"We were dancing. Just a minute ago we were dancing together. Let's."
"I don't want to." Beloved got up and lay down on the bed. Their quietness boomed about on thewalls like birds in panic. Finally Denver's breath steadied against the threat of an unbearable loss.
"Tell me," Beloved said. "Tell me how Sethe made you in the boat."
"She never told me all of it," said Denver.
"Tell me."
Denver climbed up on the bed and folded her arms under her apron. She had not been in the treeroom once since Beloved sat on their stump after the carnival, and had not remembered that shehadn't gone there until this very desperate moment. Nothing was out there that this sister-girl didnot provide in abundance: a racing heart, dreaminess, society, danger, beauty. She swallowedtwice to prepare for the telling, to construct out of the strings she had heard all her life a net to holdBeloved.