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Logan tries again: “Good afternoon, ma’am.”
She stops in the manner of someone alerted by a distant sound; slowly she raises her face. Her eyes are rheumy, damp and faintly yellow. She squints at him for perhaps ten seconds, fighting to focus. Some of her teeth are gone, giving her mouth a pursed appearance.
“So, you’ve decided to come up, then,” she says. Her voice is a coarse rasp. “I was wondering when that would happen.”
“My name is Logan Miles. This is my friend Nessa Tripp. I was hoping we could talk with you. Would that be all right?”
The woman has resumed her weeding. She has also begun, faintly, to mutter to herself. Logan glances at Nessa, whose face, behind her plastic mask, drips with sweat, as does his own.
“Would you like some help?” Nessa asks the woman.
The question appears to puzzle her. The woman shifts backward onto her haunches. “Help?”
“Yes. With the weeding.”
Her mouth puckers. “Do I know you, young lady?”
“I don’t believe so,” Nessa replies. “We’ve only just arrived.”
“From where?”
“Far away,” says Nessa. “Very far away. We’ve come a great distance to see you.” She points toward the field of rocks. “We got your message.”
The woman’s yellowed eyes follow Nessa’s gesture. “Oh, that,” she says after a moment. “Set that up a long time ago. Can’t really remember the reason for it. You say you want to help with the weeding, though—that’s fine. Come on through the gate.”
They enter the yard. Nessa, taking the lead, kneels before the rose beds and begins to work, scooping the dirt aside with her thick gloves; Logan does the same. Best, he thinks, to let the woman get used to their presence before pressing her further.
“The roses are lovely,” Nessa says. “What kind are they?”
The woman doesn’t answer. She is scraping the ground with a metal claw. She appears to take no interest in them whatsoever.
“So, how long have you been here?” Logan asks.
The woman’s hands stop, then, after a beat, resume working. “Started work early this morning. Garden doesn’t rest.”
“No, I meant in this place. How long have you lived here?”
“Oh, a long time.” She plucks another weed and, unaccountably, places the green tip between her front teeth and nibbles on it, her jaws working like a rabbit’s. With a sound of dissatisfaction, she shakes her head and tosses it in the bucket.
“Those suits you’re wearing,” she says. “I think I’ve seen those before.”
Logan is perturbed. Has someone else been here? “When was that, do you think?”
“Don’t remember.” She purses her lips. “I doubt they’re very comfortable. You can wear what you like, though. It’s not really my business.”
More time passes. The pail is nearly full.
“Now, I don’t believe we got your name,” Logan says to the woman.
“My name?”
“Yes. What are you called?”
It is as if the question makes no sense to her. The woman lifts her head and angles her gaze toward the sea. Her eyes narrow in the bright oceanic light. “No one around here to call me anything.”
Logan glances at Nessa, who nods cautiously. “But surely you have a name,” he presses.
The woman doesn’t answer. The murmuring has returned. Not murmuring, Logan realizes: humming. Mysterious notes, almost tuneless but not quite.
“Did Anthony send you?” she asks.
Once again, Logan looks at Nessa. Her face says that she, too, has made the connection: Anthony Carter, the third name on the stone.
“I don’t believe I know Anthony,” Logan tenders. “Is he around here?”
The woman frowns at the absurdity of this question, or so it seems. “He went home a long time ago.”
“Is he a friend of yours?”
Logan waits for more, but there is none. The woman takes a single rose between her thumb and forefinger. The petals are fading, brittle and brown. From the pocket of her dress she removes a small blade and clips the stem at the first tier of leaves and drops the wilted bloom in the pail.
“Amy,” Logan says.
She stops.
“Is that you? Are you…Amy?”
With painstaking, almost mechanical slowness, she swivels her face. She regards him for a moment, expressionless, then frowns as if puzzled. “You’re still here.”
Where would they have gone? “Yes,” says Nessa. “We came to see you.”
