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quickly then, before he could engage me in a conversation I didn’t want, and I hurried back to the hole, and my digging, and I forgot Bibi’s dream and the bracelet and my uneasiness, burying it in mindless drudgery. I didn’t even see them leave.
    When Junius returned late that afternoon, it was with two men in tow—Adam Leach, who owned the whacks next to ours, and Sydney Dawes, another oysterman. He brought them up to the edge of the hole and said, “Hello, sweetheart.”
    “Building a dam, Leonie?” Adam Leach asked.
    I glanced up. “Do I look like a beaver to you?”
    “Well yeah, right now, you kind of do.” He laughed, and Sydney Dawes laughed too.
    Junius said, “They came out to see the mummy.”
    I pushed up the brim of my hat and leaned on the shovel handle. I was relieved for a moment—Junius was telling people,and that at least explained why Bibi had known—but then I was annoyed. “I didn’t know that you meant to tell the world.”
    Sydney said, “Ah, Russell, looks like you made her mad.”
    “I’m not mad,” I said, though I was. “You boys go on and take a look at her since you came all the way out, but I wish you wouldn’t go around telling everyone you see. It’s bad enough that Bibi was out here casting her spells, I don’t need any other pretend mystics wasting my time.”
    Junius frowned. “Bibi was here?”
    Adam said, “Where are you keeping this thing, anyway? Let’s go see it. I want to get back before it’s too dark.”
    “In the barn,” Junius said, waving them off, and as the two men made their way there, he said to me, “Why was Bibi here? Did you talk to her about the canoe?”
    “She wouldn’t listen. She wanted to tell me about some dream she had.” I glared after the two men. “Really, June, did you have to tell everyone? If Baird finds out—”
    “How’s he going to find out?” he asked. “Who’s going to tell him? All these men care about are oysters. They’ll take a look at her and go home and forget about it.”
    “Hey, Russell, we ain’t got all day!” Sydney Dawes called out.
    I glanced toward them, thinking of how they’d be looking at her as if she were some curiosity in Barnum’s museum, how they would stare and prod and touch and laugh, their crude jokes. The thought troubled me and brought back the uneasiness I’d felt at Bibi’s visit. “Junius, don’t...don’t let them touch her. Please.”
    “We won’t harm a hair,” he promised, and went off after them.
    I watched him walk off to join them and I turned back to the hole. But I couldn’t lose myself in the work. I wanted to be with the mummy, not in this wet and muddy hole. It seemed pointless, such a waste of time. So far, my instincts had proved right. I’d found nothing, and there looked to be nothing to find. Why continue?
    I took up the shovel and pick and went back to the house, leaving them on the porch as I went inside. Lord Tom was sitting in his customary chair by the organ.
    He said, “What did that
pelton
woman tell you today?”
    “She’d had a dream. The mummy’s
tomawanos
wants me. Junius has told everyone about her, it seems.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness from my voice. “Now he’s out there like some lyceum showman. Too bad there’s nothing to unwrap or he could charge admission.”
    Lord Tom grunted. “Bibi said more than this.”
    “Yes,” I said. “More nonsense.”
    Lord Tom said, “The
memelose
are tricky,
okustee
.”
    “And this one’s been dead a long time. Her spirit’s long since passed over, even according to your Chinook legends. It’s not coming back. How can it hurt me?”
    Lord Tom looked unconvinced. “
Kloshe nanitch, okustee
. That is all I’m saying.”
    Kloshe nanitch. Be careful, listen, watch.
He’d said such words to me a hundred times. There was nothing unusual in them, and the fact that Bibi had said them to me just this morning meant nothing either. “So you think Bibi’s right?”
    He shook his head.