I had my doubts, but I nodded anyway.
“I’d better get back,” I said. “Let you sleep.”
“I don’t sleep much anymore, but I think I will lie down. That walk nearly did me in.”
“Maybe you should take it a little easier. What if you fell out there?”
“Then I fall.”
“And if you fall and die?”
“Better to die against the earth, beneath my brother the moon and a hundred thousand nakwisis, than to fade away hidden from the sun.”
“Nakwisis,” I said softly. “Stars.”
“You do remember.”
I wasn’t sure if I remembered or if I’d just figured it out from the context. Regardless, I liked how knowing the word made me feel. As if I’d connected to my past and in doing so made possible a brighter future.
“You’re taking good care of her papers, aren’t you?” Quatie asked.
“Of course.” They were irreplaceable—in both emotional value and ancient lore.
“They’re in a safe place?”
“Very.”
I thought of the false bottom in the right-hand drawer of my father’s desk—the one I’d only learned about from his lawyer after he’d died. In it I’d found all the pictures of my mother that had disappeared soon after she’d died. Now the photos were in my bedroom and my great-grandmother’s papers were in the drawer.
“I’ll come back in a few days,” I said. “Is there anything you’d like me to bring for you?”
“I hear there’s a new doctor in town.”
The gossip grapevine never ceased to amaze me. The proof of its far-reaching voice also soothed my guilt just a little. If Quatie was getting the news that quickly, then she was in contact with townsfolk other than me, and if there’d been anything seriously wrong up here, I’d have heard about it just as fast.
“There is a new doctor.”
“He knows the old ways?”
“So he says.”
“I’d like to meet him.”
“Are you ill?”
Her lips quirked. “Child, I’m old.”
“You’ve never seen a doctor before.” Or at least I didn’t think she had.
“Rose took care of me. Her cures were all I needed. But since she’s been gone, I’ve just made do. I’d like to hear what this young man has to say.”
“I’m sure that could be arranged. I’ll bring him with me the next time I come.”
Quatie’s eyes brightened. “He’ll come here?”
“Of course.” There w
as no way Ian would make an arthritic old woman come to see him. I didn’t know him well, but I knew that much.