“I didn’t use to. And I never thought they would be so small and … like you.”
“I’ve been called an elfin little girl.”
“That’s exactly right.”
“In a way, it is. I’m a child according to the standards of my people, but my people age more slowly than yours, and I have an extra problem. I may be older than you are in years. As far as my memory is concerned, though, I was born just a few weeks ago.”
“But how can that—？”
“Shh.” I started to get off her lap, and she tried to hold me where I was. “No,” I said. “Let me go.” She released me, and I sat beside her and leaned against her.
“Three, maybe four weeks ago,” I began, “I woke up in a shallow cave a few miles from here. I’m being vague about when and where because I don’t know enough to be exact. During my first days in the cave I was blind and in and out of consciousness. I was in a lot of pain, and I had no memory of anything that had happened before the cave.”
“Amnesia.”
“Yes.” I told her the rest of it, told her about killing Hugh Tang, but not about eating him, told her about hunting deer and eating them. I told her about Wright finding me and taking me in, and about finding my father and brothers. I told her the little I knew about the Ina and about what an Ina community was like. I told her I wasn’t human, and she believed me. She wasn’t even surprised.
“You want me to be part of such a community?” she asked.
“I do, but not yet.”
“Not … yet?”
“My father is having a house built for me. Come to me when the house is ready. I’ll see to it that there’s space for your books and other things—a place where you can write your poetry.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know. No more than a year.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to wait that long.”
I was surprised. I had been careful to let her make up her own mind, and I had believed she would come with me, but not so quickly. “I have nothing to offer you now,” I said. “I’ll be living in rooms in my father’s house. He says you can come, but when I saw what you have here, I thought you’d want to wait until you could have something similar with me.”
“I have no patience,” she said. “I want to be with you now.”
I liked that more than I could have said, and yet I wondered about it. “Why?” I asked her. I had no idea what she would say.
She blinked at me, looked surprised, hurt. “Why do you want me?”
I thought about that, about how to say it in a way she might understand. “You have a particularly good scent,” I said. “I mean, not only do you smell healthy, you smell … open, wanting, alone. When I came to you the first time, you were afraid at first, then glad and welcoming, excited, but you didn’t smell of other people.”
She frowned. “Do you mean that I smelled lonely?”
“I think so, yes, longing, needing …”
“I didn’t imagine that loneliness had a scent.”
“Why do you want me?” I repeated.
She hugged me against her. “I am lonely,” she said. “Or I was until you came to me that first time. You’ve made me feel more than I have since I was a girl. I hoped you would go on wanting me—or at least that’s what I hoped when I wasn’t worrying that I was losing my mind, imagining things.” She hesitated. “You need me,” she said. “No one else does, but you do.”
“Your family?”
“Not really, no. This is my home, and I’m glad to be able to help my daughter and her husband by having them come live here, but since my husband died, all I’ve really cared about—all I’ve been able to care about—is my poetry.”
“You would be able to bring only some of your things to my father’s house,” I said.
“A few boxes of books, some clothing, and I’ll be fine.”
I looked around the room doubtfully. “Wright and I will be moving tomorrow. I’ll need your telephone number so I can reach you. If you don’t change your mind, we’ll come back for you and your things the Friday after next.”
“Promise me.”
“I have.”
“Will you stay with me tonight?”
“For a while. Have you eaten?”
“Eaten?” She looked at me. “I haven’t even thought of eating, although I suppose I’d better. Do you eat regular food at all, ever?”