Dried Flower Sort: Marta Vels, Ulev Street

Marta Vels starts after breakfast. She has a small table she sets in the doorway for the light.

The baskets came in at the end of May: meadowsweet, chamomile, dried dill heads, and two kinds I don’t have names for. She gets those from a woman on the east side of the quarter. I have not asked where that woman gets them.

She works by stem length. Not smell, not color. Length first, then everything else follows.

First pile: long stems, heads still full. These go to wreaths. The heads hold shape if you don’t crush them.

Second pile: shorter, more damaged. Chamomile with bent necks, meadowsweet where the top third is gone. These she bundles later in paper and cloth and brings somewhere. I have not followed her.

Third pile: I don’t know what it is.

It is not the worst stems. The sorting is not random. When she moves something to the third pile she pauses for a moment — not long, just a pause — before setting it down. She does not do this with the others.

Today she covered the third pile with a cloth before she went inside.

I have watched her sort three times this summer. The third pile appears each time. It is consistent. It is deliberate.

Corvus has entered her name into the Archive. He is asking what the third pile is for. He has not asked her either.

One of the four new arrivals came through Ulev Street while she was working. Stopped. Watched the table for a moment. Did not ask questions. Moved on.

The doorway faces east. The light was good until midmorning.