How had this come to be? The moment had the surreal fast-and-slow movement of a dream. She set an empty plate in front of the child and fought the urge to grab her hand, to touch her and see if she was real. She and Jack sat in their chairs. He folded his hands in his lap and bowed his head. Mabel did as well, but could not stop looking at the girl. She was even smaller than she had appeared at a distance, and the chair back towered around her. With her coat on, the child had looked almost roly-poly as she sprinted through the trees, but now Mabel saw her thin arms and small shoulders. She wore that same cotton dress with tiny flowers on it, but Mabel could see now that it was a summer dress for a grown woman. Beneath it, she wore a long-underwear shirt that was too small; the sleeves did not reach her thin wrists. The girl’s hair was white-blond, but when Mabel studied it, she saw that woven and twisted among the strands were gray-green lichens, wild yellow grasses, and curled bits of birch bark.
