People tromp the woods in search of wild plants and herbs to make tinctures and brews. They always have. Urban people rustle through what nature survives in their local parks and preserves. But what most urban people didn't know was that sometimes the wild plants needed for those potions and all else were sprouting up just as happily in the pavement cracks all around their buildings.

Sylvie loved this part of the game. She didn't mind if average Canadian folks thought she looked squirrelly, roving the battered sidewalks, back-bent and ripping tips off lamb's-quarters growing freely. Where she came from, it was normal. You saw something you could use or eat, and if it didn't belong to anybody else, then you'd be a fool not to pick it up. It made perfect sense.

She wore a bright red skirt and dusty floral blouse, sleeves rolled up, with an old black ("Hides the stains!") pinafore apron over-all. A mild breeze fluttered the skirt around her shins, rolling dust and grime over her badly worn sandals.
"Thank Bondye for the breeze," Sylvie muttered, wiping sweat from her forehead with her lower arm. There were no clouds today. At least the sky was beautiful, a nice change to look up at when the slums began to hurt the eyes unbearably. Sylvie, in fact, had a theory about this, and it was that somehow, somebody placed a little piece of hope for everybody to look at. That kept people quiet, so the slums stayed the slums because people knew they could always just look at the sky. But that was just her fancying.

What she was out for today was not the lamb's-quarters or the plantains or heal-alls. Today was the day she went for odder supplies, bits of grime, old cutlery, broken glass in nice shapes, and whatever she could make into something pretty. Her idea of pretty.

And her favourite part-- the dead things. She treasured them. Sylvie had been eyeing the decaying remains of a roadkill-possum for a few weeks now, as it bloated and shrank and shredded and was picked at under the sun and under cars and by the beaks of scavengers. It was clean now, and she had pulled scrap of mandible and a few teeth and tenderly placed them in a garbage bag that she carried with her now.

She didn't talk about it, but the truth is she made them. Gris-gris, or wanga-- her private talismans. She stayed well away from magic and gods, but she couldn't help but value them, nearly keeping it secret from even herself. Superstition reigned in Sylvie.