curtain over her face--so scarred on one side that many of the children had been terrified when they first saw her.

"Holy Mother," Lisan muttered--a prayer, in part--as she ran to the woman's side, knelt, and clutched her bony ribs. The narrow ribcage rose and fell in spastic arrhythmia. Lisan could feel the old woman's body heat. One stick-like hand groped for the nearest sapbalm ball. Just out of reach. The Holy Mother groaned in frustration.

Lisan grabbed the errant ball and put it into the old woman's hand. She popped it into her mouth and gulped it down. In a moment, Anna nodded thanks, head still bent low, hair still curtaining her face, and Lisan could hear her raspy breathing become less erratic and tense, feel her sides loosen. The sapbalm did its magic, as usual, and again, Lisan marveled.

"What happened? Are you all right, now?"

Anna nodded and tried to stand. Her knees quivered. Lisan let the gnarled old woman lean on her as she eased Anna back onto the bench. Again, Lisan marveled at how little Anna weighed. Her bones must be hollow, like a sawk's.

"Please..." Anna gestured at the sapbalm balls scattered on the ground, "Please..."

Lisan got to her knees and gathered the waxy balls, counting them as she did so. She placed each one back into the pouch, secured the pouch drawstring, and handed it back to Anna. She sat at the old woman's side.

"I counted three hands and two fingers of sapbalm left, Mother--"

"Seventeen."

"I beg your--"

"You counted seventeen, not three hands and--"

"I ... I'm sorry, Mother, I..."

"Don't apologize, Lisan Navarroclan." The Holy Mother took Lisan's youthful-smooth hand in her bony, aged hand and pressed gently. Lisan liked it when she touched her--it felt like her own Mother's touch.

Lisan fought back that memory--her Mother had been dead only two hands and--no--twelve--nights yet.

"Seventeen," Lisan said, and returned her handclasp, warm skin against warm skin.

Lisan wanted to ask the Holy Mother what had prompted her sudden bout of illness. A memory would surface, or somebody would say something, or she'd find something left over from the rebellion in the dirt in a collapsed corridor. Or something. Always something preceded each attack.

The last one had been one hand--five--nights ago. The Holy Mother had visited Cousin Michael Riosclan's alcove. Her unannounced visit, no reason given, surprised Michael as he tended his tomato plant. When she saw the plant, the Holy Mother had collapsed in pain. Lisan tended to her, popped a sapbalm into her quivering mouth, and the episode passed. The Holy Mother left Michael's alcove, left him stunned, speechless, left without explanation.

It was as if the Holy Mother had never seen a tomato plant, and Lisan realized maybe she never had. If she had, it had been so long ago, buried so deep in her memory that it hurt physically to recall it.

Lisan had tried to ask about the tomato plant, as gently as possible, but the Holy Mother seemed not to hear. She sat for hours after the incident, silent, on the bench where they now rested, gazing out at the empty desert grassland to the west, where her memories, Lisan knew, were not really buried.

The next night, Holy Mother had asked for a cutting. She had her own tomato plant now, in its pot by the door.

What if nothing now causes the attacks? What if--