“But did you throw the poisoned meat over the wall?”
“I suppose I should have brought it to the house and disposed of it properly, but the sight of it disgusted and infuriated me.”
She regarded me thoughtfully. “That’s not an answer. That’s an evasion. So you didn’t throw it over the wall.” She gave me a chance to lie; I could not. “When you found the meat, there was only the one chunk you brought to us as evidence, not three.”
Although I had lied about finding all the poisoned bait before Rafael had eaten any of it, my deception harmed no one and was for the purpose of keeping the secret of my newfound gift for healing. Nevertheless, a blush of embarrassment warmed my face.
“Rafael ate the first two,” Mrs. Symington surmised.
“But then he would have been poisoned. He would have died.”
“Shouldhave died,” she agreed. “Just as sweet Gertie should have died. But Rafael didn’t. And neither did she.”
I tried but failed to find a way to deflect the arrow of her inquiry. “Obviously, ma’am, you’ve read at least as many Agatha Christie novels as I have.”
“I love you, Addie. I don’t want to cause you trouble. What you tell me will go no further. I’m here only because ... because I’ve been waiting all my life for some sign.”
“Sign?”
“Evidence. Proof. A reason to believe there’s more to the world than what we can touch and see. Maybe it’s you, the evidence.”
“It’s not me.”
“Did Rafael die?”
“No.” Mrs. Symington’s gaze was a starving beggar’s gaze, and her face a portrait of spiritual yearning that would have served as a poster advertising the radio broadcasts of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. I had never seen this aspect of her. I couldn’t pretend to be what she wanted me to be. I also couldn’t disrespect her desire to find meaning in the weave of the world. I gave her the truth to make of it what she would. “Rafael wasn’t dead, but gravely ill and dying.”
“And you, did you . . . ?”
“Yes. I brought him back.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I held him.”
“Just held him?”
“And he stopped dying.”
“This has happened before?”
“No.”
“You were surprised.”
“Very.”
“You told no one.”
“Not then.”
“Until Gertie . . .”
“Until Gertie. I was afraid I’d fail her.”
“You held her like you held Rafael.”
“Yes. The infection passed from her blood to mine.”
