Mother picked some fakes and poisoned herself. Or else she’d be alive right now. Two hundred and thirty-three years Mother lived on this earth. And she didn’t grow old. They laid her in the grave just as black-haired and pink-cheeked as ever. That’s the way it is: whoever didn’t croak when the Blast happened, doesn’t grow old after that. That’s the Consequence they have. Like something in them got stuck. But you can count them on the fingers of one hand. They’re all in the wet ground: some ruined by the Slynx, some poisoned by rabbits, Mother here, by firelings . . .
