Alice's Arc

Chapter 20 of 20

Alice stepped back into the chamber Saturday at dawn with the new stick in her hand and her satchel on her hip. Biscuit padded ahead and stopped short at the center of the floor. His ears went flat. He sat down hard. Alice froze. She lifted the stick and washed white light across the stones. Tracks crossed the floor from the fourth tunnel to the second. Two sets. One boot, one boot. Human. Fresh enough that the dust at the edges had not yet settled. Alice knelt. The prints were side by side, close, one pair heavier than the other. Someone had walked here holding hands with someone else. She unrolled her map on her knee. She had counted seven tunnel mouths. She had told no one about the chamber but Rose and the tall creature. Biscuit had not growled. He only sat. That meant strange, not danger. Alice waited beside him with her hand on his shoulder. She counted to thirty. His ears lifted. He stood. She followed the tracks toward the second tunnel with the stick held low. The raccoon in the blue shirt trotted out of the dark ahead of her, sat on its haunches, and chittered once. Behind it came two figures. A woman in gold armor with a sword at her hip. Beside her, a taller woman whose hand the first one held. The armored woman stopped when the light hit her face. She let the other's hand go. "Xena," Alice said. She had heard the name from Rose, once, in passing about the gate. "Alice." Xena's voice was low and flat. "We came through the gate looking for shelter. The bird led us in." She nodded at the small blue-winged robin on the ledge above. "We didn't know it was yours." Alice looked at the second woman. She was tall, plain-dressed, with a quiet face. Xena did not name her, and Alice did not ask. "You crossed my training floor," Alice said. "Biscuit reads tracks here. I need to know who walks through." Xena nodded once. "Fair. We'll go around next time. Show me the line." Alice showed her the edge of the floor and the wall route past it. Xena walked it once, the other woman behind her, and marked the turns with her eyes. She did not ask twice. When they reached the far arch, Xena looked back. "Your dog is good," she said. "Keep him close down here." Then the two of them were gone into the fourth tunnel. Alice knelt and brushed the boot prints away with her palm until the floor was clean again. Biscuit watched her work. She wrote in the notebook: chamber is not private. Others use the gate. Route agreed. She closed the book and looked at the six tunnels still unwalked. The chamber was hers to train in, but it was not hers alone, and now she knew it.