Chapter 155

She didn't make any additional moves towards her, but she did lightly click her tongue. A half-dozen of her comrades emerged from behind other trees and out of the thickets, revealing themselves to her. One child, who could only have been about fifteen years old, to a much older woman, whose scraggly silver hair was beginning to become grey, were among those who had gathered. It was difficult to determine their exact ages because their faces were extremely wrinkled and striped, and they were all dressed in the same winter animal-skin apparel as the rest of them.

None of them was tall enough to reach her shoulder level, and they all shared a set of facial characteristics: broad foreheads and prominent cheekbones over wide mouths and thin chins, which gave their faces an oddly triangular form. She saw that several of the women had wet eyes, as if they had been staring into the sun for an extended period of time. As she thought about it, she recalled what Tommy had told her about the lo