“Molly.” Ben’s voice was gentle. He touched her arm and she started. “Come to my room with me. It is very late. Soon it will be dawn.”

“You don’t have to,” she said. “I thought I wouldn’t tell you, that’s why I turned around before I got to your office today. Then tonight, I thought I had to tell you because I needed help. You don’t have to.”

Almost reluctantly Ben said, “Come with me, Molly. To my room. I want you to.”

Chapter 16

Snow fell lazily, silently; no wind blew, and the sky seemed low enough to touch. The snow built up on level surfaces, on tree branches, on the needles of the pines and spruces. It sifted down through a crack between a gutter and the roof of the hospital and built a short wall of snow that soon would topple of its own weight. Snow covered the land, unsullied, pure, layer on layer so that in protected spots where no intermittent sun melted it and no wind disturbed it, the snow depth had grown to six, seven, even eight feet. Against the whiteness, shadowed into grays and blues, the river gleamed black. The clouds were so thick the light that lay over the land seemed to come upward from the snow. The light was very dim, and in the distance the snow and sky and air merged and there were no boundaries.

No boundaries, Molly thought. It was all one. She stood at her window. Behind her an easel waited with a painting on it, but she couldn’t think of it now. The snow, the strange light that came from below, the wholeness of the scene outside held her.

“Molly!”

She turned sharply. Miriam stood in the doorway, still wearing her outdoor clothing, snow clinging to her shoulders, her hood.

“I said, Meg’s been hurt! Didn’t you hear me?”

“Hurt? How? What happened?”

Miriam stared at her for a moment, then shook her head. “You didn’t know, did you?”

Molly felt disoriented, as if she were a stranger who had wandered in and understood nothing. The painting looked garish, ugly, meaningless to her. Now she could sense Meg’s pain and fear, and the sisters’ presence easing it. They needed her, she thought clearly, and didn’t understand why, and Meg faded from her thoughts. “Where is she?” she asked. “What happened? I’ll come with you.”

Miriam looked at her and shook her head. “Don’t come,” she said. “Stay here.” She went away.

When Molly learned where Meg was and went to the hospital room to be with her sisters, they would not let her in.

Ben looked at his brothers and shrugged at the question: What were they to do about Molly? Exile her, as they had exiled David? Isolate her in a hospital room? Quarter her with the breeders — the mothers? Ignore the problem? They had discussed every alternative and were satisfied with none.

“There’s nothing to indicate she is making progress,” Barry said. “Nothing to indicate she even wants to resume a normal life.”

“Since there’s no precedent for anything like this, whatever we decide will have to be the right thing,” Bruce said soberly. His thick eyebrows drew together, separated. “Ben, she’s your patient. You haven’t said a thing. You were certain that allowing her to paint would be therapeutic, but it wasn’t. Have you any other suggestions?”

“When I asked permission to withdraw from my work in the lab and study psychology instead, it was refused. The rest of us who went to Washington have made a complete recovery, a functional recovery,” he added drily. “Except Molly. We don’t know enough to know why, how to treat her, if she’ll ever recover. I say, give it time. She isn’t needed in the classrooms, let her paint. Give her a room of her own and leave her alone.”

Barry was shaking his head. “Psychology is a dead end for us,” he said. “It revives the cult of the individual. When a unit is functioning, the members are self-curing. As for letting her remain in the hospital . . . She is a constant source of pain and confusion to her sisters. Meg will be all right, but Molly didn’t even know her sister had fallen, had a broken arm. The sisters needed her and she didn’t answer. We all know and agree it is our duty to safeguard the well-being of the unit, not the various individuals within it. If there is a conflict between those two choices, we must abandon the individual. That is a given. The only question is how.”

Ben stood up and went to the window. He could see the breeders’ quarters across the hedge. Not there, he thought vehemently. They would never accept her. They might even kill her if she were put among them. Only a month ago they had had the Ceremony for the Lost for Janet, who was now counted among the breeders, who was undergoing drug and hypnotic conditioning to force her to accept her new status as a fertile female who would bring forth a child as often as the doctors decided it was necessary. And the new children would be transferred to the nursery at birth, and the breeders would then have time to regain good health, to grow strong enough to do it again, and again, and again . . .

“No point in putting her in there,” Bob said, going to stand by Ben at the window. “Better if we simply admit there’s no solution and resort to euthanasia. It would be less cruel.”

Ben felt a weight in his chest and turned toward his brothers. They were right, he thought distantly. “If it happens again,” he said, speaking slowly, uncertain where his own thoughts were taking him, “we will have this same agonizing meeting again, the same useless alternatives to discuss and discard.”

Barry nodded. “I know. That’s what’s giving me bad dreams. With more and more people needed to forage, to repair the roads, to make expeditions to the cities, there might be more cases like Molly’s.”

“Let me have her,” Ben said abruptly. “I’ll put her in the old Sumner house. We’ll have the Ceremony for the Lost and declare her gone. The Miriam sisters will close the gap and feel no more pain, and I’ll be able to study this reaction.”

“It is very cold in the house,” Ben said, “but the stove will warm it. Do you like these rooms?”

They had gone over the entire house, and Molly had chosen the second-floor wing facing the river. There were wide windows without curtains, and the cold afternoon light filled the room, but in the summer it would be warm and bright with sunshine, and always there was the river to gaze at. The adjoining room had been a nursery or a dressing room, she thought. It was smaller with high double windows that reached almost to the ceiling. She would paint in that room. There was a tiny balcony outside the windows.

Already the sounds of music were drifting across the valley as the ceremony began. There would be dancing, a feast, and much wine.

“The electricity is off,” Ben said harshly. “The wires are bad. We’ll get them fixed as soon as the snow melts.”

“I don’t care about that. I like the lamps and the fireplace. I can burn wood in the stove.”

“The Andrew brothers will keep you supplied with wood. They’ll bring anything you need. They will leave everything on the porch.”

She moved to the window. The sun, covered with thin clouds, hung on the edge of the hill. It would start its slide down the other side, and darkness would follow swiftly. For the first time in her life she would be alone at night. She stood with her back to Ben, gazing at the river and thinking about the old house, so far away from the other buildings in the valley, hidden by trees and bushes that had grown as high as trees.

If she had a bad dream and stirred in her sleep or cried out, no one would hear her, no one would be at her side to soothe her, comfort her.

“Molly.” Ben’s voice was still too harsh, as if he were terribly angry with her, and she didn’t know why he should be angry. “I can stay with you tonight if you’re afraid. . .”

She turned to look at him then, her face shadowed, the cold light and snow and gray sky behind her, and Ben knew she was not afraid. He felt as he had that night by the river: she was beautiful, and the light in the room came from her, from her eyes. “You’re happy, aren’t you?” he said wonderingly.