Arianna's Arc

Chapter 4 of 7

Two nights before the full moon, Arianna sat at the pool's edge and studied the answer the witch had given her. The witch's smile still worried her. It had been too kind. Too easy. She held her grandmother's photograph in her lap, the one framed in driftwood and sea glass. Two women danced in the surf. She traced her grandmother's hand. The tide had answered that hand once. That was her truth. But the witch had wanted her to walk in certain, and certainty felt like a trap. A voice rose from the water. Low, warped, but she knew it. "You're holding your breath." Marius surfaced near the stones. Blue fins fanned behind him. He had watched her dance for six years from the waters below her cliffs. He had never once lied to her. His voice thinned above the surface, so she leaned close to hear. "The witch told me what the spirit wants," Arianna said. "Why I dance. A true answer." "Then you don't need the witch." "She said my grandmother is the answer. The tide changing. That story." Marius went still. A small rainbow seahorse drifted from behind a rock and curled its tail around his finger. He watched it a moment, then looked at her. "That's your grandmother's story," he said. "Not yours." The words landed hard. Arianna opened her mouth to argue. Then she stopped. The witch had handed her a borrowed answer. A pretty one. The exact kind the spirit rejected. The witch had smiled and pointed her straight at failure. "She set me up," Arianna whispered. "She trades in what people want to hear." Marius nudged the seahorse gently back toward the deep. "You wanted an easy answer. She sold you one." Arianna looked down at the photograph. She had believed hula could reach a spirit because her grandmother's dance moved the tide. That was why she'd started. But it wasn't why she still danced now, alone, for years, for a spirit that had stopped listening. "I don't dance to copy her," she said slowly. "I dance because when I move, the ocean feels close. Like it's mine to speak to." Her voice steadied. "That's the truth. Not the tide. The wanting." Marius smiled. "Say that to the spirit." Arianna set the frame on the stones, safe from the water. She stood. For the first time in three days, the cold weight in her stomach was gone. She had almost walked into the test carrying someone else's heart. "The witch wanted me to fail," she said. "She won't get it." Marius sank until only his eyes showed. "Two nights," he said. "I'll be there." He slipped under. The pool went smooth. Arianna picked up the photograph and held it to her chest. She had her true answer now. But the witch had lied to her face and lost nothing. The globe still held it. And Arianna still did not know what that debt would cost her at the pool.