It was all Tom could do not to throw him out the window.
“Root’s hero has a deep black stain upon his name,” Pitt said, speaking to Molly without the courtesy of facing her. “You might consider the facts of his storied past—”
“I don’t care!” Molly said. “He saved my life. Let him be.”
Pitt was startled to have pricked Molly’s nerve instead of Tom’s. She shivered under the quilt and seemed about to swoon, lapsing forward on the bed and covering her face. She cried into her hands, surprising them anew.
Benjamin consoled her with a hand upon her back and looked to Abigail, speaking with the courteous authority of doctors. “Please show them out.”
Neither man objected. Pitt left first, neither frowning at nor bumping into Tom when he passed. After Pitt and Abigail were gone, Tom took a final look at Molly—the poor thing had crumpled into sobs—and Benjamin said, “Wait for me downstairs.”
Tom nodded and turned to go, relieved to hear the front door close behind Pitt but hollow, almost glum, to leave Molly there in tears. He met Abigail in the foyer. She gave him an unspoken censure for his part in the commotion and retired to the kitchen. Tom refused to pace but his thoughts roamed far, first to Pitt as a child, then to both their dead fathers, then to Molly’s rush of color when she spoke in Tom’s defense.
Benjamin joined him downstairs and led him outside. Abigail’s hearing was alarmingly acute, and even on the street they kept their voices lowered.
“What do you know?” Tom asked.
“The brain is a fabulous organ,” Benjamin said, “as capable of silence as of melody and storm. Oftentimes the lulls are more dramatic than the notes.”
Tom paused as if to demonstrate his own dramatic lull, and after waiting a respectable length of time he asked again, “What do you know?”
Benjamin blinked behind his glasses, returning from abstraction to the muddy terra firma. “More than Pitt,” he said. “Abigail is right: Molly remembers more than she admits, and I have gleaned several facts she believes are safely hidden. First and foremost—”
Benjamin’s eyes were drawn away with an illuminated thrill.
“An upfall!” he said.
Tom looked to see the tall, swirling columns in the east. They were droplets being drawn from the river to the sky—upside-down rain resulting in a cloud that would swell until it drifted off, pregnant as a storm.
“There was a colorwash right before I got here,” Tom said.
“I saw, I saw, but those are common. This is something else, something wonderful and rare. The flood,” Benjamin said, grasping Tom’s arm. “Is it rising or receding?”
“Going down,” Tom said. “It was minor this year, barely crested—”
“The last recorded upfall was 1756, when the Antler swamped the creek and took the millwheel away. And now the Planter’s Moon is Saturday night, and feel the eastern wind! Every weathercock turned! I dare say the river hasn’t finished with its swell.”
Benjamin checked his pocketwatch and memorized the time. Later he would note it in a thick black ledger, along with the temperature, barometric pressure, angle of the grass, and numerous other observations he was certain would lead to his ultimate deciphering of Root’s climatological marvels. Tom was skeptical but smiled at his friend’s high excitement. Before they could speak of it further, a red-haired boy sprinted up the road, splashing puddles on the way with devilish abandon.
It was Peter Ames, the youngest son of William the cabinetmaker, and he ran so fast toward Benjamin and Tom they had to catch him by the elbows before he skidded past.
“Easy,” Tom said.
Peter slipped and fell. He stood without embarrassment and said with gleeful fear, “The Maimers is back! Another victim’s just come; they took him to the Orange.”
Benjamin slumped but steeled himself, sad and resolute. Tom hardened with a scowl, putting a hand too firmly on Peter’s shoulder and frightening the boy with his expression.
“You’re sure it’s Maimers?”
Peter sniffed and nodded, scared of saying more.
Abigail appeared at the door with Benjamin’s medical bag, her preternatural hearing having caught the brief exchange. She gave it to her husband, cast a disapproving look at Peter’s clothes, and said to Tom, “You were right.”
He took no more pleasure from her words than Abigail took in speaking them, and said again to Peter, “Are you sure—”
“Robbed and naked as the rest,” the boy said. “He just come out of the woods and Fanny Buckman set to screaming. Mr. Ichabod and Bess