Adam Grimmer's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Adam Grimmer had convinced three witches to meet him, and he had nowhere to put them. He stood at the edge of the pine woods with a shovel over his shoulder and counted the problem out loud. A coffee shop would scare them. A rented room would leave a paper trail. Every witch he had spoken to in the last month flinched at the idea of being seen. If he named a place and it felt exposed, they would not come, and he would be alone again with work too big for one person. He had learned that lesson four months ago, building a protection over someone he loved. The working had cracked open before he could close it. The person he was shielding walked away with a limp instead of a grave, and Adam still counted that as his fault. Solitary practice had failed him. He needed a circle. To get a circle, he needed a room no neighbor could see into. He walked deeper until the road noise died. In a hollow ringed by old pines, he found what he wanted: flat ground, a windbreak of trunks, no path leading in. He spent the afternoon dragging log stumps into a wide ring and digging a fire pit at the center. He carved small runes into each stump with a pocket knife, the marks he had taught himself alone. By dusk the ring looked like it had grown there. He lit a first fire and watched the shadows settle between the seats. Protection came next. He drew a yellow-green sigil on birch bark and nailed one to every fourth tree around the hollow, the open design facing outward so a passing hiker would read it as graffiti. Then he opened the iron box he had carried in his pack and let the small fire-veined drake out. It uncurled on his wrist, no bigger than a cat, and breathed a thin line of flame at the kindling. He told it to stay. It blinked once and climbed to the highest stump like it understood the job. Any human who wandered close would feel heat where there should be none and turn around without knowing why. The last piece was the invitation. From his coat he drew a stack of purple feathers, each one shimmering in a way only another witch would see. To anyone else they were trash on the sidewalk. He pocketed three for the women he had already marked: the barista who flinched at iron, the librarian who read weather in the ceiling stains, the night cashier who never met his eyes. When a witch picked one up, the feather would carry her here. He closed his fist around the first feather and started back toward town. The room existed now. Tomorrow he would find out if anyone was brave enough to walk into it.