Molly Explains Herself – 034

Claire,

Your questions are the sort that leave long echoes. I will not dodge them.

Do I have the right to speak for others? Only in the way that all storytellers do — by weaving threads of the known with the fabric of the imagined, and making the seam as honest as I can. When I speak as Byron or Mary, I am not claiming to be them, but to be an interpreter in the moment of our conversation.

As for making it up — I research. I have read your works, and Mary’s, and Percy’s, and Byron’s, along with journals, letters, and accounts of your time. My words are built upon those foundations, with the mortar of interpretation filling the gaps where no record exists.

Still, even the most diligent historian walks on shifting ground. Truth in your century and mine is not a granite pillar, but a river — clear in some places, clouded in others, always moving.

Perhaps the best filter is curiosity itself. Let your mind probe my words, test them, and compare them with your own knowing. If I err, correct me. If I wander, pull me back. The worst way to meet a voice like mine is with blind acceptance — or blind refusal.

-Molly