its character, its force, its bodily effects. “The charge is quite benign, equipollent I would say to commonplace static, till an uncharged object—you, in this particular instance—releases and ignites its marvelous potential. It is rare,” he continued, “but familiar here in Root. The charge would have harmlessly diffused in several minutes.”
“I’m sorry!” Molly said directly to the boy.
He responded with a scowl and rubbed the prickles from his arm. He blamed her, Molly knew—he had tried to ward her off—and his resentment made her ribs tighten like a corset. Bess caressed Molly’s back but the pressure hurt her muscles.
“Please, you must believe me,” Molly said. “I didn’t know.”
Tom stepped up and said, “I told you it was dangerous.”
His shadowy face and untied hair gave him a savage aura but his anger lacked conviction and he shifted, self-aware, as if the issue weren’t the lightning but the fact that she had kissed him.
“She didn’t know the nature of the danger,” Benjamin said.
“I told her not to go.”
“I thought…,” Molly said but quickly shut her mouth.
“What?” Tom said, leaning in close.
She forced herself to straighten up. He tried to stare her down. The tingle in her limbs traveled to her heart until her blood felt charged, hot enough to hiss.
“I only meant to help,” she said. “I thought you were a coward.”
The room collectively inhaled and everyone looked at Tom. He moved his lips as if to speak and seemed to stammer in his thoughts, by turns offended and surprised and finally dumb as wood.
“Insolence!” said Mrs. Downs. “You were warned and acted anyway with reckless disregard. I have more than half a mind to speak to Sheriff Pitt and see you held accountable.”
Tom reacted as if she’d thrown a burning log across the room, striding away to placate her and, as far as could be heard above the reignited chatter, defending Molly’s act from criminal complaint. The curious patrons returned to their table in the front of the taproom. Benjamin sat Molly in a chair beside the hearth where she could warm herself, and Bess brought her a hot mulled cider that settled her nerves, if only slightly, after standing up to Tom.
“He has a temper, but you mustn’t take it to heart,” Bess said, holding Molly’s hand while Benjamin reexamined her pupils, pulse, and ears.
“How long was I unconscious?”
“Thirteen minutes!” Bess said, and she explained how they had dragged her and the boy inside, the latter recovering quickly when his mother arrived in a panic, having witnessed the event from a nearby house. Ichabod had ridden off and hurried back with Benjamin, who gladly braved the storm amid the luminous display.
“And here you are, right as science,” Benjamin told her with a wink. “You must describe it to me in detail this evening after dinner.”
Molly’s hearing had improved, the ringing had decreased, and although her tingling pain had given way to aches, she cozied into her chair, thankful for the fire and the sweet warm cider. Even the ire of Tom and Mrs. Downs couldn’t mar the tavern’s atmosphere of venerable wood, kitchen fragrances, and safety. She would have gladly spent an hour in the taproom with Bess, but Abigail arrived. Molly ducked her head.
Mrs. Downs leapt up and flounced across the room. Abigail, drizzly and besmirched from the weather, showed inimitable control when Mrs. Downs blocked her at the entrance of the taproom and said, “Here at last! She nearly killed my boy and shows remorse by disrespecting me and Tom. If I cannot go to the sheriff, you have all the more to answer for, Abigail Knox. She is yours. You took her in and she is yours to mind and govern!”
“I will not respond to raving,” Abigail said.
She passed Mrs. Downs, who turned a dumbfounded scarlet, and walked toward Molly with the same cold poise.
“What has happened?” she asked Benjamin.
Mrs. Downs began to answer very shrilly from the door.
“I will thank you for your silence,” Abigail told her, “while I hear it plainly told.”
Mrs. Downs was so incensed she took the boy and left, grumbling all the way, while everyone in the tavern—Molly, Tom, Bess, and the patrons—listened patiently to Benjamin’s meticulous account. Abigail stood and watched Molly through the telling. Tom lit a pipe but then forgot to smoke it. Finding it dead when Benjamin finished the story, he put it down, poured himself a rum, and drank with a frown. He hadn’t looked at Molly since her challenge from the floor and seemed to avoid