Barrow Fields Let's go back, back to the beginning

Speak to your herb cache, more like, thought Kincaid, not quite kindly. But he had no quarrel with the woman, and didn't judge her if she did happen to rely a little too much on poppy or devil's bell. There were some days he didn't want to be sober with himself, that was for damn sure.

"It ain't that I don't believe in spirits, ma'am," he told her, easily obeying and approaching the strange woman on her little hill. Since she seemed to be in just as playful a mood, he added, "Anyway, ain't chu a little young t'be tellin' fortunes?" 

He stood before her either way, tail wagging peaceably at his hocks. "Whatchu need me t'do?" he asked, looking down at himself, and then back at her. Whatever other lived on the land was still peering at them, and he found himself thinking he ought to be kind to the stranger, just in case she was something eldritch or preternatural.