If he was a real healer, he could have saved his newborn baby when it was born too young and couldn't breathe. But he just didn't understand what was going on inside the lungs. The baby was dead before he figured out a single thing.

"I'm not going to be able to do much good," said Alvin. "Healing sick folks is hard."

"I touch her lying on her bed, and I see nothing but she dead of yellow fever," said Dead Mary. "But I touch you by the fountain, I see my mother living."

"When did you touch me?" said Alvin. "You didn't touch me."

"I bump you when I draw water," she said. "I have to be sneaky. Personne lets me touch him now, if he sees me."

That was no surprise. Though Alvin figured it was better to know you're sick and dying in time to say good-bye to your loved ones. But folks always seemed to think that as long as they didn't know about something bad, it wasn't happening, so whoever told them actually caused it to be true.

Illness or adultery, Alvin figured ignorance worked about as well in both cases. Not knowing just meant it was going to get worse.

There was a plank leading from a hummock of dry land to the minuscule porch of the house, and Dead Mary fair to danced along it. Alvin couldn't quite manage that, as he looked down at the thick sucking mud under the plank. But the board didn't wobble much, and he made it into the house all right.

It stank inside, but not much worse than the swamp outside. The odor of decay was natural here. Still, it was worse around the woman's bed. Old woman, Alvin thought at first, the saddest looking woman he had ever seen. Then realized that she wasn't very old at all. She was ravaged by worse things than age.

"I'm glad she's sleeping," said Dead Mary. "Most times the pain does not let her sleep."