Like a blanket, she thinks through the bleariness of half-sleep; like the quilt her great-grandmother once sewed for her out of patches of uniform cloth. Years ago and before she died, Muh Dear worked for the Brevard militia as a seamstress, and got to keep the scraps from any repairs that required new cloth. The blanket she made for Damaya was mottled and dark, navy and taupe and gray and green in rippling bands like columns of marching men, but it came from Muh Dear’s hands, so Damaya never cared that it was ugly. It always smelled sweet and gray and a bit fusty, so it is easy now to imagine that the straw—which smells mildewy and like old manure yet with a hint of fungal fruitiness—is Muh’s blanket. The actual blanket is back in Damaya’s room, on the bed where she left it. The bed in which she will never sleep again.She can hear voices outside the straw pile now: Mama and someone else talking as they draw closer. There’s a rattle-creak as the barn door is unlocked, and then they come inside.
