“Ginger wrap,” Mrs. Amberson explained, pointing her chin at her wrapped body. “I do love ginger, but it…”

“Stings,” Scarlett said. “I know.”

Katiya got up on the bed, stepping onto the thick pillows, and straddled Mrs. Amberson’s reclining figure like a triumphant warlord.

“Do you want your chakras done as well? You seem off-kilter.”

Scarlett watched a smiling Katiya grind her elbow into the top of Mrs. Amberson’s head.

“I’m good,” she said. “Can we talk?”

Scarlett looked at Katiya meaningfully. Katiya didn’t notice this. She had closed her eyes and started vibrating her lower jaw in a silent chatter.

“Of course,” Mrs. Amberson said. She reached up and tugged on Katiya’s long sleeve. “Katiya? Katiya, darling? I hate to break your meditation…I think I’m done for today. I’ll unwrap and bathe myself, thank you. Same time on Friday?”

Katiya smiled, but didn’t speak. She swayed a bit, then raised her hands high before collapsing, bowing to both Mrs. Amberson and Scarlett.

“She’s just taken a temporary vow of silence and is only communicating through interpretive dance until the next lunar cycle,” Mrs. Amberson explained after Katiya had slipped out of the room. “Trust me, it’s actually a relief that she’s not talking. I’m not sure I could get through another one of her analyses of my aura without killing her. Sweet girl, though. Magic hands. Come sit over here. I can’t move.”

Scarlett came over to the foot of the endless white bed and sank into a deep, high-quality mattress. It was amazing what other hotels offered.

“Why did you leave?” Scarlett asked.

“I told you, O’Hara. I never overstay my welcome. Now, I need to shower off these toxins. They’re just flooding from my pores. Unwrap me, will you?”

She extended one plastic-wrapped arm to be helped up, but Scarlett did not budge.

“We need to figure out where to do the show,” Scarlett said.

“I’m serious, Scarlett. The toxins will get back into the opened pores. I really need a hand out of this bed.”

She continued extending her hand for help. It took a minute before she realized it wasn’t forthcoming.

“Don’t you think I’ve already caused enough problems?” she said, sinking back into the pillows. “With the show, you and Eric, your brother. And there is nowhere for the show to go in the next twenty-four hours. A week, two weeks, maybe…”

“Not a week or two,” Scarlett said. “We’re doing the show when we said we would. But the only way that’s going to happen is if you and Donna get to the bottom of whatever has been bothering you for the last thirty years or however long its been.”

“It’s not that simple.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Actually,” Scarlett said, “it kind of is.”

THE FINAL BATTLE

“That is a lovely, lovely look, Amy,” Donna said. “It’s so nice to see you twice in one day.”

Mrs. Amberson was frozen, somewhat literally, in horror.

“Well, O’Hara,” she said darkly, “this, I did not expect. I may have taught you a little too well.”