"You are not, and neither am I. This is Purgatory, where souls assume their living forms, just as they do in Heaven and in Hell. I brought you here because it will be easier for you to adjust in your normal semblance."

"But this is a house!" Orlene exclaimed. "A strange house, with leaves sprouting from the walls and soil for the floor! How can this be the realm of spirits?"

Jolie realized that it was best to focus first on the basics. Soon enough they would get to the specifics of the woman's situation, when she was ready for them.

"All the Incarnations have homes in Purgatory," she explained. "They each have servants and staff to assist them in their formidable duties. But the Incarnation of Nature prefers to run her household alone, so that none may know her comings and goings, and indeed it can be quite difficult to visit. That is why I am certain of our privacy."

"This—is the home of Nature?" Orlene asked, amazed. "Yes. That is why it is alive. All living things, and most dead ones, are her business. She is perhaps the most powerful of the Incarnations, aside from Good and Evil."

"But how can we be here?"

Jolie smiled. "I am a friend of the Incarnation. Indeed, I am her closest companion and confidante, for all that I am merely a ghost like you. That is why I was able to bring you here."

"I thought you were just a dream figment—a companion I invented in my sleep! You never said anything about Incarnations!"

"Not that you may remember at the moment," Jolie said. "It was not relevant. I am part of a complex skein, and am not free to discuss much of it, but this much you may accept: I came to you by design, not chance, and I have loved you as I would my own child."

Now Orlene remembered something. "You said you were a friend of my mother! But my parents never said anything about the supernatural!"

They were about to get into the woman's history. That was good, because the more time and thought that separated her from the concept of her recent death, the better. "You were adopted. I referred to your natural mother, who had to give you up when you were just a few weeks old."

"A blind Gypsy," Orlene agreed. "There was never any secrecy about my origin. My parents were always good to me, and I am thankful to have come to them. I had hoped to be as good for my own baby as they were for me."

Then, abruptly, she clouded up, remembering the tragedy.