wildness that could kill , that did kill , but had n't killed her , because she was not easily killed and had survived so very much worse already- she had been turned inward somehow , like a dress pulled inside out , and she was still sitting there with dr. chaudhary , and she could hear what he was saying-about the monster skeletons , and how in the days of scorn after piltdown they 'd been nothing but a joke , even though they were a joke that rather defied explanation-but his words were as a rushing of water over a streambed , and the streambed was a thousand polished stones , a thousand-thousand , and they gleamed beneath the surface , beneath her surface , and they were her and more than her .