—RULES OF CIVILITY VAPORS FROM A SIMMERING POT GREETED HARRY AND NOAH AT Natty’s house. It was well past midday. Blinn had started back to town to report to the sheriff the discovery of the old Indian. Natty was not at home, but judging from the stew’s rich and nearly done appearance, Harry reckoned he was not far away. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Noah, his eyes wandering around the dark interior. “It looks like something that grew out of the ground.” The way Harry had it figured, Natty so missed his former life in the Albemarle, where the dividing line between outdoors and indoors was sometimes vague, that he tried to remake it here. Over time the house had taken on a wild, shaggy look, more like a dwelling in the man’s swampy homeland to the north. Thick garlands of hanging moss covered the walls inside and out. Their curling, dried-out tendrils gave the place a feeling of year-round autumn in another world. Worked into the moss were animal parts: snakeskins, antlers, turtle shells, bear and panther bones, and some other smaller, less easily identified objects, including one about the size of an apple that looked eerily like a jawless human skull.
