She continued to stare out and I thought she would not answer. But then, without looking down at me, she replied, “Everyone. Go away.”
“How can I help you if I go away?”
“You can't help me. You've told me that often enough. So you might as well just go away and leave me alone. Like everyone else.”
“Who has gone away and left you alone?”
That brought me a furious glare. She spoke in a low voice full of hurt. “I don't know why I thought you might remember! My brother, for one. My brother Swift, who you said would soon be coming home to us. Well, he hasn't! And then my stupid father decided to go look for him. As if a man with fogged eyes can go look for anything! And we told him not to go, but he did. And something happened, we don't know what, but his horse came home without him. So I went out on my horse, despite my mother shrieking at me that I wasn't to leave, and I tracked his horse's trail back and found Papa by the side of the road, bruised and bloody and trying to crawl home dragging one leg. So I brought him home, and then my mother scolded me again for disobeying her. And now my father is in bed and all he does is lie there and stare at the wall and not speak to anyone. My mother forbade any of us from bringing him any brandy. So he won't talk to us or tell us what happened. Which makes my mother furious at all of us. As if it were my fault.”
Halfway through this tirade, her tears had begun to stream down her face. They dripped from her chin and ran over her hands and trickled down the wall of the tower. Slowly they solidified into opal strands of misery. I reared up on my hind legs and clawed at them, but they were too smooth and too shallow for me to gain any purchase. I sat down again. I felt hollow and old. I tried to tell myself that the misery in Molly's home had nothing to do with me, that I had not caused it and could not cure it. And yet, the roots of it ran deep, did they not?
After a time, she looked down at me and laughed bitterly. “Well, Shadow Wolf? Aren't you going to say you can't help me with that? Isn't that what you always say?” When I could think of no reply, she added in an accusing tone, “I don't know why I even speak to you. You lied to me. You said my brother was coming home.”
“I thought he was,” I replied, finding words at last. “I went to him and I told him to go home. I thought he had.”
“Well, perhaps he tried to. Perhaps he started this way, and was killed by robbers, or fell in a river and drowned. I don't suppose you ever considered that ten is a bit young to be out on the roads alone? I suppose you never thought that it might have been kinder if you had brought him home safely to us, instead of ‘sending' him? But no, that might have been inconvenient to you.”