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Preston looked at her with frank disbelief, and she corrected herself "I didn’t say that right--if so it back But if a laet it going"

"By throwing it?" he asked incredulously

She scanned the writing on the page "He’s not throwing it, he’s swinging it around in a circle If the laed with mucus, this is what you’re supposed to do ‘Grasp it fir it,’ is what the book says The centrifugal force will clear out the nose and lungs"

The text also advised, "Make certain there are no obstructions in your path," but that brought to mind a violent, cartoonlike outcome, so she didn’t read that part aloud She was mindful of how the kids took their cues from her on what to take seriously, even at hectic ti tornado

Preston asked quietly, "Will we have to do that?"

"Oh, sweetie No" She eyed the plaid bear that still dangled froh-chair tray How teive it a practice whirl around the kitchen, lightening this h, but the better part of her nature resisted A life was a life She’d been orphaned at an age to internalize death as poor material for a joke And likewise, salvation

The cold was stupefying She pulled on her heavy wool cap andfor a scarf to pull across her nose The frigid air prickled inside her nostrils and her eyes felt sticky, as if her tears were freezing up She’d stuffed four clean pillowcases into a big shoulder bag along with her lunch and other necessities On the outside chance she’d misunderstood Pete’s instructions, those linens could spend a quietout in her purse She wished she’d taken the time to put on more clothes She had not checked the temperature at Ovid’s ca herself to try that again, but this had to be otten how to judge the cold, in the course of these mild, dreary months

At the top of the pasture she was surprised to see a drift of white on the dark tree branches and the shady floor of the woods Snow had fallen in the night The sky had cleared and the early light had melted any trace of it from the fields below, if it had stuck there But up here on the mountain it inter The idea of snow on the butterfly trees pulled her toward panic Snow falling on the butterflies thes and tender bodies, was a heartbreak she had failed as yet to iine She hit the trail at a hard lope and would have run, if she were a thousand packs of cigarettes younger Briefly she considered going back to get the ATV, but knew there was no real need Her presence at this disaster could not alter it, the da evergreen liht sky Where the trail to the study site branched off froravel road, she noted that even this sns of the visitors and their leavings were everywhere, blackened rocks pulled together for cah the thin floor of snow She slowed her pace, to keep breathing, and tried to be observant Cluht her eye, squirrel nests, but no living butterflies

She descended the very steep side trail that led directly into the valley of the roost site, passing near what looked like an encampment fifty feet or so from the trail Dellarobia had never ca in a nylon shroud was beyond her--but plenty of people felt otherwise, obviously, and soers was no longer especially strange, but she felt an aard shyness peering into the inti the muffled sounds of their zippers and voices She could s men she assumed, but who could say really, hunkered close to their cae day One of the, crossed needles, and Dellarobia registered that, ied-looking paw, slowly and widely as if signaling across soreat divide He, she, or it was dressed in a man’s old coat over a cotton dress over jeans tucked into unlaced boots, exactly the kind of outfit Cordie would put together Dellarobia hesitated before waving back, and then pressed on

The fir forest when she reached it had its own air as always, dark and still Within its snow-flocked boughs she began to pick out snow-laced colonnades of butterflies, first a few, then more, as her eyes adjusted to their wintry aspect She stopped to pull off her mittens briefly and kneel down to touch the brittle skeins of veined wings heaped in the path at her feet, many more casualties than she’d ever seen before Insect bodies lay in heaps directly under the colonies, pitifully wasted it seemed, like mounds of withered tomatoes fallen from the vines in a failed harvest She stood up with both hands drawn to her chest and looked at the trees, trying to assess what remained The forest still looked filled with the iers of these clusters, lit froes where the sun reached through If their nuuess how badly, as their nu The simplest conclusion was that they survived Part of the world was still in place

The little glade at the valley’s botto familiar to her, like a roo the trees at its edge to let her heart stop pounding Day by day she was getting her lungs back, since she’d quit s into the flammable atmosphere of Ovid Byron He was there, on the opposite side of the glen He and Pete stood together looking into the treetops, with their backs to her She was surprised to see four field helpers already here too,Vern Zakas was one of the sticks across his knee to feed a small caht to work Last week they’d ed for theround around the table already looked tra the field balance was set up there, flanked by half-open equiplassine envelopes splayed across the table like cards after an abandoned poker game She wondered if men could even see the messes they made, or if they had differently structured eyes, as Ovid had told her cats and dogs and insects did She should get over there and organize things The boys seemed subdued, their ordinary conviviality suspended, presuency of this day She felt oddly territorial They’d gotten here before she did