Ondine was shocked by the list of dead and missing. It was more people than she had realized. She had some of these names written in her notes but hearing the old woman rhyme off the names so quickly was disturbing. The way she told the story, it was as though this had happened recently. Her memory was remarkable, unless she was half senile and making it up. The old woman stopped talking and the air was very still without her voice ringing out. She had a small scowl on her face as she stared at Ondine.

For a second it seemed the old woman had been listening to her thoughts, that she was annoyed Ondine would doubt her mental acuity. Ondine’s shock must have shown on her face. She was annoyed with herself for being unable to maintain professional composure.

But the old woman’s face softened and she pointed at Ondine. “Keep fanning yourself, my dear, or you might faint. I’ll take you for a walk down to the beach later but you’ll have to get your strength up.”

The fan was in Ondine’s lap. She hadn’t realized she had set it there, so lost had she been in the old woman’s astonishing story.

“I was only fourteen when Rose went away, and I’ve missed her every day right up until this moment. And when I was grown, it was my stepmother’s end which wounded me deep, because I was a young mother then myself. You realize then how little you can do to protect even the most vulnerable.

“I can tell you they don’t know where my stepmother’s head’s buried. It ain’t with her body. It went in the graveyard, along with one of her arms and her two legs, chopped off like they was pieces of firewood, can you believe it? Don’t look so shocked, girl! We were poor. And of course they didn’t want any gawkers coming round. The pieces of her were laid down in the earth. They didn’t use no coffin, just wrapped my stepmother up in a soft, flowered cloth, the kind she made her dresses from, and then wrapped her parts around again with velvet. I know this for I was there when my stepmother’s sisters gathered up the fabric.

“It was the end of summer and still hot, so they had to put her in the earth fast and quick. Exact same weather we have today, I’ll have you know. Her sisters have all since departed this earth. Those were the old ways and sometimes those old ways stay behind when the time they arose from has passed. They held onto the old ways, those ladies, I’ll tell you. And that’s what they instructed, to hold on to the old ways, which I’m now telling you, young Ondine. They wrapped my stepmother up by the light of the moon. Not because they were superstitious but because they didn’t want no attention.

“She was my stepmother but I loved her dearly. You understand . . . sometimes people leave us, even the wee ones.” The old lady coughed and then got up with an unexpected agility for one so stooped and curved, as though for decades she had bent over tidal pools and leaned from a lobster boat hauling traps. She opened the screen door and disappeared down the hall. Ondine could hear clunking inside. She looked out over the road, the bay a soft blue, glistening under the broiling afternoon sun. The shade of the verandah was a sanctuary.