Nothing could stop the child from dying. Even so, a simple statement of the facts would be bad for business, so she made a show of it. She would not waste the rare stash of pills, smuggled from the city and carefully hidden around the half-tent-half-hut she made her home. No, potent as they were, they would only delay the inevitable. She grabbed instead a pinch of jewelweed, a large sprig of willow, and a faceted bottle with an iron clasp that, despite all appearances, contained nothing more than highly distilled hooch. Then, the performance, the flamboyant manipulation of the mortar and pestle, the holding the bottle up to the light, the mumbling of mystical and to be honest, nonsensical words.