Tommy explained again where he’d been the night before as he and Pearl mixed more of the cure from Katherine’s book. They drew eucalyptus-soaked cloths over Katherine’s arms and packed her chest with a poultice that made their eyes water. When Katherine was snug but not too hot, Tommy stoked the fire and sat beside Pearl.
“That was amazing, last night,” Pearl said, hands folded on her lap.
Tommy nodded. “Mama said Katherine turned quick after you made the cures, that she felt it like a shift in the air once you came and applied them. Your future may lie in healing people, not shuffling mail or even school. Mama said Katherine was near death?”
“Oh.” Pearl drew back. “I didn’t heal her.”
“You know what I mean,” Tommy said. “Katherine won’t be surprised to hear her own recipes did the trick. But Mama said Katherine responded to you, your presence, your gentleness. Mama’s so grateful you were here.”
Pearl clasped her hand over Tommy’s. “Wasn’t any of that.” She hesitated and looked away before latching on to his gaze. “It was the angels. I brung ’em with me. ’Least I think I did. Didn’t see ’em, but I feel like I did. Sounds like your ma felt it, too.”
Tommy put his arm around Pearl and pulled her close. “That’s a nice thought. I prayed so hard. Mama, too. I can’t remember the last time I saw her praying.”
Pearl looked up, eyes narrowed.
“What?” Tommy asked.
“There are things that have power that are unseen. I know you understand or you wouldn’t have kept writing those prayerful notes and dropping them at people’s houses when they didn’t ask fer ’em, didn’t pay fer ’em. You wouldn’t have prayed so hard if you didn’t believe in unseen goodness.”
Tommy thought for a moment. “You mean God. I don’t think . . .”
She raised her eyebrows, lips pursed.
“What?” Tommy said.
“Angels. It’s all part of God, I suppose, but different.”
“You think you actually brought angels with you? That you healed my sister just by . . . bringing angels? As though you asked a friend to come with you? I know you love fairy tales, but you really have been falling for all that Dreama stuff, haven’t you?”
Pearl flung his arm off her shoulder and moved away, talking in a tight whisper. “Don’t be so hostile ’bout her.”
“Hostile? To who?”
“Dreama.”
Tommy exhaled deeply.
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I didn’t patronize you. I simply exhaled. How’s that patronizing?” He wanted to tease her for the new word she used, but sensed she was too exhausted to find humor in it.
“It’s the way you breathed.”
Tommy shrugged. He was tired and not in the mood to be picked at by anyone, not even Pearl.
“I don’t know,” she said, her words clear, concise, clipped even, making him pay close attention. “Don’t know if I can be with you if you are going to mock me with your breathing.”
“That’s ridiculous.” A flicker of a smile came to him, and he knew he was helping to make her point.
“Is it?”
“Is what?”
Pearl glanced at Katherine and put her finger to her lips to signal him to be quiet. She whispered, “You make fun of me having angels.”
“Where’s this coming from?” He gestured to Katherine. “She’s getting better, Pearl. The cures you made from her book worked. What’s the matter?”
“I didn’t believe it either. Before, I mean.”
“Before what?”
She crossed her arms and pushed her chin out. “A while back Katherine told me I have angels. Then last night, I was so desperate for her that I prayed real hard and asked my angels to come with me to heal Katherine. I prayed and begged right over the bowls and pots while I made the healing water and poultice.”
Tommy thought of what Katherine had told him about the painting she made of him hunting. He also thought of the beautiful scene the night before when he arrived to see Pearl beside Katherine through the window, the glow from the fire surrounding her, his mother leaning in, both of them caring for Katherine. Still, angels were a different matter. The fact that Pearl had told Katherine about the deer came back.
“I can have my own ideas about God and all of that. Your sister makes sense to me.”
Tommy felt as though Pearl was discounting what he might think.
“You ain’t the only expert in matters of God and angels and mysteries of the universe and such.”
That stung from the inside out. He tried to hide his flinching at her words. He took it personally with all his prayer success and then failure. Maybe Pearl and his sister had even decided Dreama was a better choice, too, like all the people who sat with her rather than buy Tommy’s prayers. He hadn’t realized just how protective he’d become of what he thought of as his skill—prayer writing. The painting of him with the deer was evidence of how close Pearl and Katherine had become, making him feel like an outsider.
“You two are quite the pair, aren’t you?”
“What’s that mean?”
“Well, I didn’t want to say anything before because I didn’t want to believe it, but hearing this, I can see I was not in the know about you two. You told Katherine about the deer. You pinkie promised to never tell a soul about me blubbering about shooting the deer, not being able to dress it, and my own sister paints a painting of me and the deer. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a beaut. She got every detail. You’re even in it. Just a teeny, blurred figure in the corner, but you’re there, too, a little bit of flame-red hair painted in. How else could she know all that if you didn’t tell her?”
Pearl looked down. He could see her eyes sparkling as tears wet her lashes. “I’d never break that promise. Not to you. Not ever.”
“How can I believe that?”
“Because it’s me saying I wouldn’t.”
“So the information just crystalized in Katherine’s brain and she painted it?”
Pearl met his gaze. “That’s ’bout how she describes it.”
Katherine had told him something similar about her experience with her paintings. “That’s stupid, Pearl.”
“Stupid as your prayers? You take them plenty serious.”
Tommy glared. “That’s completely different.”
“Why? Because you scribble ’em down on paper, full of Bible words? ’Cause some minister says they work? That makes ’em better? Dreama’s busy healing lives without writing anything, without that Bible to help her, or any big, bossy men.”
Tommy threw his hands up. “What’s that got to do with it? Suddenly you’re throwing all my failures at me? Dreama stole my business, yes, but if you think I’m careless with people, with my prayers, then you should know that Dreama’s a million times worse. At least I give people something when they pay. Not like that fraud they’ve got over there.”
“She’s not a fraud.”
“Because you saw her talk to three people after three hundred paid at The Night for Mothers? My God, I’d be a rich man if I ran that scam. How stupid of me to be caring and intentional with my prayers for those in need, for being polite when a phony . . . No, not a phony, a true-blue con artist stole my business?”
Pearl pulled him out of the room, into the hall so they could still see Katherine.
“She’ll hear you, and you’ll stop her from healing if you keep putting out all this disbelief.”
“Olivia’s not even here. How could she hear?”
Pearl pointed toward Katherine. “I mean Katherine.”
“What would she care? She’s finally in a deep sleep, and luckily Miss Violet’s kept her far out of the fraud they’re running next door. Have you read what they’re writing about Dreama lately? The mobs, angry ministers . . . If anything it’ll help Katherine heal to know she’s not involved with Dreama.”
Pearl locked on his eyes and drew a deep breath.
Tommy stared at her, nausea sweeping through him for some reason.
She shook her head then fixed her gaze on him again. “She is Dreama.”
Tommy narrowed his eyes. He rubbed his belly, the swirl of bitter acid threatening. “Olivia.”
Pearl shook her head slowly. “No, Tommy. Katherine is.”