*Ella*

The healer is a very old, gnarled woman. She reminds me of Mystica based on the pictures Mom has scattered in her home in Maatua. The woman’s hair is bright white and wispy, and her shoulders are permanently slumped. She barely comes up to my breasts as she hovers around Hannah, who is lying on a cot in the center of a very warm room heated by an ancient wood stove in one corner.

I have to duck to walk deeper into the tight room. Bundles of herbs hang from the low ceiling. A kettle whistles on the stove as I kneel by Hannah’s bedside and take her hands...