She was tiny. She felt like air in my hands. Amy arranged pillows behind her head. I found the kitchen and returned with a glass of water and a cold cloth. The old lady still hadn’t stirred. Her home was what some people would call exotic. All the furniture was made of wood. There was no glass or chrome anywhere, except for mirrors. The carpets were the old-fashioned rag kind. The kind old ladies like my grandmother used to make. The only flowers were dried, and there were tree branches in the corners of the room. The branches were hung with feathers and beads like the ones we’d found. There were a couple of stuffed birds and a hornet’s nest on a shelf. On the wall above a small fireplace was a bear hide. A large seashell decorated a coffee table that looked like a section of tree trunk. “Interesting,” I said. Amy looked up from mopping the woman’s brow with the cloth and scanned the room. “She really likes to keep nature close,”
