The boy pushed himself off the cot, still wrapped in Abigail’s shawl, as the first rider drew something mud-stained from beneath his coat.
It was not a weapon.
It was one of Abigail’s boots.
The leather was warped from river water.
Gray mud filled the seams, and a broken reed had dried against the heel.
She had lost it when the quicksand released her, but she had been too exhausted to search the bank after carrying the boy home.
The rider held it where everyone could see.
“We found this beside the sinking ground,” he said.
“We also found a torn path through the reeds and marks where something had been dragged onto the grass.”
His voice remained hard, but the certainty had begun to leave it.
Abigail looked at the boot, then at him.
“Then you already know where I found your son.”
“I know someone was there.”
The boy reached the porch before his legs weakened.
Abigail caught his elbow, but he pulled free—not in fear of her, but because he wanted to stand on his own.
The shawl hung from his narrow shoulders.
Its fringe brushed the mud on the floor.
“That is her boot,” he said.
His voice was hoarse from river water and three days of coughing, yet every rider heard him.
The first man’s expression broke for half a second.
“Tell me what happened.”
The boy looked toward the trees as if the river waited behind them.
“My foot went down near the reeds.
I thought it was only mud.
Then the ground pulled harder when I fought it.”
His breath caught.
Abigail placed one hand between his shoulders.
The rider noticed the movement.
The boy continued.
“I shouted, but the water swallowed the sound.
She came from the bank.
She took off her boots and came after me.”
One of the horses stamped.
Otherwise, the clearing remained silent.
“Did she know you?” the rider asked.
“No.”
“Did she ask who your family was?”
The boy shook his head.
The rider’s suspicion returned, weaker but sharper.
“Why not?”
Abigail answered before the child could.
“Because he was not breathing.”
The first rider looked at her.
She held his gaze without anger.
“There are questions for the living,” she said.
“First, you make sure they remain alive.”
The boy touched the torn collar of his shirt.
“She held me here.
The mud pulled me down, but she did not let go.”
The rider examined the cloth.
The collar was stretched almost to the shoulder, and two seams had ripped where Abigail’s fists had clenched it.
“Then she pushed on me until I coughed,” the boy said.
“She carried me here.”
“For three days?”
“I could not walk the first day.
I barely woke the second.”
