So when she got sick, we be­came doc­tors. We thumbed through old pam­phlets and got a neigh­bor to give us a ride to the li­brary. We used the in­ter­net there.

We as­sem­bled crys­tals, raid­ing our stashes and bor­row­ing as many as we could, call­ing in every favor we were owed and mak­ing some promises that we wouldn’t like keep­ing. Mala­chite and blood­stone, se­len­ite and smoky quartz. Some were fash­ioned into wands with switches and pieces of leather, some were sus­pended above her bed, but mostly we just piled them on her body. We weren’t en­tirely sure what we were doing.

I brought out the piece of rose quartz that I had stolen from my older sis­ter three years be­fore, the piece whose theft I had de­nied. It was so beau­ti­ful. I know that she no­ticed but she said noth­ing. It didn’t mat­ter now.

At first it seemed like her con­di­tion was im­prov­ing. Then the vom­it­ing started.

We be­came more des­per­ate. I traded my best clothes for more crys­tals. I re­al­ized that I hadn’t been eat­ing. We moved the crys­tals around, try­ing them in dif­fer­ent com­bi­na­tions, neat lit­tle piles on her pulse points and a large stack on her belly. We tried to send her pos­i­tive en­ergy but hon­estly we were ter­ri­fied.

We started using what­ever we could get our hands on, min­er­als not even known to have heal­ing abil­i­ties. Rock salt, gyp­sum, fake coral from a fish tank. We just piled them on her chest and prayed and waited.