Aldric Thornwood's Arc

Chapter 8 of 10

Aldric walked back toward the records office with the scroll tucked inside his coat and his father's watch heavy in his pocket. The woman had given him everything he needed to move forward. Names. Dates. Connections his father had drawn forty years ago. But using any of it meant stepping into the open. He stopped at the stone deer statue halfway between the watering hole and the road. The moss grew thick along its flank, and someone had carved a symbol into the base—the same mark from the willow tree. Aldric knelt and ran his fingers across it. Fresh. Cut within the last day. They knew he'd been to the watering hole. They knew what he now carried. He looked north toward the treehouse he'd built three years ago to watch the approach roads. From here, he could see the platform through the branches, dark wood against darker leaves. It would give him warning if anyone came. But it wouldn't stop them. Aldric opened the ornate briefcase the woman had left on the chest. Inside were copies of his father's notes, annotated in a dozen different hands. Each investigator had added their observations before passing it forward. Now it was his turn. He took out the scroll and laid it flat across the briefcase lid. His father's name stared back at him. He pulled a pen from his coat and wrote his own name beneath it. The ink dried quickly in the cold air. There. He'd signed himself into the record. Anyone looking for proof that he knew would find it. He closed the briefcase and carried it up to the treehouse. The ladder creaked under his weight. Inside, he placed the case on the floor where it could be seen from the window. Then he climbed back down and walked toward the road without looking back. The perpetrator would come for the briefcase now, or for him—it didn't matter which. Aldric had stopped hiding. The watch felt lighter in his pocket. His father had made the same choice forty years ago. Now Aldric understood what it cost.