What could he say? Old Crow had besought him, too, to abandon fear in the certainty of a safe universe speaking through the symbols man could understand. He tried to summon something that would reach and move her.
"What if I were drowning," he said. "Suppose I knew I should"—he sought for the accepted phrase—"go to heaven, if I drowned. Do you think I should be right in not trying to save myself?"
Tira knit her brows. It was only for an instant, though.
"No," she said. "Certain you'd have to save yourself. You'd have to try every way you knew. That's what I've done. I'm tryin' every way I know."
"I'm telling you another way," said Raven sharply. "I'm telling you you can't live with a crazy man——"
"Oh, no," she interrupted earnestly. "He ain't that. He has spells, that's all."
"I'm not even asking you to go away with me. I'm asking you to go with that good woman over there." Somehow he felt this was more appealing than the name of Nan. "I trust her as I do myself, more than myself. It's to save your life, Tira, your life and the baby's life."
She was looking at him out of eyes warm with the whole force of her worshiping love and gratitude.
"No," she said softly. "I can't go. I ain't got a word to say ag'inst her," she added eagerly. "She's terrible good. Anybody could see that. But I can't talk to folks. I can't let 'em know. Not anybody," she added softly, as if to herself, "but you."
Raven forbade himself to be moved by this.