By my estimate no more than twenty new people tried to speak to her. Already I was beginning to think we’d made the right decision to stop protecting her. Of course, for me, it was still hard not to worry.Walking home from school that afternoon I spotted a beautiful, black woman picking daisies in the park. There weren’t many black people in South Dakota. It was kind of sad—in all of Elder there were only three black families. But what caught my attention was she was picking the daisies in the exact spot Aja had been gathering them when I’d first seen her.As I watched, the woman carried her flowers to a nearby bench and sat down in the broiling sun. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She was far from young yet her age did nothing to dim her regal appearance. Dressed in a stunning blue gown, she looked like a queen from a lost kingdom. She noticed I was staring at her and flashed a smile and raised an exquisite hand and gestured to me: Come.Seconds later I was standing beside her, staring down at a deck of tarot cards she’d spread over a white towel she’d covered her half of the bench with.
