His eyes crinkled up as he grinned. “Could be, could be,” he replied. “But I was just reading the thoughtful look on your face when you came in, and put it together with the pan of your mother’s famous cobbler in the fridge. That meant you stopped to see my son, and since you brought the cobbler home, he must have let you know he’s worried because you’re so different, but since you aren’t annoyed, he told you he knows you can take care of yourself. Hmm?”

She shook her head. “I am never going to be able to do that. You sound just like Sherlock Holmes, and I feel as stupid as Watson,” she sighed, then hooked a chair with her toe and kicked it over to him. “Sit, Mooncrow, my Teacher. I am troubled, and in need of counsel. We have a lot of problems that should fit together and don’t. I need your help, Little Old Man.”

He took the chair, losing his smile. When she called him that—which was a title of high honor among their people—he knew the situation was more than simply serious. And he knew that she would not ask him for help unless she really was out of her depth.

She told him what she had told her father, but with more details, particularly the Medicine details. Although he was wearing his very best stoneface, as befit a Little Old Man, she thought that he became alarmed when she told him about Watches-Over-The-Land’s looted grave.

He began to ask her some specific questions about what graves in particular had been looted where, and she had to confess that she had been so upset that she couldn’t remember precise details.

“That’s why I took these,” she said, pulling out the Polaroids, and handing them to him. “Each set is from a specific grave; see, I put a number on a note right in the middle of each one, so you can tell which was which. I put everything back that I could, but with the bones gone, I got the feeling that my ceremonies were about as effective as blowing smoke into the wind. I did at least break the spiritual connection to the bones, but the mi-ah-luschka are looking for blood payment.”

He leafed through them, carefully, his face gone stony and cold. Finally, when he came to the last set, he took a quick intake of breath. That was all, but it was enough to tell her that he was as upset as she had ever seen him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, simply holding the photographs in his hands. When he finally opened his eyes again, though, he did not look the way she had expected.

He was angry, but that wasn’t all. He was disturbed, and perhaps a little frightened. Something had happened that he had not expected.