A COOL EVENING WIND runs wild outside their Lodging as Fallon settles into an easy sleep with her back curved into Arielle's front. Her warmth slides over her and Fallon snuggles closer. Arielle can't sleep though. She replays the woman's words over and over in her mind.
Anne's story explains the soft plain feel of the cloth, and also the withered edges.
The tiny towel was roughly her age.
The clue to her finding 'him' is right there, literally on her palm. But the diversions.
Anne said she made the strip when she was much younger, for a strange foreign couple who'd come into Winterville. She said she remembered them because the man had pure-white hair, golden eyes, and never spoke.
"Frankly, the whole ordeal was dreamy," Anne said.
"How long did they stay?" Fallon asked.
"I don't know. It seemed like they just vanished. But I could tell the woman was carrying, and it was one huge belly. Looked like twins."
One thing Arielle didn't understand; if it was that long ago and in such a faraway town, how did it get to her father's grave, and how is her 'Adam' connected with it. Fallon whimpers beside her and Arielle smooths down her hair, soothing her back to sleep. She leaves her hand on Fallon's cheek and breathes her in as she remembers the one silver lining the woman gave them.
"A young boy returned here some years after the Couple disappeared," Anne had said. "..strange boy too. Looked exactly like the white-haired man. I suspect he's a man now though."
"Does he live around?" Arielle asked.
"Yes. Up in the Mountains."
A fog swamps Arielle as a dreamless sleep overwhelms her. As her mind succumbs to its waves, she thinks. Maybe he'll visit her. Then she can ask him all of her questions.
He doesn't.