they understood their own spiritual needs. Just as Jesus had done for the man at the pool of Bethesda.
Beth sensed the first change in Nova’s fingers. The surface of her skin warmed, and then her stiff joints softened like a winter creek, thawing. Her quick and shallow breathing found a healthier pace at a deeper level. And then the wrinkled worry of her brow smoothed out like a rumpled blanket tugged taut.
These were the changes in Nova. Beth herself felt an inner shift like a realignment of her spine, or a tidying up of her organs. It was a slight adjustment—like a handful of pine needles tossed on a campfire, or a firm leather rein applied to a horse’s neck, or a rain-soaked clod of earth falling away from a hillside.
Nova’s eyes opened as if she were a baby doll set upright. Beth jumped off the bed.
“She’s not welcome here,” Nova whispered. Under the clinging tendrils of stringy hair, her face was pale, and it seemed she lacked the strength to sit up, though her eyes were wide and alert.
At first Beth thought Nova was speaking about her to an unseen visitor. But then Nova looked at Beth and repeated herself.
“She’s not welcome here.”
“Who’s not?” Beth asked.
“Catherine Ransom.”
“She’s not here now,” Beth said.
Nova sighed with relief, and her eyes returned to a more relaxed, less petrified shape.
“She told me you’d sleep through the night,” Beth said, returning to the edge of the bed. Nova reached out for her hand and gripped it fiercely.
“She says what she wants people to believe.”
“Why would she lie about your sleep?”
“Because she’s sick,” Nova said. “Sick in the head. That’s my diagnosis.”
“Dr. Ransom told me you had a miscarriage. Was that a lie too?”
“Miscarriage sounds so unintentional.” The peaceful lines of Nova’s face began to collapse. “My baby’s dead, and it was no accident.”
“What happened?”
Her voice cracked. “Poison. She did it.”
Beth hardly knew what to say to that kind of accusation. She didn’t know which woman might be less reliable. Nova didn’t seem to be in a clear state of mind. Nova lifted Beth’s hand in hers and looked at Beth’s calloused, dirty fingers through full, wet eyes.
“Your hands are very comforting. I remember them. In the church, before Catherine arrived.” Beth let her twist and turn them in the angled light of the lamp. “These are good hands. A healer’s hands.”
Nova ran her fingertips over Beth’s palm the way a carnival fortune-teller might assess the wrinkles. She turned Beth’s wrist gently, admiring the tops of her hands as well.
“I’m not a healer,” Beth said. “A wannabe vet, but not a healer.”
“You were talking about the man at the pool of Bethesda.”
Beth didn’t think she had been speaking aloud.
“I heard that story once, a long time ago,” Nova said. Beth feared she might be slipping back into sleep. “I like that story.”
“Nova, is there someone I can get for you? A friend, a relative?”
Nova frowned and slowly shook her head. “I have no one. Just like that man. That poor paralyzed man.” She drew a deep breath. “Catherine gave me some food. She hates me, you know. She hates the real healers. You ought to be careful of her. Garner isn’t careful enough.”
It was a difficult choice for Beth, which topic she ought to chase with which question. What were “real” healers? Was this “food” the same poison Nova had mentioned? Did Nova also see herself as some kind of doctor? Beth didn’t so much choose as she allowed one question to fight its way to the top of the pile.
She said, “Is that how Garner died? She told me it was cancer. Do you think the doctor killed him?”
Nova gasped and used her grip on Beth to haul herself up to sit. Beth could see the tears flow into her eyes, going up like a wall of glass. “Mr. Remke is dead?”
“Isn’t he?” Beth asked.
“That monster! That witch! I’ll kill her with my own hands.”
“Nova—”
“When did it happen?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
Nova’s face began to crack. “I don’t understand how this could have happened. If she killed him because of me, I’ll never forgive myself. I saw him Sunday morning—I went to him for some peppermint, for the nausea.”
“Sunday?” The meaning of the glass jars by the door was clearer now.
“I asked him to go with me to Mathilde’s, but he couldn’t just then. He said he was under the weather. And Monday I couldn’t find him. I needed him, but he wasn’t there.”