Donnie shot from the bed in a bolt. He slapped both hands to the windowsill where an urgent wind kicked tattered curtains on both sides of him. Upon that wind, he could still hear the cries.

“Help us! Somebody, please…help us!”

Off in yonder distance, he could see a blurry, orange glow. Closer yet, he could make the spindly frame of Rylah in silhouette, rushing wild, flailing twiggy arms above her head.

“Barney! Donnie! Somebody, help!”

Donnie bothered not with the door, and instead leapt from the window. He crashed to the flowerbed below, then took for the cornfield, in the directions of Rylah’s cries.

His father, Barney, had already cut the distance between them. He got to the girl first. He took her rawboned shoulders with both hands and pulled her to him.

“What is the matter, child?”

She collapsed her head to Barney’s chest. She spoke in staccato gasps. “It’s Marva,” she said. “She’s not moving. She’s…she’s not breathing.”

“Marva?” Barney sputtered. “But…I don’t—”

“Where is she?” asked Donnie.

Rylah pointed over her shoulder, toward the flickering firelight. Above them, thunder grumbled in billowing storm clouds.

“You have to help her!”

Still, Barney did not move. “What are you girls doing up at this hour? Why do I smell cigarette smoke in your overalls?”

“We…we were—”

“There isn’t time for that,” Donnie said. “Rylah, take me to her.”

Thunder slapped like a whipcrack and she was off. Donnie kept pace with her and somewhere behind them lagged his father. The sky above them opened and down came a chilly rain, one that would fill the gully in a matter of minutes.

“We have to hurry!” Donnie shouted over his shoulder. Again, he cursed his father for not allowing telephones or internet on the grounds. Without them, they’d find no way to get help without driving into town, and he couldn’t remember which was closer: the hospital in Ennis or the one in Corsicana.

He hoped to high hell there’d still be need for a hospital.

“It was an accident,” Rylah panted. “I swear to Luther, we didn’t mean—”

Donnie had plenty enough on his mind, like how deep his bare feet sunk into the new muck made by rains or how strong was the deluge, to ask who the hell Luther was. When finally he came to the rise of the ravine, he found a small fire roasting the tractor carcass, its flames dancing in the rain. He found a quickly developing stream. He found the remaining Miracle girls, stroking and caressing the body of Marva.

“What the…?”

They laid her in the mud upon her back, and drew her hands to her chest, as if preparing her for the casket. They brushed her long hair with their fingertips. They dried her cheeks from the rain.

“Luther, take Marva into your arms and keep her warm.”

“Take her into your arms and keep her safe.”

“She is perfect.”

“She is loved.”

“She is a Miracle.”

Donnie barreled down the face of the ravine. Reaching bottom, he slipped across the banks of the rising waters until he came to the girls, who he shouldered aside. He gently lifted Marva into his arms, cradling her head with the back of her hand.

She was gone, sure. Her limbs hung slack and her backbone offered no give. Her mouth gaped and he could see no one had bothered to clear it of water.

From atop the ravine, Barney hollered down, “Don’t touch her! She shouldn’t be moved!”

“To hell with that,” Donnie said. He lowered Marva to the slippery creek bed and tilted up her chin. He put both hands to the center of her breastbone and—one, two—pushed inward. He pinched shut her nose. He put his mouth to hers and—one, two—blew quick breaths. He repeated the process and repeated it until his father finally reached the bottom of the ravine.

“My poor Miracle,” he moaned. “My girls, please…” He scooped them each into his arms where he tried to shelter them from the storm. “You poor children.”

“We tried to save her,” Beth Ann cried. “We did everything we could.”

Between breaths, Donnie called, “Did none of you try CPR?”

“We prayed and we prayed,” said Suzie.

“That’s all you can do,” Barney assured them.

“It literally isn’t,” said Donnie, gasping for air. “Give me room so I can—”

“God has a plan for us all,” Barney said. “Marva is part of that plan. Right now, we all need to—”

Donnie let the girl slip from his hands. He rose to his feet. He split the distance between he and the old man. The rain fell harder, but within the boy raged one fire that would not be doused.

“You think your Higher Power is going to save you from everything,” he growled. “I got news for you: he’s not. He’s not going to save you from the tax man. He’s not going to save that girl. And he’s certainly not going to save you from her parents’ lawyers.”

Barney waved his hand as if shooing a fly. “All the world is made of energy, son. The same amount of atoms is in the universe now as there was in the beginning. All that’s happened is the shifting of that matter. The same stuff inside of you is the same stuff inside of me, Marva, and all of my Miracles, as well as the air which separates us.”

“What does that have to do with—”

“I need you to focus your energy.” Barney moved to receive Donnie to his arms. “Only positive thoughts can be allowed here. Marva’s soul will redistribute to the universe as only it can see fit, and forever when we look upon this creek, it must be with joy, rather than sadness.”

“All the positive energy in the world isn’t going to bring her back,” Donnie screamed into the night. “Nothing will.”

“Our minds are much stronger than we give credit,” said Barney. “Our poor, sweet Marva has begun her journey back into the light. Her soul will be recycled and, thanks to the great love she was shown here on earth…at Miracle Ranch…some of her karmic duties were fulfilled. With all of our energy and focus, I ask you to—”

“You gave up on her!”

“I fight harder for her soul than I have fought for anything in my entire life,” Barney said.

Donnie slapped the water from his eyeballs. “You let her die alone.”

“Marva is not alone.” Barney waved to the Miracles behind him, all writhing in the mud, mixing moans among the thunderclaps. “She will never again be alone.”

“I’m not talking about Marva,” Donnie hissed. “I’m talking about my mother.”

Barney Malone opened his mouth. He closed it.

“I’m talking about how you left her to raise me on her own,” Donnie said, “and when it came time for her to die, you were still nowhere to be found. You couldn’t be bothered with the thought of her, not even after her son came sniffing around with her insurance check.”

“Donnie…” Barney blinked away rivers of rain. “Donnie, I…”

“You talk a mean game about love and understanding and positive energy, but where were you? Where were your rationalizations and justifications then?”

Lightning spider-webbed the horizon with a brilliant orange. Barney waited for the following thunderclap to speak.

“Donnie, you can’t let that sickness into your heart,” the old man said. “Not right now. As Marva’s spirit leaves her body, she needs us to be at her side.”

Behind them, Summer dropped to her knees. The rain sluiced sideways, splashing her with wet which she did not bother to wipe away. She spoke in a low monotone which gained momentum like a dynamo.:

“Luther, take Marva into your arms and keep her warm.”

“Luther, take Marva into your arms and keep her safe.”

Alongside her, Suzie knelt to the mud, which spattered up the front of her overalls. Next, Beth Ann. Then, Rylah. Brenna.

“Luther, take Marva into your arms and keep her warm.”

“Luther, take Marva into your arms and keep her safe.”

Donnie stepped close enough to his father for their noses to touch. He threw a finger to the man’s face.

“So if you’re going to keep on with this talk of a positive spirit that can save lives,” he said, “then you must admit that you let my mother die.”

Barney could not look his boy in the eye, nor could he look to the Miracles, chanting in the tempest.

“Luther, take Marva into your arms and keep her warm.”

“Luther, take Marva into your arms and keep her safe.”

“So say it,” said Donnie.

Barney nodded.

“Say it out loud.”

Barney asked, “Say what?”

“You let my mother die.”

Barney would do no such thing. Instead, he lowered himself to his knees, much like the girls behind him, and turned his head to the stormy night sky.

Donnie could take no more of it. He returned to Marva’s side and cupped her head, much as he’d done with his mother all those lonely months ago. He fingered open her mouth and lowered his lips to hers.

“Son, what are you doing?”

Said Donnie, “Something your Higher Power hasn’t the decency to take care of.”

Again, he blew—one, two—into the girl, then gave another push into her chest. The girls kept vigil—

“Luther, take Marva into your arms and keep her warm.”

“Luther take Marva into your arms and keep her safe.”

—until, as if on cue, the dead girl coughed water from her lungs and gasped thirstily for the air. Donnie held her until she wriggled like a slippery eel in his arms. Quick as they started, the rains stopped and the thunder shushed to a distant rumble to the east. The only sound was the drippings off yonder pecan tree, and the steady trickle of the stream.

The girls rushed to her and yanked her to their arms. They brushed away soaked strands of hair and smothered her with kisses.

Summer did not join them. Rather, she stood at Barney’s shoulder, the old man yet to rise from his knees. She swayed in the memory of the breeze long gone.

“You have healed her,” she murmured. “Luther now works through you.”

Donnie’s eyes blinked faster than he thought possible.

“Who the hell is Luther?” he asked.

Standing in the moonlight, she winked at him and smiled. “Praise Luther,” she said.

Said the girls, “Praise Luther.”