most egregious cases—but Molly’s good condition bordered on miraculous.
She was pretty in a weird, rather homely sort of way. Her hair was long and black, partly matted, partly tousled. She had slightly gapped teeth. Her eyes were out of alignment, one noticeably higher, and rounder, and darker than the other, so she looked half grieved, half luminous with wonder. Her expression, most engagingly, was volatile and ripe, as if she wanted to embrace him, fall to tears, or both at once.
It was strange to meet her again surrounded by the others, to be watched so intently while they shared a private look, one as wordless and profound as when he had held her in the water.
“Thank you,” Molly said.
“It’s good to see you dry.”
She smiled with a twitch and rubbed her fingers on the quilt.
“You recognize Tom?” Abigail asked.
“Yes,” Molly said.
“Excellent!” Benjamin cried without actually raising his voice. He turned to Tom and said, “I hoped if she remembered you, we might construct a memory bridge and cross the floodwaters, so to speak, to other recollections of her history and identity.”
“You don’t remember what happened?” Tom asked.
“She doesn’t remember anything,” Abigail said curtly, “aside from you and her name.”
“Molly,” Tom said, just to try it out.
She stared at him and froze as if afraid he didn’t trust her.
“And what is your last name again?” Abigail asked. “It’s hard to keep it pinned.”
“Smith,” Molly mumbled.
“Yes, Smith. And yet I’m sure you gave a different name the first time we asked.”
“We’ve covered that,” Pitt said, clinging to the fact, regardless of its truth, and glowering at Tom as if his visit were undoing even this one precarious clue.
The room was close and humid after the quick dose of rain. There was moisture on the window glass and sweat in Tom’s clothes, and since it wasn’t truly warm, it lingered like a fever chill, shallowing his breath and clouding up his thoughts. Molly touched a locket on a ribbon around her neck. He thought to ask her what it was—it might remind her of her past—but she hid it, growing flushed, when she saw what he was thinking.
“You don’t remember anything at all?” Tom asked.
“Now and then,” Abigail said, “she can’t remember how to answer when she’s spoken to.”
“Enough, enough,” Benjamin said, reassuring Molly with a light, avuncular pat. “I have been explaining to Abigail and Sheriff Pitt,” he told Tom, “that certain traumas, such as drowning, knocks about the head, unconsciousness, exhaustion, and extremity of fear, to say nothing of certain phases of the moon, noxious plants, chronic malnutrition, and diseases of the brain—though I am confident in laying most of these aside—have been known to produce severe but often temporary amnesia. If we take into consideration—”
“Tom was knocked about the head,” Abigail noted. “I believe he still remembers his last name.”
Benjamin considered this but quickly disregarded it. “Now that Tom is here,” he said, looking down at Molly, “does seeing him ignite a spark of recollection of the hours or the minutes that preceded your arrival? Perhaps by training your memory directly on the branch—”
Molly fidgeted discreetly, meeting Benjamin’s look as if the memories might be there, written in the features of her doctor’s kindly face.
“Describe your house,” Pitt said, seeming to think authority was all they really needed. “Did you have your own room? A family or a husband?”
Molly sighed until she shrank and didn’t breathe back in, looking down so her hair fell loose around her cheeks.
“Why don’t you try something else?” Tom told Pitt.
“Like what?”
“Get on your horse and ask around. The Antler flows south, so chances are you ought to ride north. That’s your left-hand side if you look toward the sun, but here’s the complicated part: when the sun is going down—”
“I won’t put up with this.”
“You’ve already asked your questions,” Tom said. “What are you still doing here?”
“What about you?” Pitt said, stepping forward. “All fopped up like a proper macaroni. Are you trying to impress the young lady, or puff your reputation so you sell more cider?”
“Mind your tongues,” Abigail said, “or both of you can leave.”
Tom unclenched his fists, aware, on loosening up, of how much pain he’d caused his sprained wrist. Pitt stood his ground, breathing boldly through his nose, as if he might arrest Tom for contempt of civic office.
“I apologize, Abigail,” Tom said at last, feeling something like a rum burn rising in his chest. “But we ought to spread a net wider than the room.”