I made Nell a mouth from the sleeve of my black dress. The cloth held the shape of my elbow when I cut it free. I laid it over the lower half of her face and stitched around the edges with red thread. The book said to leave the lips open. The dead would have things to say before morning. Nell’s face lay on my kitchen table. I had sewn it from the green coat she wore when she died. The fabric was stiff with old grain dust. Her hairline came from a photograph Mother kept beside her bed. I had traced the rest from memory, including the small white scar through Nell’s left eyebrow. My work gave her a pinched forehead and uneven cheeks. Grief had made me a poor taxidermist. The mourning book waited beside my elbow. Aunt Tildy had written it in brown ink, between recipes for black dye and instructions for laying out a body. One page carried the heading A GUISE FOR THE WRONGED. Most of the words had faded. I could still read the warning near the bottom.

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