she sat with her back to the old and her face to the new , turned toward her house and beyond , and through her face poured the mix of haunted structures and reclaiming nature , pushed through her toward him like a sudden hot fragrance of a bloom of trumpet vine , wild and big as to draw you in , so orange as to rival the sun , like the force of life and memory from what was to what is and then past that , a force on which desire paints faces , beautiful heart-breaking faces into any of which you would gladly pour your whole life , and the ebony in her eyes lit fiercely with power from that first failed merger of nature and desire , with a primal knowingness that preserved and watched and waited , and she looking at him and past him , just a girl , a heartbreakingly lovely girl with auburn hair and the deep tanned skin and strong bare calves and through it all the nature of a hawk , and she looked at him then past him at that last habitable house before the old flood 's ruins , a last of the first houses , cast in an older and darker style and costumed here and there with modernity , but not convincing and not much .