Leanna Dove had spent her whole life picking up people the world dropped, and this morning the person was her own little sister. Lyndsey had thrown up since dawn. She hadn't eaten since yesterday morning, when the sickness first hit. Leanna sat on the edge of the lower bunk and pressed a cool cloth to her sister's forehead. The bunks stood inside the tour bus, the long coach Leanna half lived in now, always parked somewhere near the next singer who needed her. Lyndsey curled tight around her stomach. "It hurts here." She pointed low, near her side. "Not like a normal ache. Worse." Her voice cracked. Then she started to cry. Leanna knew that kind of pain. She had seen it in singers who went on stage empty, their bellies swollen and sore. "Lie on your left side," she said. "Come on. It takes the pressure off." Lyndsey turned. Leanna guided her knees up and tucked the blanket behind her back. "Small breaths," Leanna said. "I'm right here." She stayed until her sister's crying slowed, then stopped. Lyndsey's face went loose. Her breathing evened out. She was asleep. Leanna sat still a moment longer. Then she remembered Annie. Annie Oakley lived in the cottage next door. She was a singer the radio had quit playing. Her label stopped returning her calls and never told her why. Leanna had come to this town for her, to help her stand back up. That morning Annie had mentioned her own stomach was off. Two sick women, one street apart, and only Leanna to check on both. She eased off the bus and crossed to the cottage. She knocked soft. No answer. She tried the door and it opened. Annie sat on the floor by her couch, both arms wrapped around her middle. Her skin looked gray. A bowl sat beside her on the rug. She looked up slow. "Leanna," she said. "I couldn't get up." Leanna dropped to her knees. She touched Annie's stomach and felt how tight and swollen it was. Worse than Lyndsey's. Much worse. "When did you last eat?" "I don't remember. Two days, maybe." Annie swallowed hard. "It came on quick." Leanna's chest went cold. This was not one nervous stomach. This was two women, sick the same way, at the same time. Something was making people ill in this town. "I'm getting you help," Leanna said. She helped Annie onto her left side, right there on the rug, the way she'd just settled her sister. Annie's face eased a little. Then Leanna stood. She had two people down now, and one of them could barely lift her head. The clinic was two towns away. She couldn't carry them both, and she couldn't leave either one alone. She looked out the cottage window toward the bus. She had to choose who to move first.

Lyndsey was asleep. Annie was worse. Leanna made the choice fast. She half carried Annie off the rug and out the door, an arm under her ribs. She wrote a note for Lyndsey and left it on the bunk. Then she drove Annie two towns over, to the clinic, gripping the wheel as Annie moaned against the window. They pushed through the clinic door. Before Leanna could even ask for help, Annie doubled over and threw up on the waiting room floor. A few people looked up. Annie sank to her knees in it, arms locked around her middle. "I need a healer," Leanna said. "She hasn't eaten in two days. Her stomach's hard as a stone." A woman came out from the back. Reddish-blonde hair, soft eyes, plain sweater. She didn't flinch at the mess. She knelt right down beside Annie on the floor. "I'm Lindy," she said. "Let's get you up." Between them, Leanna and Lindy walked Annie to an exam table in the back. Lindy eased her flat and lifted the edge of her shirt. She pressed two fingers low on Annie's belly. Annie cried out and gagged. Lindy moved her hand and pressed again. Same cry. "Easy," Lindy said. Her voice dropped, quiet and exact. "I know it hurts. I have to feel where." Leanna held Annie's hand. "Is it what's going around? Something in the town?" Lindy kept pressing, listening with her fingers. "No." She said it flat. "This is nervous stomach. A bad flare. Maybe two small ulcers." She looked up. "She performs, doesn't she. On an empty belly." Leanna's chest loosened, then tightened again. Not a plague. A pattern. The same one she'd seen in singer after singer. "She does," Leanna said. Lindy went to a shelf and gathered small pouches of dried herbs and tea. She set them in Leanna's hands. "Thyme tea. These others steep for the swelling. They calm the gut." Then she opened a tin of balm and warmed some between her palms. "This part will hurt," Lindy told Annie. "It brings the swelling down." She rubbed the balm in slow circles across Annie's stomach. Annie hissed with each pass. Her hands gripped the table edge. Leanna held her steady. Lindy didn't rush and didn't stop. After a minute Annie's breathing slowed. Her shoulders came down off her ears. The last circle didn't make her flinch. "Better," Annie whispered. Just the one word. Lindy wiped her hands. "She needs food before she sings. Every time. No exceptions." She looked at Leanna. "Can you make sure of that?" "Yes," Leanna said. Annie was safe. Leanna held the pouches and let herself breathe. Then she remembered the bus, and the note, and Lyndsey alone in the bunk with the same swollen belly. She had helped one woman up. The other was still two towns away, asleep and waiting.

Leanna drove back with Annie safe in the seat and the herb pouches in her lap. But her sister was still on the bus, alone. Lindy came with them. "I'll look at her too," she said, and that was all. Leanna held the wheel and did not slow down. They found Lyndsey in the small washroom at the back of the bus. She knelt over the toilet, throwing up. Her dark hair stuck to her face. Her belly pushed against her sweatshirt, swollen and tight. She was crying, and her skin burned when Leanna touched her. "I can't stop," Lyndsey said. "My stomach won't stop." She wiped her mouth. "I made it worse, didn't I." "No," Leanna said. "You didn't." Lindy knelt on the tile. She was the healer from the clinic, reddish-blonde, calm, the woman who had pulled Annie back an hour ago. She lifted the edge of Lyndsey's shirt and pressed two fingers low on her belly. Lyndsey cried out. Lindy pressed again, one spot over. Same cry. She sat back on her heels. "It's the same thing," Lindy said. "Nervous stomach. A bad flare. She's got a fever from the strain." She looked at Leanna. "Does she sing too?" "She does," Leanna said. "Both of them. On empty stomachs." Lindy nodded once. "Then I treat it the same." She did what she'd done for Annie. She helped Leanna walk Lyndsey out of the washroom and lay her flat on the bunk. She warmed balm between her palms. "This will hurt," Lindy told Lyndsey. "It brings the swelling down." She rubbed slow circles across Lyndsey's stomach. Lyndsey hissed and gripped the blanket. Leanna held her hand and did not let go. Lindy kept on, steady, not fast, not stopping. After a minute Lyndsey's breathing came slower. Her shoulders dropped. Lindy poured thyme tea and pressed the warm cup into Lyndsey's hands. "Small sips. Then sleep." She set the other pouches on the bunk. "Steep these for the swelling." Lyndsey drank. The crying stopped. The fever still glowed in her cheeks, but the pain had loosened its grip. "Better," Lyndsey whispered. Then, quieter, checking herself: "Not fixed. But better." Leanna felt her chest let go. Two women, the same sickness, both stable now. She had done what she came to do. Lindy stood and wiped her hands. She looked from Lyndsey to Annie, asleep in the front seat, and her soft eyes went hard. "Two singers," Lindy said. "Same town. Same week. Both starving themselves before they perform." She was quiet, and precise. "That's not a coincidence. Someone's teaching them to do this." Leanna went still. She had treated the sickness. She had not asked why so many singers carried it. Lindy had just named the thing under the thing. "Then I need to find out who," Leanna said.

Lindy's words hung in the bus. Someone was teaching the singers to starve. Leanna needed a name. She sat on the edge of the bunk and asked the two people who would know. Annie was awake now in the front seat. Lyndsey lay flat, the thyme tea cooling in her hands. "Who taught you to skip meals before a show?" Leanna asked. "Tell me. I'll go talk to them." Lyndsey looked at the ceiling. "Nobody taught us," she said. "We do it ourselves." She stopped, checked herself. "I get so nauseous before a show. From nerves. I can't eat. And if I eat, I'm scared I'll throw it up." Annie nodded from her seat. Her cowgirl hat sat on her knee. "Yeah," she said, plain. "It's nobody's fault. Don't blame anyone." Leanna's plan fell apart in her hands. There was no teacher. No porch to walk up to. No one to argue with. The sickness came from inside them, from fear, and fear had no address. Lindy crouched by the bunk. She had been so sure. Her soft eyes went quiet. "Poor things," she said. "I thought it was cruelty. It's just how scared they are." Then Annie broke. Her face crumpled all at once. The plain girl who spoke in short, firm lines was gone. She cried hard, like a child. "I want Lainey," she said. "I want Lainey Willow. She hums the start of the song so I can find my voice. She's home. She's not here." Lainey was the woman who traveled with her, who sang beside her when Annie's throat locked. Without her, Annie could barely stand on a stage. Annie climbed off her seat and crossed the aisle. She wrapped both arms around Leanna and held on like a koala on a branch. Leanna felt the girl shaking against her. She did not push her off. She held her. "I've got you," Leanna said. "You don't have to sing today." Annie cried into her shoulder. Lyndsey watched from the bunk, one hand pressed to her sore belly. "That's it," Lyndsey said softly. "That's the whole thing. We're just scared." Leanna held Annie and understood. She had come looking for a villain. There wasn't one. The enemy was the fear itself, and the empty stomach it made. You couldn't confront it. You could only teach around it. She looked at Lindy over Annie's shaking shoulders. "Then no one's poisoning them," Leanna said. "The fear does it. So we teach them to eat through the fear. Both of them. Every singer like them." Lindy nodded slowly. "A small meal. Before every show. Even when the stomach says no." Annie's grip loosened. Her crying dropped to hiccups. Leanna smoothed the girl's hair and did not let go. The mystery was closed. The real work had just changed shape. She was not hunting a person now. She was teaching frightened women how to stay fed.