She drew off her shawl and folded it, then without looking again at me, sat down upon the flat rock in the doorway, closing her eyes as she leaned a cheek against the lichen-covered frame.

“What type of story, Miss Grange?” I repeated softly.

She started, then opened her eyes and fixed me an instant, neither of us moving. Then she shrugged.

“Simple stories. Often, however, she would drift off behind the shop in search of some new mosses for her terrarium, commanding me not to move beyond the shadows in the doorway.”

“But shadows move!”

Miss Grange smiled, a bough released from the weight of a perching gull as it lifted.

“Yes, Maisie Thomas. Shadows move. And once I followed a shadow beyond the perimeters of the doorway, and I found there was another shadow just to the side, and so thought to follow that, and then another. And before I knew where I was, I had stumbled on my mother, deep in shadow … .”

Miss Grange’s voice faltered here. I wasn’t looking at her face, watching instead the trees scratching against the worn surface of the shop.

“And was she angry?”

Beside me, Miss Grange blew out her breath.

Unsure of the portent of such a response, I turned my gaze from the shop to the woman. She was still and very white. For an instant, I had the sensation of having been abandoned. Miss Grange had pulled into her own memory so deeply, I could not follow even the traces of her familiar face. Instead, I thought I saw the girl she had been—darting after shadows, the summer wind playing about her in the thick inner woods. I thought I followed her little form around the corner of the shop and saw another woman, younger than Miss Grange and terribly beautiful—her fine spun hair escaping a simple cap of years ago. This woman was on her hands and knees, digging into the mosses with what looked to be a dinner spoon. Frightened, I took a step backward so quickly, my boot caught the hem of my skirt, and I fell. Miss Grange rose up and came quickly to my side, holding out her right hand to pull me up—and her hand was warm.

“Are you hurt, Maisie?”

“No.”