The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin by Stephanie Knipper

Author:Stephanie Knipper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2016-07-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Lily couldn’t sleep. She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Rose explaining how Antoinette’s healing ability worked.

“She can control it,” Rose had said. They were sitting on the porch swing with Antoinette between them. As Rose spoke, the tight lines around her mouth disappeared, as if talking about it removed a weight she had been carrying. “She doesn’t help everyone, only people she wants to heal. And she can’t heal herself. She touches the person, and then she hums. I don’t know how she actually changes things.”

“How does it feel?” Lily asked.

“It’s like being turned inside out,” Rose said. “Like your bones and muscles are stretching, and your skin can’t contain them anymore. You want to burst apart and come together at the same time.”

“Does it hurt?” Lily asked.

“Sometimes,” she said.

Only three people knew about Antoinette’s ability. Rose, Seth, and now Lily. Eli Cantwell suspected. Before they went inside, Rose made Lily promise not to tell anyone what Antoinette could do. “It’s the only way to keep her safe,” Rose said. “Healing everyone who needs help will kill her.”

Despite her promise, Lily wanted to call Will, but how could she explain what had happened tonight? He wouldn’t believe on faith alone.

Sleep was impossible. She kicked back the quilt and stood, putting on the jeans she’d worn earlier. She needed to see Seth. He had known about this from the beginning. What had he said in the truck her first day home? Antoinette was different.

What she’d learned earlier went way beyond different.

Before all of this, she had been afraid to be Antoinette’s guardian. Now she was terrified.

She tiptoed out of the house and into the night, pausing to slip on the garden clogs she had left by the back door. She trembled as she hopped the white-plank fence between Eden Farms and Seth’s property.

His farm bordered theirs. He owned twenty acres, but his house was only a short distance from the fence line. The moon was bright, but she didn’t need its light to find her way. It was his home. Her feet knew the way.

The scent of honeysuckle drifted on the night breeze, and cornflowers bloomed around her feet. It was too early for them, and she wondered whether Antoinette had been here recently.

A page from her flower book came to her. Cornflowers meant “hope in love.” Ridiculous. She didn’t love Seth. At least, not anymore. She crushed a blue flower beneath her heel. “I don’t love him,” she said out loud. She was wading through flowers when his house came into view.

Before Seth’s family bought the house, the front porch had sagged in on itself. The white paint was dirty and peeling. Seth’s father restored the farmhouse. He shored up the porch, extending it until it wrapped around the first story. He sanded off the chipped white paint and repainted with a soft butter yellow. He removed the overgrown yew bushes that obscured the front of the house and planted pale pink Sharifa Asma roses in their place.

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