“It isn’t working, Mama.” She stared into her lap. With the back of her hand, she wiped her tears. “It isn’t working at all, and I don’t know why.” Then she clutched her mother and sobbed on her shoulder. Her mother’s awkward hug came round her, burned hands not quite able to hold on.
4
Ada stood in the middle of the kitchen, while Uncle Mark told the medics they weren’t needed. “I’ll take care of these two.” He filled the doorway, blocking their view. The two men hesitated before turning away, and Uncle Mark closed the door behind them.
He stepped close to Ada, looked her over intently, eyed her pale face and trembling hand. “You all right?”
Ada nodded and pointed to her mother.
“Brother, I think I have some burns for you to powwow over,” her mother said. He sat before her and began whispering the chants.
Ada shuffled to the corner and sat. All she wanted was to look away, but instead she watched. Her uncle said the same chant. He paused and waved his hand over the burns. He leaned close again to whisper those sacred words, all of it just as she had done. This time, though, her mother relaxed and the pain faded.
Ada turned to stare out the window, into the darkness with its strange firelight. Stars appeared where they shouldn’t be, a vast, new emptiness right there beside her. She heard her father enter, but she didn’t get up.
“She’ll be all right,” Uncle Mark murmured when he saw Peter’s face. “She got these from the cow chains.” He spread salve on the wounds. “She won’t be able to help with the milking for a while. Or cook your supper, for that matter.”
Kate looked up, ash on her face, dark hair blown wild. “We saved them. All but Seven. At least for now. Might have to put Star and Betty down. They’re burned the worst.”
Peter said, “I’m so sorry.” He kissed her on the forehead and did the same to his daughter.
“We tried, Papa,” Ada whispered.
“I know, sweet Ady, I know.”
No, no you don’t, Papa, she thought. How could she tell him that if she hadn’t panicked, they would’ve saved Seven? And how did she tell him she couldn’t heal her mother’s hands? How did she put words to this?
She remembered the sparrow, the first time she had healed. She’d had trouble with words then, too. She was ten and had crawled into her hiding place beneath the kitchen window. The brick wall stayed cool there, that side of the three-storied house shaded by a giant catalpa. Close to the house, Ada’s mother kept lilacs and ferns, hydrangeas and peonies, and there beneath the lilacs that framed the kitchen window, Ada spent her afternoons reading and petting the soft ears of her brown-and-white beagle named Doctor.
One day, a loud thump against the glass startled her, and a second later, a small bird fell at her feet. It rested on its side, speckled breast barely moving, brown wings spread. Ada crouched beside the sparrow and watched the beak open and close and the black pool of an eye slowly grow empty. She petted its soft feathers cupped in her hand. The bird didn’t struggle, just opened its beak, while its head sagged to the side.
“Help this little bird, Lord,” Ada whispered. As she stroked its back, her hands grew tingly and her fingers buzzed with warmth. The sparrow’s heart fluttered in her palms, and slowly it lifted its neck and closed its beak. For a moment, the shiny eye peered into her, and the rest of the world blurred to just Ada and this speckled sparrow. Then she lifted her hands into the narrow opening and spread her palms. The sparrow paused before flying away. Ada saw no wings, no tail, just the swift shadow of a bird once more alive. But she had felt that heartbeat.
For the rest of that week, she carried the secret memory of the sparrow with her, touching fingers to palm to feel again that small, frail life. All the while, she wondered what had happened, what she felt. The next Sunday in church during prayer, Ada closed her eyes and silently asked. Again, her hands tingled and grew hot. She felt warmth welling up inside, and she understood the Lord was filling her with his Spirit. When the congregation said the Lord’s Prayer, Ada couldn’t repeat the words, she was so stunned. She sat through the sermon unable to hear, the warmth in her fingers slowly disappearing.
A few days later, Ada and her mother stood at the sink, her mother washing dishes, Ada drying. Ada asked, “How did Uncle Mark make my warts go away?”
“He’s a powwow doctor,” her mother said. “The Lord gave him the gift to make people and animals better.” She picked up another plate. “He can remove warts, stop blood, take out fire from burns. I’ve seen him stanch blood coming from a cut on your grandfather’s leg. And he’s even healed a cow that ran through a fence and cut herself.”
Her mother rinsed the last cup and handed it to Ada. “Once when we were fishing, he removed a hook caught right here, between my thumb and finger. After he said the chant, the bleeding stopped and the pain went away.”
Ada held the cup. She didn’t know how to tell her about the sparrow or what she had felt in church.
“What’s the matter, Ada?”
“I want to powwow like Uncle Mark.” She spoke about the sparrow, her prayer, and the warm tingling in her hands. Her mother understood.
After church the next Sunday, Uncle Mark, Aunt Rebecca, and their two girls came to the Franklins’ for dinner. Uncle Mark walked in last, ducking his head in his shy way. He was a small man with glasses and a square forehead, and he quietly hugged his sister and tousled Ada’s hair.
Usually after the meal, Ada ran outside to play with her cousins. But she knew this visit was for her. Her father said it was his turn to dry, while Aunt Rebecca had the other children pulling out coloring books. Ada turned to find Uncle Mark with his cap on, holding the door for her.
“Why don’t you show me that new calf?” he asked, and together they walked out.
He strolled beside her with his hands behind his back. “Have you named this calf yet?”
She shook her head. She had never been alone with Uncle Mark, never talked with this quiet man who smelled of hay and always seemed to squint, the wrinkles circling his eyes.
They reached the barn. “Your mother says you want to powwow?”
Ada nodded.
He paused, for the first time his eyes resting on hers. “I learned it from my grandmother, your great-grandmother Ida. When I was about your age, she took the fire out of a burn right here”—he pointed to a long scar on the back of his hand. “I was putting splits into the wood stove and got too close to the firebox. Mama grabbed me and Grandma whispered over my wound. The pain disappeared just like that.
“A little later, I asked my mama how Grandma did that, and she told me. When I said I wanted to be a powwow doctor, too, Mama said, ‘You have to believe. You have to have faith.’ I spent the rest of that year learning.”
In the barn, they found the calf asleep. Ada reached into the pen, and the small creature wobbled to its feet. She rubbed its curly forehead while Uncle Mark let the calf suck his fingers. “We could name this one Molly. What do you think of that?”
“That sounds good.” She glanced at her uncle and kept petting the calf.
“Hello, Molly dolly.” Uncle Mark watched Ada, waited for her to face him. “You have to believe, Ada. Do you have faith?”
“I do,” she said with a determined nod, and this made him smile, which made her smile.
Ada told him about the sparrow, about her prayer and the warm tingles, and about how the same feeling had spread through her in church.
Uncle Mark nodded once and looked at his hands. He knew those tingles, too. “It’s like the Lord is in you