She asked me to touch her. Down there. It’s been so long, she said. I feel like a coffin. Just use your fingers. I was reluctant. When she said—It’s just your hand, it’s not you—I thought—It’s just my hand, not me—and so I did it. I slipped my hand under her muslin skirt, between her legs. I had barely grazed her and she sucked hard on the air, as if shocked. She shook. She groaned. It was like a coffin sliding on hot glass. A coffin that was about to fall off the earth’s edges. I had no compass. She was old. Not that old. She was almost seventy. But she is also different ages. And dead. Cherry spoke to me in a clenched whisper—Please, please put it in all the way. I want them all the way inside. Because it was Cherry asking me, I saw Cherry. Her hair was red. Her eyes were green. The green of the sea. An early sea, before human influence. I pushed my fingers in all the way. Sudden moisture, like tree sap, pooled around my knuckles. I was scared to know what it smelled like. And intrigued. Claudia groaned telepathically. Cherry groaned audibly. These two women were going to be the death of me.