teaching.”
“Well then, that might be the work you’re called to do.”
“Yes, Reverend.”
I N THREE WEEKS , Alice had not had a fit, not even the smallest stiffening. Perhaps Edna and her children had found a better life. Ben, in the few times I saw him, neither twitched nor scratched. Henry, Agnes, and all those for whom I’d felt a tremor had not sought another touch. I assumed they still felt themselves cured. But everywhere, eyes scoured me: the grateful, the disappointed, the wary and suspicious. Henry came at nightfall to shoo crowds away, arguing that the schoolteacher needed time for the work she’d been hired to do. In this role, he was roundly disliked—for my sake.
Since the tremor came for only one in four, and then one in five, six, or more, the line of seekers took fervent interest in outcomes. “Successes” roused jealousy: Why was she healed and not me? Why that trivial pain and not mine? When I felt no tremor, a palpable shiver of pleasure ran through the line: Good! Now there’s more of “it” for me, for my child. Some, I suspected, claimed healing when there was none, becoming objects of wonder themselves: “How did it feel? Can you help me?”
Tired as I was, with no time for myself, my house no longer my own, still I ached for each pain: a pitifully sickly child, a sudden weakening of a limb or crippling seizure of the back, burning in the gut, bloody coughs and sores that would not heal, the anguished mother whose babe in the womb had ceased kicking, a blacksmith whose eye had been burned by a spark and could no longer see to work. School was no escape. At recess, little Maude tugged at my skirt. “Miss Renner, why didn’t you help my mama? You helped other people. Don’t you like me anymore?”
I’m sorry, Galway! I wanted to bellow. I can’t do more! And if I couldn’t do more, where could I have peace? But there was no escape in a town consumed by wanting.
I’d never looked forward to Thanksgiving so eagerly. My mother celebrated with the earnest fidelity of immigrants; it was the one holiday for which my father happily ate “American.” But it wasn’t for food that I yearned to go home. I wanted to be unexceptional again, to have a respite from longing or disappointed eyes, even at the cost of noise, smoke, and smells, the press of war, and difficulty of navigating my parents’ questions. But leaving Galway was impossible, I discovered, even for a weekend.
“Folks are thinking it will come back on Thanksgiving,” Henry said. “Christmas is around the corner. Can’t you wait?”
“But—”
“The Burnetts would love to host you. And remember, there’s the pageant coming up.” Henry was so unmovable that I had to write home excusing myself, make a reasonable imitation of my mother’s apple pie, and walk to the Burnetts’ on Thanksgiving Day. Ellen had set out her best china, and the family received me warmly.
“We can’t leave the store,” Jim explained. “So you’re doing us a favor by coming.” They asked about my holidays at home and what “my people” thought about the war. After dinner they urged Alice to announce what she’d told them, that she wanted to be a schoolteacher “just like Miss Renner.” But when Alice slipped away from the table to read, they related painful gossip that they had “used up” too much magic from my house for her. Once they’d been friends with everyone in Galway. Now there were factions: the cured and the not cured. “It’s hard for us, but we’re worried about you, Hazel,” Ellen said. Alice had heard the word witch floating around the schoolyard.
“But if the cures are stopping,” Jim suggested, “maybe folks will forget. They are happy with your teaching.”
“I hope so.” I didn’t mention that the hours of tending to seekers meant less time to prepare the slower children for county tests. TheChristmas pageant would be less elaborate than I’d planned, and I was scrambling to finish the
“Well then, that might be the work you’re called to do.”
“Yes, Reverend.”
I N THREE WEEKS , Alice had not had a fit, not even the smallest stiffening. Perhaps Edna and her children had found a better life. Ben, in the few times I saw him, neither twitched nor scratched. Henry, Agnes, and all those for whom I’d felt a tremor had not sought another touch. I assumed they still felt themselves cured. But everywhere, eyes scoured me: the grateful, the disappointed, the wary and suspicious. Henry came at nightfall to shoo crowds away, arguing that the schoolteacher needed time for the work she’d been hired to do. In this role, he was roundly disliked—for my sake.
Since the tremor came for only one in four, and then one in five, six, or more, the line of seekers took fervent interest in outcomes. “Successes” roused jealousy: Why was she healed and not me? Why that trivial pain and not mine? When I felt no tremor, a palpable shiver of pleasure ran through the line: Good! Now there’s more of “it” for me, for my child. Some, I suspected, claimed healing when there was none, becoming objects of wonder themselves: “How did it feel? Can you help me?”
Tired as I was, with no time for myself, my house no longer my own, still I ached for each pain: a pitifully sickly child, a sudden weakening of a limb or crippling seizure of the back, burning in the gut, bloody coughs and sores that would not heal, the anguished mother whose babe in the womb had ceased kicking, a blacksmith whose eye had been burned by a spark and could no longer see to work. School was no escape. At recess, little Maude tugged at my skirt. “Miss Renner, why didn’t you help my mama? You helped other people. Don’t you like me anymore?”
I’m sorry, Galway! I wanted to bellow. I can’t do more! And if I couldn’t do more, where could I have peace? But there was no escape in a town consumed by wanting.
I’d never looked forward to Thanksgiving so eagerly. My mother celebrated with the earnest fidelity of immigrants; it was the one holiday for which my father happily ate “American.” But it wasn’t for food that I yearned to go home. I wanted to be unexceptional again, to have a respite from longing or disappointed eyes, even at the cost of noise, smoke, and smells, the press of war, and difficulty of navigating my parents’ questions. But leaving Galway was impossible, I discovered, even for a weekend.
“Folks are thinking it will come back on Thanksgiving,” Henry said. “Christmas is around the corner. Can’t you wait?”
“But—”
“The Burnetts would love to host you. And remember, there’s the pageant coming up.” Henry was so unmovable that I had to write home excusing myself, make a reasonable imitation of my mother’s apple pie, and walk to the Burnetts’ on Thanksgiving Day. Ellen had set out her best china, and the family received me warmly.
“We can’t leave the store,” Jim explained. “So you’re doing us a favor by coming.” They asked about my holidays at home and what “my people” thought about the war. After dinner they urged Alice to announce what she’d told them, that she wanted to be a schoolteacher “just like Miss Renner.” But when Alice slipped away from the table to read, they related painful gossip that they had “used up” too much magic from my house for her. Once they’d been friends with everyone in Galway. Now there were factions: the cured and the not cured. “It’s hard for us, but we’re worried about you, Hazel,” Ellen said. Alice had heard the word witch floating around the schoolyard.
“But if the cures are stopping,” Jim suggested, “maybe folks will forget. They are happy with your teaching.”
“I hope so.” I didn’t mention that the hours of tending to seekers meant less time to prepare the slower children for county tests. TheChristmas pageant would be less elaborate than I’d planned, and I was scrambling to finish the
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