Aldric Thornwood's Arc

Chapter 6 of 10

Aldric reached the watering hole an hour before sunset. The fog had thickened since morning, turning the stones at the water's edge into gray shapes that barely held form. He parked the truck fifty yards back and approached on foot, boots careful on the wet ground. The boot he'd marked earlier was gone. Two paths met at the water's edge where erosion had carved channels through the bank. One led from the north, the other from the west, and both ended at the same narrow strip of mud. There was no way around it. Anyone approaching from either direction would leave tracks, would be seen. Aldric understood now why the perpetrator had chosen this place. It forced a meeting. A woman sat on a flat stone twenty feet from the water. She was older than Aldric, gray hair pulled back, hands resting on a black briefcase covered in symbols he didn't recognize. The leather was worn but cared for, the brass corners polished. She'd been here long enough for the fog to settle on her coat. When she looked up, her expression held no surprise. "Aldric Thornwood," she said. Not a question. She reached into her coat and pulled out a pocket watch identical to his father's, the face marked with the same compass dial. "I was sixteen when I found my first boot. You were still in school." She set the watch on the briefcase between them. "The clerk who disappeared — he was my brother. He got too close, just like you. The difference is, I've been waiting forty years for someone who wouldn't stop." Aldric's hand went to his own watch in his pocket. The perpetrator wasn't one person. It was a cycle, and this woman had been part of it longer than he'd been alive. She wasn't here to kill. She was here to pass it on.