Free The Forms of Water by Andrea Barrett Page B

best results. However, even an unwilling Subject (one who has not accepted the omnipotence of the Spirit, or who has lost all will to command the Spirit) may be aided by a neuro-nutritionist who designs a diet based on the following guidelines:
    â€¢ Roots (e.g., potatoes, onions, beets, turnips) nourish the muscles and are useful in cases of muscle wasting, paralysis, sprain, strain, or spasm.
    â€¢ Leaves (e.g., lettuce, spinach, cabbage, dandelions) cool inappropriate passions and heat and are useful in cases of fever, sleeplessness, mania, and consumption.
    â€¢ Shoots (e.g., asparagus, fiddleheads, green onions) stimulate circulation and brain activity and are useful in cases of excess fluid, depression, and coma.
    â€¢ Flowers (e.g., broccoli, cauliflower, nasturtiums) have an affinity for the eyes and ears and are useful in cases of blindness, infection, and in certain disorders of emotion and behavior, which are actually disorders of perception.
    â€¢ Fruits (e.g., apples, oranges, melons; also such vegetables as eggplants, peppers, tomatoes) soothe and regulate all disorders of the skin and upper digestive tract.
    â€¢ Barks (e.g., cinnamon, birch, slippery elm) purge and purify the bowels and liver and are useful in cases of constipation, diarrhea, gallstones, liver congestion, and tumors of the digestive tract below the stomach.
    â€¢ Seeds (e.g., grains, peas, beans, nuts, sesame, poppy) stimulate and cleanse the generative organs and are useful in cases of barrenness, impotence, disordered menses, enlarged prostate or prostatic tumor, ovarian cyst or tumor, difficult pregnancy, and both lapsed and excessive desire.
    There was more, much more, but Wiloma skipped to the end of the list and read the last paragraph:
Keep in mind that these are only guidelines. The neuro-nutritionist will modify them as needed, based on the dialogue of his or her Spirit with the Spirit of the Subject.
    How, Wiloma wondered, was Christine, her neuro-nutritionist, going to establish a dialogue with Brendan’s Spirit, which he kept hidden and caged? Although he’d left his Order when Wiloma was still a child, although he hadn’t set foot in a church since Second Vatican, she suspected he wouldn’t relinquish his Spirit to anyone but a priest. But Christine was cunning, and if anyone could break through to Brendan it would be her.
    Wiloma had known Christine since her return from the Healing Center in Boston. She hadn’t introduced Christine to Wendy and Win, but she’d seen her often, surreptitiously, for the minor ailments that continued to plague her despite her efforts to drive them out. These ailments shamed her, but Christine was very pragmatic about Wiloma’s lapses. The Spirit Scale was just that, Christine said—a scale, along which we proceed by steps. It takes time to shed our old thoughts and old habits, and even when we move along the Scale a few degrees, some backsliding is inevitable in times of weakness or inattention. And although Wiloma should not, she said, ever resort to drugs, the proper foods and herbs and minerals could aid the flow of energy along the body’s channels.
    Christine had given Wiloma extracts of bryophyllum leaves for her anxiety attacks and infusions of yarrow and silver for her insomnia. For her migraines, she’d concocted a mixture of iron, sulfur, myrtle, and honey. She gave Wiloma infusions of young birch leaves when her eczema broke out, and nasal sprays of lemon juice and mucilage of quince for her allergies. All these things had been comforting and some of them had helped; certainly none of them had harmed her.
    She was sure that Christine could help Brendan in similar ways. The plan she’d worked out for Brendan included blackthorn and stinging nettles and strawberry leaves, colloidal flint and lily of the valley, turmeric rhizomes and horsetail and infusions of elder blossoms. These were meant to strengthen his worn organs, but the