The daily routine of life became easier for Fern. As the months went by she spent less time with Addie, feeling more capable of handling things on her own. The seasons swept through her life, one by one, all exemplifying their own personalities. Winter was a mean ogre, dangerous and ugly, yet his reign was oddly cozy and comfortable as they rested during this respite from the sweltering summer. Spring was a baby bunny, soft and warm, but skittish, and able to dash into frantic motion in less than a heartbeat of time. Spring was clean. Then summer again, a paper queen of vivid reds, purples, and greens, fading in the sunlight, turning all the colors a sickly yellow while the paper itself became crisp and brittle. Autumn was a deer, beautiful and swift. And winter had come again.

Fern did her chores cheerfully, always busy, mind continually racing on a path of its own, far removed from the repetitive tasks at hand.

She dreamed of becoming a great healer, speaking of God and love to multitudes of people on a grassy knoll. She dreamed of waving her hand over a hospital and having all within healed in an instant. She dreamed of being visited personally by God and all his angels one day while she was baking bread or making jam.

Harry was a problem. No, not really a problem; they just lived with a totally different outlook on life. Harry believed in a vengeful God; Fern believed in a loving God. Their differences of opinion always resulted in the same argument.

“I’m going over to the Nielsens’ after lunch today.”

“Someone sick?”

“Nat. He’s got a fever.”

“And you’re going to cure him.”

“I’m going to do what I can.”

“What if he’s supposed to have a fever?”

“I’ve been given a gift, Harry. I’m supposed to use it.”

“To change the world.”

“Not to change the world, to ease the suffering.”

“There’s got to be suffering, Fern. It’s the natural way of things. You take that away, and there won’t be any joy.”

“God doesn’t want suffering.”

“It’s up to him to put it here or remove it.”

“Well, and he put it here, and put me here to remove it.”

“That’s crazy talk.”

“Harry, I don’t understand. I don’t understand why my hands heal people. Maybe it’s so they’ll take a closer look at God. But I really don’t understand why you’re so against it.”

“Because it ain’t right, Fern. It just ain’t right. And the longer you do this, the more credit you take for it, the harder we’re going to get it.”

When Harry talked this way, a terrible look came across his face, his lips turned back into a kind of a grimacing smile, his eyes winced to slits and Fern’s blood ran cold.