Free The Plague Doctor by E. Joan Sims Page B

lethal to the mother. Just breathing a little bit could cause seizures and coma.
    Nematodes and seizures. I was getting nauseous.
    Finally, there was the article about the lambs. This was what Ethan had told me to look for, and I read it with anticipation. Here again was a poisonous plant, Veratrum californicum , otherwise known as the skunk cabbage. It caused congenital malformations when fed to pregnant ewes during the second and third week after conception. The resulting “monkey-faced” lambs were usually aborted. Those that were carried to term always died shortly after birth, since their facial deformities prevented them from breathing and eating. The upper jaw and nose were poorly developed, and the eyes were usually joined into one big cycloptic organ. They were normal otherwise. Ha, I thought, how normal can a cycloptic “monkey-faced” lamb be? But this plant grew in the high mountain valleys of the Pacific coast and the Rocky Mountains, nowhere near us.
    There was another Veratrum viride which grew in open woods and pastures throughout North America. This plant, Indian poke, had been used as an insecticide in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Its toxicity was unpredictable. It had fallen into disuse until the 1950s, when an alkaloid it contained was found to have hypotensive properties. It was now used in some antihypertensive drugs such as Veratramine.
    What part of this was supposed to mean something to me, or Leonard?
    I went to bed and dreamed of lambs who ate bananas and climbed trees. It was a funny dream. I smiled in my sleep until I saw their big single eyes staring at me from behind the tropical leaves.

Chapter Twelve
    When I awoke the next morning, I found Cassie and Aggie in bed with me. I must have slept very soundly because I had no idea when they had crawled under my covers.
    Aggie was whining to go out for her morning walk, so I slipped on my beloved old Cole-Haan moccasins, opened the French doors, and stepped outside.
    The air was balmy, almost springlike, but the sky was a dirty pewter grey. And there was the slightly metallic smell of rain on the light breeze blowing from the south.
    Aggie took her own sweet time. She puttered around endlessly under my grandmother Howard’s big crepe myrtle and sniffed daintily at the tiny little wild violets she had planted at the edge of the driveway fifty years ago. I got impatient. I started to call her, but the wind picked up suddenly, lifting the thick soft fur on the dog’s back until it stood straight up like a ruff. She raised her ears and eyebrows in a comical parody of alarm and scampered back to my side.
    I looked to the south and saw big blackish-green thunder clouds boiling over the horizon. We were in for quite a storm if the wind kept blowing in this direction.
    I stepped back inside and Aggie hurriedly squeezed in between my ankles. She hated thunderstorms and was a fairly good little barometer. I decided to batten down the hatches.
    I unplugged Ethan’s computer and mine, too. And just to make sure that Cassie would not try to turn it on during the bad weather, I stuck Ethan’s in the big drawer of my father’s desk. No sense taking any chances with government property. Thanks to Leonard’s success I had plenty of tax dollars at work
    Cassie was already up and dressed. She was cavorting with Mother in the kitchen, their feud over abortion rights apparently forgotten, as they danced and harmonized on “Dream a Little Dream With Me.”
    I sat down at the table and drank a glass of orange juice while I watched them frolic around the big kitchen looking for all the world like Fred and Ginger—or Ginger and Ginger.
    When they finished, I clapped, Aggie barked, and they bowed. Quite a pleasant way to begin the day. Then I had to go and spoil it.
    â€œTut, tut, it looks like rain.”
    â€œThe weatherman says ‘no,’ dear.”
    â€œAggie says ‘yes.’”
    They turned