The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin: A Novel (27 page)

Had he been this skinny back in Covington? she wondered.

“You keep doing that,” he said, glancing at her hand and the way she was flexing her fingers. “How does it feel?”

He reached for her hand, but Lily pulled away. Everything felt fragile. “It’s fine.” She stretched her fingers as far apart as they could go. There it was again. A small needle prick. This time, she felt it in both fingers.

An image of Antoinette’s head hitting the floor flared in her mind. It was one thing to be in pain yourself; it was quite another to cause someone else pain.

“I know what I saw,” Will said. “I don’t care what you say, your fingers were bent completely back. Then Antoinette touched you, and your bones moved. They
moved
, Lils.”

She straightened her fingers again. “Do you hear yourself? What you’re suggesting is impossible.”

“The universe contains wonders,” he said. “You can’t be a doctor and not know that.”

They were almost at the farm, but he pulled over on the shoulder of the road. “Talk to me,” he said. “I was there. I saw what she did. I need to understand.”

“I need to get home and help Rose.” Lily’s stomach twisted.

“Seth will help her. I’m not moving the van until you tell me what’s going on.”

Lily covered her left hand with her right. “She’s a little girl. Nothing’s going on.”

Will stared at her intently, as if willing her to speak. When she didn’t, he closed his eyes and dropped his head back against the seat. “I’d like to believe there’s something beyond this,” he said. “That the death of the body isn’t the death of the soul.”

“When did you become a philosopher?” Lily tried to laugh, but the sound stuck in her throat. She wanted to believe her parents existed somewhere, believe that after Rose died she and her sister would find each other again.

He coughed slightly, then opened his eyes. “I’ve been rethinking my life. Time to grow up, I guess. Does Antoinette often seize like that?”

Lily pressed her lips together and nodded. She knew Will. He hadn’t given up trying to find out about Antoinette’s ability; he had just switched to a different puzzle.

“There has to be a way to stop the seizures,” he said as he pulled the van back onto the road and drove to the house.

“How?” Lily asked.

“I don’t know yet,” he admitted.

In the driveway now, they watched as Seth lifted Antoinette from the backseat of his truck. Her skin seemed almost translucent. Then Rose climbed out of the truck. She walked slowly, as if each step was a struggle. Seth caught her arm, and she leaned into him.

“I’ll figure it out,” Will said as he got out and jogged toward them.

Lily counted to ten before following.

“Lily told me what Antoinette can do,” Will was saying as Seth helped Rose up the porch steps. “It’s amazing.”

Seth glared at him. He had his hands full, Antoinette in one arm and Rose on the other. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lily ran up the porch steps, only a few paces behind Will. “I didn’t—” she said.

“Of course you didn’t,” Seth said.

Despite herself, Lily felt a warm rush at his words. Seth had always believed the best of her.

Rose stopped on the top step and grabbed Will’s arm. “You can’t tell anyone. I mean it.” She shook him a little.

Will pulled free and raised his right hand. “The Hippocratic oath: first do no harm. I promise. I don’t want any harm to come to Antoinette.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Lily said. She needed Rose to believe her.

Rose sighed and closed her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. He saw the whole thing.” She studied Will for a moment before seeming to come to a decision. “Healing triggers seizures, and the seizures are getting worse. If word gets out about what she can do, I won’t be able to keep her safe.”

“What about Eli?” Lily asked. “I tried to block his view of what was happening, but I think he saw Antoinette fix my hand.” There was no use hiding anything from Will now.

Rose looked worn as she opened the kitchen door. “Then we have to keep him and MaryBeth away from Antoinette.”

When Rose went inside, Lily turned to Seth. “You saw Eli. Do you think he’ll leave Antoinette alone?”

The little girl let out a contented sigh. She looked so small nestled in Seth’s arms. He frowned, his eyes dark. “No,” he said, as he followed Rose into the house. “I don’t.”

LILY AND WILL
walked to the drying barn. “What she can do is amazing,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”

“Would you have believed me?” Lily said, noting with irony that both Seth and Rose had asked her the same question.

Will ran his hand over hers. He pressed along her fingers, feeling each joint, then gently bending her wrist back and forth. “Is the size of the seizure related to anything? The difficulty of the healing, maybe?”

“Rose said the seizures aren’t as bad when Antoinette does something like bring wilted flowers back to life.” She flinched when Will bent her little finger. “Another thing: the healings don’t last.”

He frowned. “I can see that. She does this with flowers too?”

Lily pointed to a semicircle of dead pansies to the left of the barn entrance. “A few days ago, they were as brown as they are now. Then Antoinette touched them, hummed, and they turned bright yellow. That was the first time I saw her fix anything.”

“Something must be taxing her system.” Will frowned. “This isn’t safe for her. The risk of brain damage grows as her seizures increase. You’ll have to monitor her, Lils. She can’t keep this up. Meanwhile, we need to get you to the ER. You need an x-ray of that hand.”

Lily promised to go tomorrow. Then she knelt and started pulling out the dead pansies. Rose didn’t need a tangible reminder that Antoinette was getting worse. It wasn’t long before she had a pile of uprooted flowers by her feet. When she finished, she sat down and leaned against the barn.

“Do you ever feel like you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing?” she asked. In less than a week, everything she believed about the world had changed. A black ant crawled up the side of the barn, making its way along the splintered wood. She traced its progress, wondering whether it knew where it was going.

Will crossed his arms. The late-afternoon sunlight slanted across his face, but it didn’t warm his skin. He looked tired. “Truthfully, no,” he said. “But I have heard that others sometimes feel that way. For me the question isn’t whether I know what I’m doing, but whether I’m making the best decision I can at the time. Nothing’s perfect, Lils. No matter how much we want it to be.” He smiled sadly.

He bent down to pick a yellow viola that sprouted through a crack in the stone path, and he handed the flower to Lily. “I always wonder how something so fragile can survive in such a rough place. But you see it all the time don’t you?”

Lily twirled the flower between her fingers. Violas meant faithfulness. A few others bloomed in the cracks between the stones. “They’re stronger than they appear,” she said as she gathered a handful of blossoms. She needed all the strength she could get.

The ant had reached the top of the barn. It turned around and started down as if it realized it was going the wrong way.

The breeze picked up, ruffling Will’s hair. He didn’t bother to smooth it back. He looked at Lily as if she was the only thing he saw. “Like you,” he said. “And Antoinette. If we can figure out what triggers the seizures, we can stop them. There’s a solution for everything. We just have to find it.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Lily woke to the staccato beat of rain on the slate roof. She pulled the quilt over her ears, but it didn’t shut out the sound.
Get up
, the rain whispered.

“I don’t want to,” she said aloud. The light in her room was the pale gray that said the sun wasn’t up yet.
Thirty minutes
, she thought. That’s when the sun would be completely up. The rain sounded like it was lessening and probably would stop by then.

Across the hall, Antoinette shrieked. “Aey! Aey! Aey!” Then a loud thump, like a hand slapping against the wall.

Last night, Lily stole into Antoinette’s room while she slept. The girl was sprawled on her back, and she looked younger, more like a child of five or six instead of ten.

An overstuffed blue chair sat across from Antoinette’s bed. Lily was worried about Eli. What would he do if he knew beyond a doubt that Antoinette could heal?

Lily sank into the blue chair. “I’m here,” she said. “I’ll make sure you’re safe.” It was a promise she meant to keep.

She had stayed beside Antoinette’s bed for most of the night, only sneaking back to her room when her eyes grew too heavy to keep open.

Antoinette shrieked again, and this time, Lily whispered along with her. “Aey! Aey! Aey!” She closed her eyes, shutting out everything except the sound of her voice blending with Antoinette’s.

“Lily? Are you awake?” Rose opened the door. Light from the hall fell over her thin shoulders. “Can you help me get Antoinette ready this morning? I don’t think I’m up to doing it alone today.”

“Let me get dressed.” Lily grabbed a clean pair of jean shorts from the dresser and slid them on without changing the T-shirt she’d slept in. She rubbed her eyes and detangled her hair by running her fingers through it.

“How’s your hand?” Rose asked.

Lily held it up. A deep purple bruise had blossomed at the base of her fingers. It hadn’t been there last night. “Will’s taking me to the doctor today.”

“I like him,” Rose said with a sly smile. “He’s nice. And he likes you.”

“Will isn’t nice,” Lily said. He was arrogant and abrasive, she thought, charming if he tried, but not nice. “And he doesn’t like me that way. We’re friends. That’s all.” She tied her hair back.

“Maybe you’re too close to see it, but he looks at you like you’re the only person in the room.”

“Will looks at anything female that way. Trust me.”

Rose giggled, sounding startlingly healthy for someone who looked like she belonged in the hospital. “Might be worth it, even if only for a night.”

Lily laughed along with her. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thought about it. Sometimes Will looked at her as if he were hungry, and when he did her knees grew weak. Those were the times she made herself remember the nights after her parents’ funeral. When she couldn’t sleep, Will sat up with her, watching old movies. He was the one person who had never left her. They had become true friends. Sex would change that.

“I love Will,” she said, “but not like that.”

“Not like Seth, you mean,” Rose said, suddenly serious.

Lily wished she could refute the words, but she could never hide anything from Rose. No matter how hard she had tried to push Seth out of her heart, she hadn’t been able to. “No,” she said softly, “not like Seth.”

“You should tell him,” Rose said. “He hasn’t really dated since you two broke up. I think he still cares about you.”

Lily’s heart leapt at Rose’s words, but it was dangerous to think that way. After he broke up with her, Lily would not leave her dorm room for hours. She counted lightbulbs, carpet threads, and wall cracks. A year had passed before she could leave the dorm without twisting the doorknob first left, then right, sixteen times.

She couldn’t go through that again, and now she had Antoinette to think about. She wasn’t going to let Rose down a second time.

“I can’t,” she said. “Not right now. Not with you and Antoinette . . . If things didn’t work out with Seth a second time—” She broke off and started counting under her breath. She felt Rose watching but couldn’t stop mouthing numbers.

“I want you to be happy,” Rose said.

Her words made Lily stop counting. “I am happy,” she said in surprise. “I’m home. I’m with you and Antoinette when I thought I’d never see you again. That’s enough for me.”

Rose hugged her gently. “But you could have so much more,” she said softly.

With the door to her bedroom open, Antoinette’s shrieks were louder. Lily pulled away and slipped on an old pair of flip-flops. “I don’t need more,” she said. And not wanting to discuss Seth further, she changed the subject. “I’m worried about Eli and what he saw.”

“Maybe he didn’t see anything,” Rose said.

“He was looking right at me.” Lily could still see Eli’s eyes, wide and hopeful.

“He’ll go away if we ignore him,” Rose said. On the bureau was a teacup filled with the violas Lily had picked yesterday.

“For faithfulness, right?” Rose asked as she ran a finger around the rim of the cup.

Lily nodded. “Isn’t that what sisters should be?” She looked at Rose, seeing two of her: the woman she was now, faded and diminished by her illness, and the girl she had been, beautiful and full of life. Lily closed her eyes, committing her sister’s face to memory. “Faithful,” she said. “In everything.”

“We’ll keep telling Eli he’s imagining things,” Rose said. “After a while, he’ll believe us.”

Lily didn’t agree and said so.

“This has happened before,” Rose said. “Once, Cora was here at the farm. It was September, and we were walking down the driveway. You know the tiger lilies by the front gate?”

Lily nodded. Every year in late summer, a profusion of the orange flowers framed the entrance to Eden Farms.