“She is not a tree, Sheriff. Somewhere between fifteen and twenty. And she has not lived a normal life, so external indications may not be reliable.”

Now entering Farmstead, the sheriff stared at the bank sign: 8:17 A.M. and 96 degrees. Overnight, the gypsy moth caterpillars had completely webbed the fledgling maples that the city had planted along the sidewalk in April.

Dr. Patel continued. “We found what appear to be cotton fibers inside her. This would suggest that she is, or was, menstruating and was using something nontraditional, or perhaps just non-modern, to absorb.”

“Yes. Yes, I see. So that’s the good news. I’m waiting for the bad news.”

“I’m not sure if it’s bad news, Sheriff. But we can tell you that this young woman has given birth before.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Possibly more than once,” the doctor said.

No one spoke on either side of the conversation.

“And finally, Sheriff, one of the nurses on duty this morning speaks German, and she is at this moment translating for your deputy, who I believe needs your assistance right away. Miss Goodgolly is now communicating adamantly that she is twenty-one years old, and that she wants to go home, and that seeing as she has not been charged with a crime, nobody can stop her.”

Another pause.

Dr. Patel added, “Which, as I understand the law, is correct. So we’re releasing her.”

CHAPTER 24

In the vivid morning light, the surfaces of Hell Hollow looked a long way down. Captive but still alive, dizzily upright upon his sock feet but hobbled at the ankles like a horse, Leroy Fanta didn’t dare move for fear of falling.

Through a blur both visual and cognitive, with a tremendous headache and a flinty taste in his mouth, he watched his old Tercel tremble into view among the sod structures that made up Jim Golly’s hidden Middle-earth.

Faith Golly drove it. A passenger was on board. Without his missing eyeglasses, Fanta couldn’t tell what flavor.

Flavor…

The word came from last night—flavors—the surreality of his meal with Golly slowly coming back to him.

Faith aimed his feeble car between the white IH pickup and a mud-spattered third vehicle, nosing it into the black throat of Golly’s sod barn. The Tercel disappeared as if swallowed by the earth.

Fanta stared helplessly into the blur. Who rode in his car with Faith?

What should he do?

How could he stop this?

He hobbled.

He fell.

Last night, in “conversation” over dinner, he had learned about Jim Golly’s self-prescribed prion-replacement therapy.

“I have the chronic wasting,” Golly had said. “The Lyme bacilli trashed my immunity, and the infected ungulate prions invaded. I stopped eating venison several years ago, but it was too late.”