The Medicine Woman of Galveston

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness, illness, death, sexual content, sexual violence, rape, ableism, and racism.

In the year 1900, at a factory in St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Tucia Hatherley witnesses a colleague get her arm caught in a machine. She is transported back to a time when she made a mistake in an operating theatre and accidentally let a woman die. She hears the man’s voice that berated her for her blunder before she is snapped out of her reverie as the factory foreman and physician rush to the woman’s aid in the present. Tucia steps forward to help but the physician declares it is too late, as the woman will die anyway.

Disturbed by the return of her “hysterical attacks,” Tucia counts to herself on her walk home, determined to stay anchored to the present. She absent-mindedly plucks one of her hairs and stops, horrified, as soon as she realizes what she has done, and fights the urge to pluck more.

Tucia stops by the store and picks up a piece of penny candy for her son, seven-year-old Toby. At home, she is upset to find Toby playing in the dark by himself, while his babysitter, Mrs.