However far she was from Sweet Home, there was no point in giving out her realname to the first person she saw. "Lu," said Sethe. "They call me Lu." "Well, Lu, velvet is like theworld was just born. Clean and new and so smooth. The velvet I seen was brown, but in Bostonthey got all colors. Carmine. That means red but when you talk about velvet you got to say'carmine.' " She raised her eyes to the sky and then, as though she had wasted enough time awayfrom Boston, she moved off saying, "I gotta go." Picking her way through the brush she holleredback to Sethe, "What you gonna do, just lay there and foal?" "I can't get up from here," said Sethe.

　　"What?" She stopped and turned to hear.

　　"I said I can't get up."Amy drew her arm across her nose and came slowly back to where Sethe lay. "It's a house backyonder," she said. "A house?""Mmmmm. I passed it. Ain't no regular house with people in it though. A lean-to, kinda.""How far?""Make a difference, does it? You stay the night here snake get you.""Well he may as well come on. I can't stand up let alone walk and God help me, miss, I can'tcrawl.""Sure you can, Lu. Come on," said Amy and, with a toss of hair enough for five heads, she movedtoward the path.

　　So she crawled and Amy walked alongside her, and when Sethe needed to rest, Amy stopped tooand talked some more about Boston and velvet and good things to eat. The sound of that voice,like a sixteen-year-old boy's, going on and on and on, kept the little antelope quiet and grazing.

　　During the whole hateful crawl to the lean to, it never bucked once.

　　Nothing of Sethe's was intact by the time they reached it except the cloth that covered her hair.

　　Below her bloody knees, there was no feeling at all; her chest was two cushions of pins. It was thevoice full of velvet and Boston and good things to eat that urged her along and made her think thatmaybe she wasn't, after all, just a crawling graveyard for a six-month baby's last hours.

　　The lean-to was full of leaves, which Amy pushed into a pile for Sethe to lie on. Then she gatheredrocks, covered them with more leaves and made Sethe put her feet on them, saying: "I know awoman had her feet cut off they was so swole." And she made sawing gestures with the blade ofher hand across Sethe's ankles. "Zzz Zzz Zzz Zzz.""I used to be a good size. Nice arms and everything. Wouldn't think it, would you? That wasbefore they put me in the root cellar. I was fishing off the Beaver once. Catfish in Beaver Riversweet as chicken. Well I was just fishing there and a nigger floated right by me. I don't likedrowned people, you? Your feet remind me of him. All swole like."Then she did the magic: lifted Sethe's feet and legs and massaged them until she cried salt tears.

　　"It's gonna hurt, now," said Amy. "Anything dead coming back to life hurts."A truth for all times, thought Denver. Maybe the white dress holding its arm around her mother'swaist was in pain. If so, it could mean the baby ghost had plans. When she opened the door, Sethewas just leaving the keeping room.

　　"I saw a white dress holding on to you," Denver said.

　　"White? Maybe it was my bedding dress. Describe it to me." "Had a high neck. Whole mess ofbuttons coming down the back.""Buttons. Well, that lets out my bedding dress. I never had a button on nothing.""Did Grandma Baby?"Sethe shook her head. "She couldn't handle them. Even on hershoes. What else?""A bunch at the back. On the sit-down part.""A bustle? It had a bustle?""I don't know what it's called.""Sor............