fair was in broad daylight, not at night," said Verily, hoping he was right.
"Argumentative!" shouted Webster. But his interruption served not to help the girl but fluster her more.
"If this happens a couple of times a week, Miss Sump, you surely don't depend on the county fair to provide you with opportunities, do you?" asked Verily.
"No, that was just the once, just the one time. The other times..."
Verily waited, refusing to ease her path by filling her long silence with words. Let the jury see her making things up as she went along.
"He comes into my room, all silent. Right through the walls. And then he takes me out the same way, silent, through the walls. And then we run with the Redsong to the place where he gives me his love by moonlight."
"It must be an amazing experience," said Verily. "For have your lover appear at your bedside and raise you up and carry you through the walls and take you silently across miles and miles in an instant to an idyllic spot where you have passionate embraces by moonlight. You're in your nightclothes. Doesn't it get cold?"
"Sometimes, but he can make the air warm around me."
"And what about moonless nights? How do you see?"
"He... makes it light. We can always see."
"A lover who can do the most miraculous things. It sounds quite romantic, wouldn't you say?"
"Yes, it is, very very romantic," said Amy.
"Like a dream," said Verily.
"Yes, like a dream."
"I object!" cried Webster. "The witness is a child and doesn't realize the way the defense attorney can misconstrue her innocent simile!"
Amy was quite confused now.
"What did I say?" she asked.
"Let me ask it very clearly," said Verily Cooper. "Miss Sump, isn't it possible that your memories of Alvin come from a dream? That you dreamed all this, being in love with a strong and fascinating young man who was too old even to notice you?"
Now she understood why Webster had objected, and she got a cold look in her eye. She knows, thought Verily. She knows she's lying, she's not deceived, she knows exactly what she's doing and hates me for tripping her up, even a little. "My baby ain't no dream, sir," she said. "I never heard of no dream as gives a girl a baby."
"No, I've never heard of such a dream, either," said Verily. "Oh, by the way, how long ago was the county fair?"
"Three weeks ago," she said.
"You went with your family?"
Webster interrupted, demanding to know the relevance.
"She gave the county fair as a specific instance of meeting Alvin," explained Verily, when the judge asked. The judge told him to proceed. "Miss Sump," said Verily, "tell me how you got off by yourself to meet Alvin at the fair. Had you already arranged to meet him there?"
"No, it was - he just showed up there."
"In broad daylight. And no one recognized him?"
"Nobody saw him but me. That's a fact. That's - it's a thing he can do."
"Yes, we're beginning to realize that when it comes to spending time with you, Alvin Smith can and will do the most amazing, miraculous things," said Verily.
Webster objected, Verily apologized, and they went on. But Verily suspected that he was on a good track here. The way Amy made her story so believable was by adding detail. When it came to the events that didn't happen, the details were all dreamy and beautiful - but she wasn't just making them up, it was clear she had really had such dreams, or at least daydreams. She was speaking from memory.
But there must be another memory in her mind - the memory of her time with the man who was the true father of the child she carried. And Verily's hunch was that her mention of the county fair, which didn't fit in at all with the pattern she had established for her nighttime assignations with Alvin, was tied in with that real encounter. If he could get her drawing on memory with this one...
"So only you could see him. I imagine that you went off with him? May I ask you where?"
"Under the flap of the freak show tent. Behind the fat lady."
"Behind the fat lady," said Verily. "A private place. But... why there? Why didn't Alvin whisk you away into the forest? To some secluded meadow by a crystal stream? I can't imagine it was very comfortable for you - in the straw, perhaps, or on the hard ground, in the dark."
"That's just