The woman in the bonnet doesn’t collect physical objects. She collects the "stray thoughts" that people lose when they daydream too hard. If a thought is left unattended for too long, it becomes a feral shadow. She catches them, presses them into her wooden trunk like dried flowers, and carries them to the Great Ledger. The cat, a creature made of pure ink, is her "eraser"—he handles the thoughts that are too dark to be kept.
