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Lisette’s homely face fell She snapped the book shut “A wraith?” Alar’s?”

“Do you know of any others that would haunt our woods?”

“O

h, dear,” the older woray bun and then placed her hand over her fleshy neck, as though in distress

Lisette was pushing seventy, but was still agile and quite healthy She’d been in her aled Jade on numerous occasions with stories of pre-war life

Aside froood to be true, there had been luxury cruise ships and Dreamliner airplanes Movie theaters, concert halls, casinos, resorts and restaurants of every variety—all of which she’d described in great detail

Most of all, there’d been freedo Lisette had lostthe other elders who’d lived in the tin

With the De her use ofmore than a caretaker of historical books and the narrator of a world yet to be rebuilt

What Jade foundabout Lisette’s wealth of infore of the ideas and innovations of which she spoke or those contained within the pages of the resource voluh no one wanted to remember or believe in the way huo

Had this been a bookstore, Lisette would have surely been out of business her first week

“Tell ht-brown eyes narrowing on Jade “Have you done anything wrong?”

“Of course not,” Jade replied, indignant “I do what everyone else does I get up in the , I take care of some chores, wash o to work I come home, sleep and repeat the process the next day On Sundays, I read books Pretty simple stuff”

Naturally, she refrained froenda She didn’t want to think of last night’s “romantic interlude” It had been too real, too potent The e not to bite on it One of the reasons she’d lost so

“Have you said anything?” Lisette leaned toward her, regarding her quizzically

“What could I possibly have to say that hasn’t already been said by someone in this community?” She threw her hands up in the air “Let’s face it, there’s very little left to talk about, except to debate how best to grow vegetables and herbs inside during the winter months”