Ash's Arc

Chapter 4 of 6

Ash climbed the stairs again with the torn envelope in her hand. Somewhere in the tower a voice had gone missing. To restore it, she had to name the day it was lost. But she had no way to learn that day. The shark held the answers, and the shark could only be called with a piece of the envelope. She held the paper up to the window's light. Only a thin strip remained. Tear it, and the letter itself would come apart. She sat on the top step and turned the problem over. She had a question and no offering left to ask it. A sound reached her from below. Not footsteps. A soft padding on stone. She looked down the stairwell. A silver fox stood in the foyer, its coat glowing faint in the dark. Its eyes fixed on her. It had watched her before, she was sure now. She had felt something at the edge of every room. The fox turned and trotted out the door. It stopped, looked back, and waited. Ash followed. The fox led her down the path, past the stone lantern, to a clearing she had never seen. A carriage of glass stood among the trees. Its panels caught the moonlight. The seats inside were empty and grey with dust. The fox sat by the wheel and looked up at her. Ash stepped close. On the door's glass, faint runes glowed under the grime. She wiped them clear with her sleeve. She read them aloud, the way she had read the shark's marks. "The one who forgot rode here on the last night. Here the voice was spoken last." Her breath caught. She did not need to tear the envelope. She did not need the shark. The answer was written on the glass. The last night. The last words. The carriage had carried the letter's true owner away from the tower, and their voice had stayed behind. Ash knelt and pressed her hand to the cold glass. "You lost it here," she said. "On the last night you rode." The runes brightened at her words. Light ran through every panel of the carriage. A sound rose from inside it, thin and broken, like someone learning to speak again. The fox stood. It looked at her once more, then walked into the trees and vanished. Ash rose. She still held the envelope whole in her hand. She had not torn it. She had the day now, or nearly. She knew where the voice was lost, and she knew it waited near this glass. But a voice was not a person. The letter's true owner had ridden away. To finish this, she had to find where the carriage had gone.