No two prescriptions were the same. Mika never repeated a word from the tin box. When asked where the words came from, she would tap the side of her nose and say, “From the same place as the sadness. Life.”

People came to her when the world felt heavy. Not for broken bones or fevers—those were for the hospital up the hill. They came for the ache that didn’t show up on X-rays. The quiet, gnawing loneliness of a Tuesday afternoon. The grey fog that settled behind the eyes.

Her method was always the same.