Helena had come to the Field only the day before. She knew that a woman named Helena was there, watching the spirit leave her infant, who had been born too soon. She could see some of them in the vast foul-smelling Field of Leaving, huddled beside the ones whose lingering spirits they tended. Of course she had seen others go through the rituals. She was young still, and had not experienced death before, not in the small two-person family that she and her mother had been. She wedged her walking stick in the soft ground, leaned on it, and pulled herself up. She had loved her mother, and would miss her terribly. Kira wiped briefly at her eyes, which had filled suddenly with tears.

Then the bones would scatter, rot, and crumble to become part of the earth. Diggers would come and sprinkle a layer of soil over the flesh, but even so it would be eaten by the clawing, hungry creatures that came at night. After four sunsets and sunrises, the spirit, too, was gone. Then after the brief and unexpected sickness, it had become the body of Katrina, still containing the lingering spirit.

This had been her mother, the warm and vital woman whose name had been Katrina.

Kira felt the aloneness, the uncertainty, and a great sadness. She thought that she could feel its leave-taking, the way one could feel a small whisper of breeze at night. 'Mother.' She said it again, quietly, to whatever was leaving. Her mother had been dead now for four days, and Kira could tell that the last of the spirit was drifting away. Urn:lcp:gatheringblue00lois:lcpdf:f4c11f81-8809-4102-9b47-a2875c60ed9e Extramarc University of Toronto Foldoutcount 0 Identifier gatheringblue00lois Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t9k38cr8w Invoice 11 Isbn 0553494783ĩ780553494785 Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.20 Ocr_module_version 0.0.17 Openlibrary OL7828581M Openlibrary_edition Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 17:03:12 Bookplateleaf 0008 Boxid IA1114705 Boxid_2 CH129925 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City New York Containerid_2 X0008 Donor

Gathering blue book series