Chapter 1
Jasmine stumbled through the forest behind the weathered tent she called home. She was looking for something, somethings, preferably. Or else she would go hungry again. She ran through what she knew. Cattails, burdock, wood sorrel for eating; yarrow and nettles for open wounds; avoid hemlock, lupine, false hellebores, water hemlock... All the edible berries and roots within a half-mile radius were already stripped of all parts that were edible. As the days grew ever shorter she was forced to search further and further away to feed her and her mother.
Her mother.
What a laughable concept. Her mother had stopped being her mother a very long time ago.
She had met someone today, a girl with lightning through her hair and melting eyes. How long had it been since she could speak to someone in her own language?
Come, said the girl. You look like you have walked through hell.
She had forgotten what it was like to have someone look at her and care about what she looked like. Certainly not her mother, who barely remembered her own name, eyes empty and unknowing.
Come, said the girl. My parents have a house and food and clothes.
She thought about was it would be like to have a house and food and clothes. My mother is sick, she said. I am tired. Oh, was she tired. Tired of breathing, tired of existing between stumbling shadows of monstrous trees.
When the girl came the next day, Jasmine was waiting, a rosary clutched in her fingers. My mother is dead, she said. They walked, and as they walked they left behind the forest and the weathered tent and the old mother in her empty body. A sprig of morning glory remained tangled in the barbs of her hair.
The girl had asked what her name was. Minnie, she replied. My name is Minnie.
Perhaps that is why it was this, when years later she began her slow silent revolt against her ignorant overlords, that she remembered from her childhood in the woods: cattails, burdock, wood sorrel for eating; yarrow and nettles for open wounds; avoid hemlock, lupine, false hellebores, water hemlock...
