Each morning the Andrew brothers brought firewood, her basket of supplies, whatever she asked for, deposited it all on her porch, and left again, and she saw no one, except at a distance. As soon as Mark could understand her words, she began to impress upon him the need for silence while the Andrew brothers were near the house. When he grew older and started to ask "why" about everything, she had to tell him the Andrew brothers would take him away from her and put him in a school and they would never see each other again. It was the first and only time she saw him react with terror, and after that he was as quiet as she when the young doctors were there.

He learned to walk and talk early; he began to read when he was four, and for long periods he would curl up near the fireplace with one of the brittle books from the downstairs library. Some of them were children's books, others were not; he didn't seem to mind. They played hide-and-seek throughout the house and, when the weather was pleasant, up and down the hillside behind the house, out of sight of the others in the valley, who would never under any circumstances enter the woods unless ordered to do so. Molly sang to him and told him stories from the books, and made up other stories when they exhausted the books. One day Mark told her a story, and she laughed delightedly, and after that sometimes she was the storyteller and sometimes he was. While she painted he drew pictures, or painted also, and more and more often played with the river clay she brought him, and made shapes that they dried in the sun on the balcony.

They wandered farther up the hillside as he became sturdier. One day in the summer when he was five, they remained in the woods far several hours, Molly pointing out the ferns and liverworts to him, drawing his attention to the way the sunlight changed the colors of the delicate green leaves, deepened the rich greens to nearly black.

"Time," she said finally.

He shook his head. "Let's climb to the top and look at the whole world."

"Next time," she said. "We'll bring our lunch and climb all the way up. Next time."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

They walked back down slowly, stopping often to examine a rock, a new plant, the bark of an ancient tree, whatever caught his interest. At the edge of the woods they paused and looked about carefully before leaving the shelter of the trees. Then they ran to the kitchen door hand in hand and, laughing, tried to get through together.

"You're getting too big," Molly cried, and allowed him to enter first.