“The bed’s no better, or I’d switch with you,” he said. He didn’t seem to know how to finish the conversation. But then he bent and kissed her quickly on the cheek, and was gone.

Winnie lay with her eyes wide. She felt cared for and—confused. And all at once she wondered what would happen to the Tucks when her father came. What would he do to them? She would never be able to explain how they had been with her, how they made her feel. She remembered guiltily that at supper she had decided they were criminals. Well, but they were. And yet…

And then a final visitor made her confusion complete. There was a creaking on the loft stairs and Jesse was looking down at her, very beautiful and eager in the faint blue moonlight. “Hey, Winnie Foster,” he whispered. “You asleep?”

This time she sat up, pulling the quilt around her in sudden embarrassment, and answered, “No, not yet.”

“Well then, listen.” He knelt beside her, his curls tumbled and his eyes wide. “I been thinking it over. Pa’s right about you having to keep the secret. It’s not hard to see why. But the thing is, you knowing about the water already, and living right next to it so’s you could go there any time, well, listen, how’d it be if you was to wait till you’re seventeen, same age as me—heck, that’s only six years off—and then you could go and drink some, and then you could go away with me! We could get married, even. That’d be pretty good, wouldn’t it! We could have a grand old time, go all around the world, see everything. Listen, Ma and Pa and Miles, they don’t know how to enjoy it, what we got. Why, heck, Winnie, life’s to enjoy yourself, isn’t it? What else is it good for? That’s what I say. And you and me, we could have a good time that never, never stopped. Wouldn’t that be something?”

Once more Winnie adored him, kneeling there beside her in the moonlight. He wasn’t crazy. How could he be? He was just—amazing. But she was struck dumb. All she could do was stare at him.

“You think on it, Winnie Foster,” Jesse whispered earnestly. “Think on it some and see if it don’t sound good. Anyway, I’ll see you in the morning. All right?”

“All right,” she managed to whisper in return. He slipped away then, back up the creaking steps, but Winnie sat upright, wide awake, her cheeks burning. She could not deal with this remarkable suggestion, she could not “think on it.” For she didn’t know what to believe about anything. She lay down again, finally, and stared into the moonlight for another half an hour before she fell asleep.

15

In Treegap, the same moonlight silvered the roof of the touch-me-not cottage, but inside, the lamps were burning. “That’s right,” said the man in the yellow suit. “I know where she is.” He sat back in his chair in the Fosters’ spotless parlor, crossing his long, thin legs, and the suspended foot began a rhythmic jiggling. He hung his hat on his knee and smiled, his eyes nearly closed. “I followed them, you see. She’s with them now. As soon as I saw they’d arrived at their destination, I turned around and came directly back. I thought you’d be staying up. You’ve been looking for her all day, of course. It must be quite a worry.”