Florida sprung to her feet and raced half-crazy around the lobby. When she passed a mirror hanging on the wall, she stopped and stared. Then the screeching started. “It’s a red-speckled monster! Everybody run! Alien invasion!”
Violet and I exchanged looks as Florida raced in circles around the room. We wanted to laugh but stopped ourselves. It might have been funny if my grandmother hadn’t been so sick.
Rosalie Claire unzipped her fanny pack. This time she found cotton balls and a bottle of pink calamine lotion. “Madison, you put this on your grandmother’s spots while I call Dr. Morán. This may be more serious than we thought.”
She guided Florida back to the sofa. As I dabbed her skin with the cool pink liquid, she squirmed from the itchiness. Her breathing turned soft and shallow. My grandmother was gasping for air.
“Dr. Morán wants to run some tests,” Rosalie Claire said when she got off the phone. “He cancelled his next appointment. He’s rushing right over.”
The doctor must have thought it was serious too. Could my grandmother die?
When Dr. Morán came out of Room Four, we were all waiting. Violet, Noah, Rosalie Claire, and me. He said he’d taken blood from Florida’s arm and made her pee in a cup. He was going to have it all tested to double-check that she had malaria. He was especially worried because the whites of her eyes had turned a sickly scrambled egg yellow.
“The results should be in by early evening,” he said. “The hallucinations could mean she had a bad reaction to the medication. You’ll need to watch her closely for the next few days until it’s out of her system. Unfortunately, the color of her eyes would suggest that she’s getting sicker.” Then he hurried back to the clinic.
Rosalie Claire decided it was best to move Florida into my bedroom in the bungalow so she could keep an eye on her. My friends and I hauled our stuff to Room Four, where we’d sleep until my grandmother got better.
Violet, Noah, and I went back to the bungalow while Rosalie Claire got some work done around the inn. That way we could listen for my grandmother, in case she needed something. We found a deck of cards in the living room and played Crazy Eights on top of the old leather trunk that doubled as a coffee table. Ever since Rosalie Claire told me the trunk had once belonged to her Grandma Daisy, something about it gave me the shivers. It was as if it connected me to the past and Grandma Daisy, who was magical just like Rosalie Claire.
Leroy stood guard at the bedroom door. Florida slept the rest of the afternoon, waking only once in a panic to report that twelve microscopic blue men were camping out in her jar of wrinkle cream.
Late that night, my friends and I were still in the bungalow with Rosalie Claire and Thomas when the doctor finally called.
“It’s not malaria,” Rosalie Claire said when she hung up the phone. She closed her eyes and breathed deep. When I asked her what it was, she said the doctor didn’t know. “He thinks it could be some rare disease she picked up in the Amazon jungle. He’s never seen anything like it. He’s asked some tropical disease specialists to help him figure it out. We may not know for a few days. Maybe more. If your grandmother gets any worse, they want to airlift her to the hospital in San José.”
The hospital?! I hate hospitals. The last time I was in one was when my mom died. That was the last place I wanted Florida to go.
I remember my mom used to say that things happen for a reason, except I couldn’t see any reason for so many people in my life to leave me behind. My dad disappeared when I was a baby. My mom died. Was it possible that my grandmother could leave me too? My eyes stung hot with tears.
Rosalie Claire pulled me close.
“Does the doctor think she could die?” I whispered.
“He won’t know anything until they figure out what’s going on.” Her eyes were damp as she stroked my shoulder.
I laid my head on Rosalie Claire’s lap and my tears splashed down my cheek, spilling onto her fanny pack.
Her fanny pack! It had to have exactly what my grandmother needed to get better.
“Madison, what do you say we use a little magic?” It was as if Rosalie Claire had read my mind.
I bolted upright, drying my eyes on the back of my hand.
“This time let’s go for something more powerful than a wet washcloth, cotton balls, and a bottle of Calamine lotion.” She slid open the zipper of her pouch.
“Once again, my Rosalie Claire is about to save the day.” Thomas beamed at her from across the room.
But when she reached into her fanny pack, all she pulled out was her cell phone.
Her face froze in shock. “What in the world?”
“Maybe it’s too much to ask of your pack. Curing a rare jungle disease is a tall order,” Thomas said.
“It shouldn’t matter.” Rosalie Claire looked as confused as I felt.
“How could it just stop working?” Violet asked.
Rosalie Claire sighed. “It has been acting up lately. For what it’s worth, I do remember Grandma Daisy saying that everything expires after time. Bodies, milk, even magic. It’s lasted well over thirty years without needing a recharge, but now is a rotten time for it to quit working.”
“The magic can be recharged?” asked Noah.
Rosalie Claire nodded.
“Then let’s do it! What are we waiting for?” Could it be that Florida’s cure was right around the corner?
Rosalie Claire didn’t look as excited as I did.
“If only it were that easy. As far as I know, it can only be recharged with a rare piece of Baltic amber that belonged to Grandma Daisy.”
Grandma Daisy had been dead for nearly five years. What had she done with that stone?
A familiar feeling rushed over me like a gust of warm wind. I stared at Grandma Daisy’s old leather trunk. The one that gives me the shivers. With a sweep of my hand, our playing cards flew to the floor. There was something in there that we needed. I just knew it. I felt it. My gut told me that maybe, just maybe, it was the magic piece of amber.
I unlatched the rusty clasp and pushed open the lid, its hinges creaking from old age.
Rosalie Claire let out a heavy sigh. “I looked through it when it first arrived. I can’t say I remember seeing the amber, although maybe I missed it.”
We gathered around the trunk and peered inside. It was jam-packed with ancient treasures. We discovered raggedy yellowing books on herbal remedies, shape shifting, and black magic. Thomas and Rosalie Claire gathered up all the ones on herbs and began to read, hoping to find a cure for Florida’s mysterious disease.
My friends and I kept digging.
Violet found Grandma Daisy’s dusty red leather-bound photo album. The edges of the black construction paper pages were tattered and torn.
We thumbed through the fragile black-and-white photos. Mostly they were pictures of fifteen-year-old Rosalie Claire, taken the summer she came to live with Grandma Daisy in Truth or Consequences, right after her parents died. Instead of the braids she now wore encircling her