Properties of Thirst

The chapter opens from Cas’s perspective. She’s composing music on the harp when there’s a knock at the door. A neighbor couple enters, carrying Sunny, unconscious and covered in cuts and blood. Cas sends the man to Schiff, requesting an ambulance. Cas rings Lou’s bell to summon Rocky. He arrives just as Sunny is being loaded onto a stretcher. No one knows what has happened or where she has been; her horse arrived at their neighbor’s property with Sunny aboard. She has hypothermia.

Rocky grills the doctors, who insist that Sunny should be taken to a hospital. He refuses, insisting that Three Chairs has “healing properties.” They’re arguing about whether an X-ray machine can be procured when Sunny regains consciousness. Through tears, Sunny reveals that Hace has married someone else.

Rocky convinces Dr. Arakawa from Manzanar to spend the night; Schiff returns the next day to inquire about Sunny’s condition. He finds Cas is in the kitchen, who asks him to help make chicken soup. As she kills the bird, Cas tells Schiff about Hace’s betrayal and about a similar heartbreak she herself endured after a romance with a man she met in Scandinavia.