Alter Kindwood's Arc

Chapter 2 of 6

Alter reached the ford before the watchmen woke. Mist sat on the water. He crossed low, antlers wet, and the creek's cold ran through the vines on his arms. On the far bank he stopped. The split rock waited a mile north. Three children waited under it. He had a way in, but no way back. The creek that stopped the Hollow Man would stop the children too. They could not swim, and they would not let a bone-faced thing carry them. He crouched in the reeds and thought. His hands were empty. His arms were strong enough for one child, maybe two, never three, and never across running water while they screamed. Screaming would bring the watchmen. Watchmen would bring arrows. Arrows would leave the children in the woods with the Hollow Man returning at dusk. He needed something that carried them for him. Something they would follow without seeing his face. He took the stone bird from his necklaces. It had spoken once. He pressed his thumb to its beak. "I need a keeper," he said. "Not a messenger. A shape they will trust." The obsidian warmed. Gold lines along its wings brightened. It grew heavy in his palm, then heavier, until he set it on the moss and stepped back. The bird opened wide. Its wingspan doubled, then doubled again. Black feathers hardened into a low, hollow shell shaped like a boat, gold seams running along the ribs. An owl-shaped prow. Talons for a keel. It could hold three small bodies and float. Alter dragged the shell to the water. It sat on the current without sinking. He went north. He found the split rock and the crawlspace beneath it and the three children knotted together in the dark. He did not step inside. He set the girl's shoe at the opening and spoke through the crack in a voice he pulled up from the softest part of his chest. He told them a black owl waited by the creek to take them home. He told them not to look behind. He told them to run when he counted three. They ran. He followed at a distance, keeping his antlers below the ferns. At the bank the children saw the obsidian boat and climbed in without a sound. The current took them. Alter waded alongside, one hand on the gold seam, guiding the prow toward the village fires. He stopped where the reeds hid him. The boat drifted on toward the lanterns. A watchman shouted. Then a woman shouted, different, higher. Boots hit the shallows. Hands lifted the children out. Alter turned back into the trees before anyone looked upstream. The stone bird was gone. His clock was gone with it. The Hollow Man would wake at dusk and find the split rock empty, and he would come looking for whoever had emptied it.