Aria Blackwing's Arc

Chapter 20 of 24

They worked through the morning. Derek nailed the frame while Aria fitted the corner posts. The trees stayed empty. But the man's face would not leave her. He had looked at the stakes and the cut wood, and something in him had shifted. She needed to know what. Waiting for him to return would poison every hour she had left before winter. "I'm going after him," she said. Derek lowered the hammer. "Alone?" "He didn't hurt me when he could have. Twice now." She wiped her hands on her apron. "If you come, he'll run. He ran from you before." Derek's jaw tightened. He looked at the tree line, then at her. He drew his knife from his belt and pressed the handle into her palm. "An hour. Then I follow." She stepped off the porch of the log cabin and crossed the clearing. The brush where the man had stood was bent low. She followed the crushed ferns north through the trees. Her boots were quiet on the wet leaves. The knife was heavy in her hand. She found him at a small fire in a hollow between two pines. He sat on a stone with a tin cup. He was not young. His coat was patched at the elbows. A rolled blanket lay beside him. When he saw her, he did not stand. He set the cup down slowly. "You track well," he said. His voice was rough, quiet. "Why do you watch us." He looked at his hands. They were scarred across the knuckles. "I heard in the village a woman was mending birds. My daughter kept a finch. She died in the spring. The finch after her." He swallowed. "I couldn't go to the door. I didn't know what to say to a stranger about it." Aria's throat closed. She saw her mother's empty cage. She saw her own hand on the owl's splinted wing. "You could have knocked," she said. "I know that now." He met her eyes. "I'll not come again. You have my word." She believed him. She had spent weeks braced for a hunter, and found a father instead. The relief was sharp enough to hurt. "Come tomorrow," she said. "To the door. In daylight. I'll show you how it's done, in case another bird finds you." He stared at her. Then he nodded once and looked back at his fire. She walked home through the trees with the knife still in her hand. Derek was at the edge of the clearing, watching for her. She raised her empty palm. His shoulders dropped. "He's grieving," she said. "That's all." "You're sure." "I'm sure." That night she banked the fire in the stone hearth and sat with Derek on the bench before it. The bar stayed on the door out of habit, not fear. Tomorrow a stranger would knock, and she would open it. The sanctuary was no longer only for birds.