“Oh, posh,” said Amy. “What's a jail to a man like him?”
Once again, Verily realized that he'd been playing into Webster's hands. Everybody knew Alvin had hidden powers. They knew he worked in stone and iron. They knew he could get out of that jail whenever he wanted.
“Your Honor,” said Verily, “I reserve the right to recall this witness for further cross-examination.”
“I object,” said Daniel Webster. “If he recalls Miss Sump then she's his witness, it won't be cross-examination, and she's not a hostile witness.”
“I need to lay the groundwork for further questioning,” said Verily.
“Lay all you want,” said the judge. “You'll have some leeway, but it won't be cross. The witness may step down, but don't leave Hatrack River, please.”
Webster stood again. “Your Honor, I have a few questions on redirect.”
“Oh, of course. Miss Sump, I beg your pardon. Please remain seated and remember you're still under oath.”
Webster leaned back in his chair. “Miss Sump, you say that Alvin comes to you in the night. How does he do that?”
“He slips out of his cell and right through the walls of the jail and then he runs like a Red man, all caught up in… in… Redsong, so he reaches Vigor Church in a single hour and he ain't even tired. No, he is not tired!” She giggled.
Redsong. Verily had had enough conversation with Alvin by now to know that it was greensong, and if he'd really had any intimacy with this girl she'd know that. She was remembering things she'd heard from his lessons months and months ago in Vigor Church, when she went to class with people trying to learn to be Makers. That's all this was– the imaginings of a young girl combined with scraps of things she learned about Alvin. But it might take the golden plow away from him, and perhaps more important, it might send him to jail and destroy his reputation forever. This was not an innocent fib, and for all her pretense at loving Alvin, she knew exactly what she was doing to him.
“Does he come to you every night?”
“Oh, he can't do that. Just a couple of times a week.”
Webster was done with her, but now Verily had a couple more questions. “Miss Sump, where does Alvin visit you?”
“In Vigor Church.”
“You're only a girl, Miss Sump, and you live with your parents. Presumably you are supervised by them. So my question is quite specific– where are you when Alvin visits you?”
She was momentarily flustered. “Different places.”
“Your parents let you go about unchaperoned?”
“No, I mean– we always start out at home. Late at night. Everybody's asleep.”
“Do you have a room of your own?”
“Well, no. My sisters sleep in the same room with me.”
“So where do you meet Alvin?”
“In the woods.”
“So you deceive your parents and sneak into the woods at night?”
The word deceive was a red flag to her. “I don't deceive nobody!” she said, with some heat.
“So they know you're going to the woods alone to meet Alvin.”
“No. I mean– I know they'd stop me, and it's true love between us, so I don't sneak out, because Papa bars the door and he'd hear me so I– at the county fair I was able to slip away and–”
“The county 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 the way Alvin wanted it,” she said. “I don't know why.”
“And how long did you spend there behind the fat lady?”
“About five minutes.”
Verily raised an eyebrow. “Why so hasty?” Then, before Webster could object, he plunged into his next question. “So Alvin escaped from the Hatrack County jail in broad daylight, journeyed all the way to Vigor Church on the far side of the state of Wobbish from here, in order to spend five minutes with you behind the fat lady?”