Chapter 73: Going Herbal
Emily, an eternal cynic when it came to a lot of things sleep-related ( which was to be expected seeing just how many had failed her) had long since looked at herbal remedies as myths. If chewing on a piece of root could solve all of her problems, then taking the concentrated thing in pill form would have long ago managed to cure her of the nightmares that plagued her every night.
But now she was desperate, as in, really really desperate, and desperation did to her what it did to most people. It made her begin to doubt her own logic, her own reasoning. It made her look at things that she had always clung to as facts and go...maybe, just maybe I might have been wrong.
Perhaps if I give this wild idea a go, it will help me out. Maybe if I try it I will find that I was just being biased and that I could have been enjoying the benefits of this thing that I have been dismissing for years.
That was the logic that Emily was using when she finally bit the bullet and walked into a herbalist’s shop. She did not just walk into the first random one that she came across. No, her sleep was too important for her to just wing it.
So she had done her research first, going through reviews and ratings online. She had searched until she had finally found a shop that a lot of people seemed to have nothing but good things to say when they talked about it.
And from the moment that Emily walked in, she understood why. The place felt...alive. There were actual plants, living plants, not just their cut-off bits, flowers in all their glorious colors out of full display. The light from outside streaming in from the giant windows up front.
It felt like taking a walk in an actual forest rather than walking into a building. Emily instantly liked it. What she did not like, however, was the fact that she could not see any workers around. Who was she supposed to ask when she needed something? No sooner had she thought that, there was a laugh from behind some giant leaves.
"Come on back here, sweet sugar, I do not bite," There was a slight rasp to the voice, one that came with age, and Emily’s guess of the woman being older was proven right when she pulled back the leaf.
Ayo, as she introduced herself, was old, her short hair completely white, contrasting nicely with her dark skin, her smile big, showing off the front tooth that she was missing, and she had been doing a lot of smiling ever since her eyes had settled on Emily.
Originally Emily had come in just for some tea. But she somehow ended up seated next to Ayo on the floor, chewing on a sweet leaf that Ayo had plucked from a nearby plant.