Inside, there were lights from guttering candles and she brewed them tea. The woman said her name was Mrs. McGuiness and she had been in Stokes a long, long time and knew how things worked. That was the sugar she used to get Ramona to go with her. That was the bait that drew the fly into the spider’s web.Mrs. McGuiness was a large, but sickly woman. She was round and fleshy, but her skin was yellow and dry, almost flaky. But beyond that, her blue eyes were friendly in their puffy sockets and she said she knew things and Ramona desperately wanted to know what those things were.As she sipped her tea, Mrs. McGuiness said, “Now, I can imagine you were pulled in here as oftentimes people are…but where is it you thought you were going?”“I’m going east,” Ramona told her. “I’m tracking this to its source.”“That’s a foolish proposition.”Ramona shrugged. “God loves fools. Better to take the fight to the source than be on the defensive.”“You certainly have a tongue on you.”Ramona ignored that.
