Page 60 of The Moonlight Healers

“Is that…? Is she…?” Jake’s voice broke.

Louise kept her hands on Sarah as energy rushed into all the sick places. She pressed deeper into Sarah’s skin, and the heat intensified. But Sarah didn’t stir or wake.

“Is she better?” Caroline’s words cut through the room. She stood beside Jake, her eyes hopeful as she peered down at her mother.

“I made her pain go away.” She needed Caroline to hear, to understand. “I can’t do more.”

Caroline shook her head. “I saw you. I saw you do it.” She pointed at Peter. “You fixed him.”

Peter’s eyes were wide, and she saw the question there, the one he had been asking her for days, what really happened after the accident.

For a moment, they were the only two people in the room, the only two people in the universe. Through her grief, Louise felt gratitude that she had brought him back. She knew now it was selfish, that it ultimately changed nothing for Peter, but at least she had a little more time with him in this world.

She wished she could give that to Jake and Caroline. But even as she eased her pain, she had felt an opposing force, pulling Sarah away.

“I can’t,” Louise said quietly.

“Mom?” Caroline said quietly as she moved forward.

Sarah’s eyes opened, unfocused at first, then blinked into awareness as she looked from Caroline to Louise and Peterand then finally to Jake. “Oh, honey,” she said hoarsely. “She shouldn’t be here. She can’t help me.”

At Sarah’s words, Jake released an animal-like sound, and he crouched down and put his head in his hands.

“It’s okay, Louise,” Sarah said as she watched Jake. Her face seemed to drain of color. She placed one hand on top of Louise’s. “You can let go, honey.”

Louise didn’t move. She tried to hold steady.

Sarah’s expression was filled with so much love and pain that it was hard to know where one ended and the other began. “It’s time for Louise to go home now, Jake.”

Jake lifted his head. “She can’t. Not yet. I didn’t tell you why she’s here.”

“I know enough,” Sarah said. “You think I never heard stories about her great-grandmother? Everyone in town used to talk about Ms. Helene. The beautiful French woman whose orchard never had a bad season, even in drought years, who took care of everyone in town, who some people even called a healer.” A cough wracked her body, and Louise’s touch sunk deeper until it was gone. Sarah smiled as she turned to Louise. “I knew the second you came back here that you were just like her, just like your grandmother. How could you not be?”

Louise released a ragged breath. It didn’t matter that she was like them. She didn’t want to just take away Sarah’s suffering. She wanted to fix her, and Peter. But she couldn’t.

“Can you change it, honey? Make the cancer go away for good?”

Louise could tell Sarah already knew the answer, that she was only asking so her husband and daughter could hear.

Louise shook her head and removed her hands. She felt Peter’s arms come around her.

Sarah addressed Peter. “Will you please take Louise back to her grandmother’s house? Go on, honey.”

Louise’s hands continued to pulse with soft little waves of heat. She didn’t want to leave Sarah in so much pain.

Sarah reached out to Caroline, who climbed into the bed beside her. “We’re okay.” She kissed Caroline’s forehead. “We’re going to be just fine. And I know your grandmother is just down the street, if I need her.”

Louise let Peter lead her out of the room, but she stopped in the hallway at the sound of Jake’s voice.

“I’m sorry…” he said.

Louise felt no anger, only sadness. She nodded once, the only response she could muster, then followed Peter out into the summer night.

ROUEN, FRANCE

1942

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