“Cathrine. With a c and only one e.” She spelled it out. “After my mother, though she was never Cate. And you?”

“Ellie,” I said.

“Short for?”

“Nothing. Long for Leigh.”

“Leigh.” The old woman nodded. “That’s a good, strong name. Simple. With nice round edges. Like a pear.”

We ran out of things to say about our names, so I said, “Why do you have a doll?”

She looked confused for a moment and then felt for the little doll and pulled it against her chest. “Why shouldn’t I have her?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t say you shouldn’t. I just asked why you did.”

She didn’t answer, but I thought I understood. I had long since given my own doll to Samuel, who had lost it in the woods, but I still remembered how it had felt to hold her in my arms as I settled toward sleep.

“How did you hurt your leg?”

She gave me a hard look. “It’s not good manners to come into my home and look at me while I’m sleeping.”

Much of this situation was odd and surprising. That she would talk about manners was more of the same.

“I tried to rouse you. You wouldn’t wake up. You have fever. There’s a dead rabbit next to your head. Of course I looked at you.”

She turned her head. Saw the rabbit next to her. Saw the flies. “Oh Captan, my Captan,” she whispered, reaching for the dog again.

I watched him relax under her hand. Watched his tail sweep the floor.

“Is that his name? Captain?”

“It is. But not Captain. Captan. No i.”

I wanted to ask about that, but dog names and bottled ticks and everything else could wait. She still hadn’t answered my question, so I asked it again.

“How did you hurt your leg? Did you cut yourself?”

She huffed. “I didn’t get this old by cutting myself.” To my great surprise, a single tear gathered itself in the corner of each eye and followed the map of her face. “It was a fisher cat. A big one. It went after Captan. Got me, instead.”

I had seen a fisher cat only once, but once was enough. Far too many teeth for a critter not much bigger than a groundhog. And sharp. Like white knives.

Again, as if she could hear me thinking, the woman said, “Can’t blame it, really, seeing as how it was not even half Cap’s size and cornered, against a rock face. Nowhere to go.”

“And you got between it and the dog?”

She stared at me. “Wouldn’t you?”

I thought about Quiet, a dog I had known for only two days. Not even two days. “I would.”

She nodded. “I thought so.”

As if she knew me.

She peered down at her leg. “What a mess.”

I nodded. “I was about to burn it.”