She wandered toward the bay, down the craggy hill that led to a sandy shore. She touched her foot into the cold water. She stared up at the sky. She looked at the moon. It had been her friend for a long time. For most of her life it had represented the only friend she had. But now it was not needed.

All her life she’d wanted to be known. That’s all anyone wanted, she thought, to be known. She wanted someone to worry about her. She wanted the gift of knowing that somebody concerned themselves with thoughts of her, the way she worried for others. Yes, that’s what she’d always wanted. She wanted someone to lose sleep thinking about her. She wanted someone to care enough about her to feel the same worry she felt for Maggie.

But here on the sand beside the bay, she realized she had indeed always been known and worried about. She could feel it. From the sky. She could feel it from the earth.

“I don’t understand,” she said in a soft voice. “And I don’t want to anymore. But I just wanna thank you. Thank you.”

She hoped for something to happen when she said it. She hoped for the sound of a bird or the splash of a wave or a gust of wind. Anything would’ve been welcome. But that isn’t the way life works.

She knelt on the sand. She folded her hands. She pressed them against her face. “Thank you,” she said again.

She heard the sound of footsteps behind her.

She turned to see Coot standing at a distance.

“I was getting worried about you,” he said.

Ninety-Eight
Cold Hands

A healer. That’s what people were calling her. They’d come from as far away as Atlanta to see her, to see the woman from the whorehouse. To have her pray for them. The crowd was even bigger than before. The wood structure wouldn’t begin to hold them all.

News of the healings had spread far and wide. Newspapermen were in attendance. There were men cranking movie cameras, standing on tall ladders, perched on the edges of the field. The governor had shown up. There were sick people, and families, and children, and old people.

People gathered together and waited for the harlot to touch them. It was terrifying and inspiring and humbling.

And she touched them all.

But something was very different today. Marigold touched a woman who claimed she had a blind left eye, but Marigold felt nothing in her hands. She felt no heat, no jolt, no nothing. The woman cried and blinked her eyes, claimed she felt different, but Marigold knew nothing had happened. And even though the woman rejoiced, Marigold knew the woman still had a blind eye when she left.