“What is this place?” Finn asks.
“I’ve always called it the healing rocks,” I tell him. “I’ve been coming since I was small. I love it here.”
Finn nods, taking in the view of the ocean, wild with whitecaps, but far enough away to keep us safe from the crashing waves. Seagulls glide overhead, the air is brisk and tangy, the sun bright and high. The sky is blue, streaked with white cotton clouds. “It’s beautiful,” he says.
I look at Finn’s hand, tempted to take it, but I keep my arms pinned to my sides.
How do people do this? Is it always this fraught? This confusing?
“Over here,” I tell him, tiptoeing across the wide, rough stone until I reach the edge of it and sit down. I’ve always loved how the tall boulders that shelter this place are close enough that I can lean back against them, like sitting in a comfy chair. A sofa made from the life of the shore.
“You didn’t like the movie?” Finn asks after he’s settled next to me.
“I don’t remember much of it, so I don’t know. Maybe I would in another circumstance?” I glance at Finn. “If I was there with someone else?”
Finn’s eyes shift from me to the sea. “I don’t remember any of it, either,” he says. Then, “Can I ask you something?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
I pick up one of the smooth stones sitting on the ledge and begin to press it into the center of my palm. “Is it a Finn-and-Angie-research question, or just a Finn-who-is-curious-about-Marlena question?”
Finn sighs. “Maybe a bit of both. I want to understand you better. If it’s something you don’t want to answer, then just tell me.”
“Okay. But you can ask me something, if I can ask you something afterward. I have questions, too, Finn.”
He smiles. “All right. It’s a deal. But me first.” Finn leans over and picks through the pile of shells and pebbles next to the rocks, and comes up with one that is small and flat. Perfect for skipping. “So, how did you end up this way? I mean, as a healer?” He laughs. “Let me be more specific. Did you sign up somewhere at church? Did you go to healer school?”
I give a laugh, too, but it’s more of a nervous one. “No, it doesn’t work that way. Performing miracles is not a profession a person chooses. It chooses you, and you submit to it. You know the story of Mary, right? And the angel Gabriel? You can be a scientist and still know that story, right?”
“Yes, I’ve heard it once or twice,” Finn says. “An angel showed up and told Mary she was going to have the son of God, like it or not, and she would end up an unwed mother. Not a very nice situation. God’s kind of an asshole like that, I think.”
“Maybe.” The white stone in my palm is warm against my skin. “But, at least in theory, Gabriel gave Mary a choice, and she accepted it as a gift. That’s one of the reasons why people venerate her.” I pass the stone from one hand to the other as I continue to talk. “Being a healer, or a visionary, can work like that. There are famous visionaries who resisted their visions, or who thought they were sicknesses, but later came to accept and understand them as gifts. For me, it was a little different. I was just a baby when my gift revealed itself, or so I’ve been told, so there was no choice. I was too little to make choices. My mother made them for me. And then, the community around you sort of ratifies your gift, as they did with me.”
Finn’s legs are longer than mine and they scrape the rocks below. “What do you mean, they ratify it?”
While we talk I set my stone down and search for a perfect clamshell the size of a coin, pearly on the inside. Then I search for something else I like. It’s easier to do this than to look at Finn while I answer. “They confirm that it’s real, that your touch is miraculous, that you are capable of healings, and they tell others about your gift. Spread the word. I guess you could say they anoint you as holy, or sacred.” I select another treasure, this one a pale-pink rock. “Also, faith healers are a big business. Child healers can make money for their families, for the churches affiliated with them. It’s the same with me. It wasn’t long after I started healing before I became a business for Mama, for this entire community. People will pay a lot of money for hope. Even a little bit of it.”
The waves roll into shore, rising and disappearing, mimicking the feeling of this day, my newfound freedom raising me up with possibility, then spilling me to shore and rocking me with confusion, complication, uncertainty.
I look up from my growing pile of rocks and shells. Finn is watching me with a look I’ve seen before. Yesterday, when we were talking about my visions at the picnic table, he wore the same expression. “And you’ve become an image of hope, which is why you’re on T-shirts and candles and things around here.”
“Even kites,” I say with a shrug. “Please tell me you don’t own any of them.”
“Not yet.” Finn chuckles. “I have another question.”
“Not fair, you’ve asked a lot! One more and that’s it. Then it’s my turn.”
“Fine,” he agrees, a bit reluctantly. A tiny green crab scuttles across the corner of the ledge where we sit. “You called these the healing rocks. Do you, I guess, no, is it easier for you to heal here? Does it put you in the mood to heal? Do you want to heal right now?” His questions spill out in a jumble. There is something there, underneath his words. Something other than sheer curiosity.
I shake my head, my eyes never leaving him. The smell of sea permeates the air and I wonder if the skin on Finn’s neck will taste of salt and sun. “No. It was just something I told my mother so she would let me come here. Healing doesn’t work like that. It’s just something I have inside me, like a treasure in a box I have hidden, but only I know where to find it. It’s hard to explain.” I change position, crossing my legs. “Now, you get to tell me about you.”
Finn slumps further against the rock supporting his back, head tilted toward the sky. “My life is boring. I’m just a graduate student.”
“It’s not boring,” I protest. “Not to me.”
“What do you want to know, Marlena?”
“Well, for one, what’s it like to have a photographic memory? Is that part of why you’re so . . . geniusy?”
He reaches up and grips the back of his neck.
Stalling.
“I answered your questions, Finn!”
“I know.” He sighs. “Fine. It has certainly helped me get where I am in my studies. And, I mean, it’s pretty much like it sounds. I remember everything I see, like a photograph. You know, snapshots. Images of what’s on the pages of books I’ve read.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.” He says this ominously, like it’s not always a good thing.
“It sounds a little bit like having visions.”
This makes Finn smile. “See, Marlena, I told you we were more similar than different.”
I shift position so that I am facing Finn rather than the ocean. “Give me an example of how it works.”
He’s thoughtful for a moment. “Have you ever heard of synesthesia?”
“No. Is that, like, a disease?”
Finn shakes his head, laughing. “It’s more like a condition, but a cool one. Sometimes I’ve wondered if you have some version of it, if that might explain your visions, and I’m wondering it now, especially since Angie said your visions look kind of like the brain scans you saw today.”