Page 25 of The Moonlight Healers

Louise picked up the large plastic hospital pitcher.

“Thank you,” Sarah said as she put the straw to her dry lips and took several gulps. She started to cough and her face contorted with the movement, her body tensing as she squeezed her eyes shut. She gripped the bedside rail so tightly that her knuckles turned white, and Louise waited for it to end, for her to open her eyes, but she seemed trapped.

Without thinking, Louise set a hand on her back, letting it rest on the thin fabric of her T-shirt. She felt nothing at first, only the rigid muscles of Sarah’s back.

Louise watched the door, wishing her grandmother would come back, to help. She tried to remember her grandmother’s words:Do it with intention.She closed her eyes as Sarah let out a low moan. Louise tried to visualize Sarah’s pain melting away, but she felt only panic.

For an agonizing moment she was no longer in the room in Crozet but on the side of the road again, standing above Peter, willing his heart to beat—

“Breathe,” came a voice from far away.

Louise’s hand shook as she rested it on Sarah’s back.

Camille stood a few feet away, a plastic basin of water on one hip. She looked straight at Louise and repeated herself. “Breathe.”

As she exhaled again, Louise felt her body grow heavy, her weight sinking down toward Sarah as she pressed into her hand. She closed her eyes again, felt a familiar heat spread into herfingers, only this time it wasn’t a surge or jolt, like an electrical shock, but a slow warmth, like dipping beneath the surface of a hot bath.

It took Louise several moments to notice the silence of the room, the softening of Sarah’s body.

She opened her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” Sarah said, her voice hoarse. “Muscle spasm. From the cough.” She looked up at Camille. “I probably scared her to death.”

“She’s fine,” Camille said, her gaze moving past Sarah, finding Louise again. “Aren’t you, Louise?”

Louise’s hand on Sarah’s back was still heavy as the heat dissipated. “I…” She glanced from her grandmother back to Sarah.

Camille put the basin of soapy water on the bedside table. Beside it she set a stack of clean linens, sheets and towels and pillowcases, the smell of fabric softener wafting toward her.

Sarah leaned forward as Camille began to clamp and unhook the IV tubing. Camille helped lift her shirt over her head, covering her with a clean sheet as she moved the washcloth over her back in slow, smooth circles.

“It’s okay, Louise,” Sarah said. “You can help. I stopped being shy about all of this a long time ago. And who knows, maybe your grandmother will convince you to go into nursing, carry on the family legacy.”

“She’s kidding, you know,” Camille said gently as Louise hesitated, unsure of how to reply. “But you can still help me. If you’d like.”

For a few minutes, Louise only watched her grandmother work. Each time she touched Sarah, Louise could sense some of the tension leave her body. After a little while, Sarah’s breathing turned to snores.

“Would you like to try it again?” Camille asked.

Louise felt herself nod. Easing Sarah’s pain was a sensation unlike any she had felt before. Terrifying. But also in a strangeway, like a release. As though her body had been waiting eighteen years to serve its purpose.

Camille dropped her washcloth into the basin, took Louise’s hands, and guided them to Sarah’s back. Her skin was cool, the bones beneath palpable.

“Go on,” Camille said in a quiet voice.

Louise closed her eyes as a gentle flush once again settled into her palms like the first pale streaks of morning sun. Her hands moved toward Sarah’s pain as though controlled by an invisible magnet.

And with every flicker of heat across her skin, Louise understood just how much of herself had been hidden, lying beneath the surface like a dormant spring.

ROUEN, FRANCE

1942

8

HELENE

In the gray, muffled predawn hours of August, Helene rested in the sluice at the back of the German military ward. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and tried to loosen the collar of her uniform. Each shift there were more soldiers, fresh, unshaven faces to replace those who had left. The fortunate ones returned to their postings in France, and the others were sent like fuel to feed the endless fires of vague and distant fronts.

Even though she knew Matron Durand was waiting, Helene stopped and let her hands idle on a stack of linens. Everything in the military ward was spotless and new, vials of medicine and glass thermometers, shiny black combs and razors still in their packaging. The linens were never stained or torn. There was always strong coffee for the patients in the morning, the smell so pungent that it made Helene’s eyes water. The soldiers had cigarettes with real tobacco, and there was local apple brandy in the evenings for the officers. Their dinner trays were full with fresh bread and good meat and cheese. Helene sometimes found herself watching them eat, trying not to think of her grandfatherback home, standing in line in the early morning in his suit and hat to beg for whatever meager rations were left.

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