Page 48 of The Moonlight Healers

Without waiting for Louise to reply, she got up and headed back toward the house.

“I don’t want to talk to Mom. Not right now.” And anyway, she had Peter to drive her home later.

Camille stopped and turned to face Louise. “Will you, please? For me?”

Her voice was so raw that Louise found herself nodding.

“Great,” Camille said, regaining her composure. “I’ll go down to the farm stand. See if Caroline is there. She can go with you too. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to have the morning off.”

Louise watched her grandmother go, as all around her the garden flowers stretched toward the June morning light.

* * *

Louise was breathing heavily as they walked the trail up to Sugar Hollow. It was unusually hot for this time of year, but the bright sun was tempered by the thick canopy above them. Every treeand fern and patch of moss was a verdant, oversaturated green, as though they were deep in a tropical rainforest instead of an ancient, fading mountain in Appalachia.

“You okay?” Peter called over his shoulder. His own breathing was easy, and it looked like he had barely broken a sweat. Though it was the first summer since middle school he wasn’t training for fall track, he was still in annoyingly good shape compared to Louise, who only exercised when it was mandatory.

Louise rolled her eyes as she wiped the sweat from her brow. “I’ll be fine. It’s not that bad.”

“That’s what your grandmother said too. ‘Small children do it all the time,’ I think were her exact words.” He smiled at her in a way that made her heart, already pounding from the incline, beat faster. “You want to quit?”

Louise wasn’t going to back down from the challenge. She tried to think of what she’d say to him if this were a week ago, before every exchange felt tougher to navigate. “Of course not. I never quit.”

Peter opened his mouth to reply but Louise cut him off.

“I know what you’re going to say. And field hockey doesn’t count.”

He grinned wider and cocked his head to the side. “Horseback riding? Or pretty much every single gym class in middle school.”

“Horseback riding was my mom’s thing. And I stuck with that for almost a year. Also shut up,” Louise said, even though in truth she was grateful for this more familiar version of Peter.

Peter fell back into step beside her as they forged up the path. Caroline was so far up the trail from them they couldn’t see her anymore. She had agreed to go with them at Louise’s grandmother’s insistence, but she had been quiet and reserved for most of the car ride there.

“Is she okay? Caroline?” Peter asked, as though reading her thoughts.

“Not really.”

“What’s going on?”

“Her mom is sick. Cancer. She doesn’t have much time.”

“Shit,” Peter said. “That’s awful.”

“Yeah,” Louise said. She tried to choose her next words carefully. It felt dangerous to tell Peter about Sarah, to reveal some of the reason she had stayed in Crozet but not the full truth. “I actually went with my grandmother yesterday, to see her.”

Louise could feel Peter studying her. “God, that was probably tough, right?”

She nodded. Peter could always read her. “It was hard,” Louise admitted in a low voice.

Louise looked up the trail but still saw no sign of Caroline. “But I helped my grandmother too. And I felt like I helped Caroline’s mom. And that part was actually really…amazing.”

A smile crossed Peter’s lips. “Of course it was. Because it’s what you do.”

Louise swatted a mosquito off her arm as she tried to parse Peter’s words. “What I do?”

“Take care of people,” he said simply, echoing her grandmother.

“What are you talking about?” Louise asked. “I don’t…”

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