Ash Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Ash walks back the way he came with the stranger's name sitting heavy in his mouth. The work is out there now. Someone wore it down a path he did not pick. Someone saw it. Word moves faster than thread. By the time he reaches his door, he knows the name has already left the clay shack and gone somewhere he cannot follow. He stands at the lock with the key in his hand and waits to see who comes asking first. He does not wait long. A figure rounds the corner before he turns the key. They carry a folded coat over one arm. The cloth is bright with flowers and leaves in blues and yellows, a hood stitched into strange shapes. It is not the coat from the clay shack. It is another one. Another piece of his work, painted over, finished by hands that were not his. They hold it out like proof. They point past Ash to a stone post at the edge of the lane. The post is new. Someone has traced fine black marks across its face in long looping lines, a pattern that curls and folds back on itself. At the center of the marks, small and dark, sits the shape of his stitched sun. The figure says a name. His name. They say the coat in the clay shack is theirs, and they want it back before more hands touch it. They say the marks on the post went up last night. Ash looks at the post. He looks at the coat in their arms. He says no. He says the coat in the shack belongs to the stranger now, and the one in their hands belongs to whoever wears it next. He steps inside and turns the key. Behind the locked door he stands still, breathing. The work is loose in the world. His name is on a stone where anyone can read it. He cannot pull it back. He does not want to.