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staring at her with glassy eyes, but then he sank back to bed, unconscious once more.
    Lucy took the little sack, and realizing she was no longer in the quiet state, she held it out to Miss Crawford.
    The lady looked at the bag and then at Lucy. Her sea-green eyes were wide and moist. “Miss Derrick,” she said, “that was most impressive.”

    Lucy held the package in her shaking hand. “What was that?” she managed, though her voice cracked as she spoke.
    Miss Crawford put her own hand over Lucy’s and smiled. “There are dark things in this world, and you have seen one of them, but it is gone now. Now we must get rid of the instrument that attached it to this man,” she said. “A curse of this kind works upon the principle of sympathy. Whatever has linked the stranger to this bundle must still be in effect, so we must be careful how we destroy it. If we were to burn it, for example, it might cause that man to develop a fever or blisters, or possibly even burst into flame himself.”
    Miss Crawford took the package, set it down upon the little bed table, and began to untie it. The cloth unfolded as a square, and within in it, made of the same cloth, was a little effigy of a man, so bland and featureless as to be a model of any living person with four limbs and a head. Around its little cloth neck were tied strands of hair.
    “Now we may safely destroy it,” Miss Crawford said, clutching it in her hand. “It is inert. I shall toss it in the fire on my way out.”
    Lucy could not cease thinking of the shapeless creature she had thought she had seen or almost seen or sensed or whatever it had been. She opened her mouth to ask about it, but then decided it was better not to know. Already she began to doubt she had seen anything at all, to tell herself that her mind had combined shadow and smoke and fear and created a formless chimera. She liked believing this better than believing that the shape she had encountered was real.
    To distract herself, she turned toward the man. “Ought he not to awaken?”
    “I expect he will soon enough,” said Miss Crawford. “Though free ofthe curse, he has been through an ordeal, and he will need time to recover.”
    They departed the room, and Miss Crawford put her hand on Lucy’s arm in what felt like a gesture of friendship. Lucy looked up at Miss Crawford and saw her beautiful smile, and though she wished to hear more praise, she understood no words could ever capture the same force as that expression of respect and benevolence. Miss Crawford liked her. She approved of how Lucy had conducted herself. For the first time in as long as she could remember, Lucy felt as though there was a person in the world to whom she mattered.

4
    O NCE MISS CRAWFORD HAD DEPARTED, THE FATE OF THE STRANGER remained a matter of significant consternation for Uncle Lowell. He sent Mrs. Quince several times to investigate whether or not the stranger had yet awakened, and Uncle Lowell advised that she not be quiet when opening and closing doors. Still, as though a drunkard, the man showed no sign of rousing.
    Lucy slept very ill that night, distracted as she was by her astonishing evening. Had she truly removed a curse from this man? Miss Crawford had seemed so sure of what she had said, and at the time Lucy had certainly felt that
something
had happened, but as each hour passed, she began to doubt that very much had happened at all. There had been no bright lights or shattered glass or other signs of wondrous things. The creature Lucy had seen, or believed she had seen, had been but shades of darkness, and it was possible, even likely, that the whole incident had been but an outburst of her imagination under Miss Crawford’s guidance.
    On the other hand, there was much that an overactive imagination did not explain, such as the stranger’s peculiar outcries. He had said she must not marry Mr. Olson, but he had also said she must gather the leaves. She did not know what that meant, but the words