On the other side of the blackness, I saw a woman. For a moment, I thought she must be very tall. She towered over me, her hip bones at my eye level as we faced each other. Then I remembered I was not myself, but was looking through Cyrus's eyes. Cyrus as a child.

The very thought of it, that somewhere, before the scheming and murder, he'd been, well, as innocent as a baby would have choked me up, if I'd been in my body.

I took advantage of the moment to study the woman. She wasn't an adult so much as a girl. Rail thin, with limp, dirty blond hair and dark circles under her eyes, she looked like she would drop from exhaustion as she stirred the huge iron cauldron that hung over the hearth. A chubby hand tugged on her skirts, and she looked down. A genuine smile lit her tired face, then a look of alarm replaced it. "Simon, no! Very hot. You'll burn yourself, mark me!"

It was something young Cyrus heard often. She was terrified of the children burning themselves. Lifting him up, she kissed his forehead and wiped his nose with her apron. Setting him on his feet, she handed him a wooden bucket. It was heavy, and the rope handle made his palms itch, but he was a good boy. He knew how to get the water and bring it back for his stepmother.

"Out with you," she said, giving his backside a pat. From his halting gait, I imagined he was three or four years old. He stumbled through the oiled canvas flap over the doorway, tripping a bit on the hard-packed earth, and I was rushing forward again, to the spot where Cyrus, with no way to brace himself from the impact, smacked his forehead on the ground.

Young Simon Seymour was a hardy child, despite his surroundings. He stood, brushed off his scraped knees and took a few steps before he heard his stepmother's voice.

"Simon? Are you all right?"

Dropping his bucket, he plopped down in the dirt and summoned the best fake tears a three-year-old could produce. When the girl ran from the broken-down cottage, her face showed only concern. No annoyance that her work had been interrupted, no resentment that she had to tend a child that was not her own. She scooped him up, holding his probably dirty face close to her own, kissed him and murmured reassurances that he'd be all right.

I was touched to the core to see that, no matter how the rest of his life had gone, he'd had at least one person who'd loved him unconditionally.