Aster Alloway's Arc

Chapter 12 of 26

The newt sat dark and still. Aster's compass read nothing but scattered air. She had the pollen safe in the humming fridge, but the woods behind her all looked the same, and her supplies would run out long before she guessed her way home. She turned in a slow circle, hunting for any mark she knew. Nothing. Cosmo waited beside the cart, patient, but he had never walked this ground either. Then wheels creaked through the trees. A weathered cart rolled toward them, hung with poppy bundles and jars of seed. Bright dresses swung from its frame, woven from glowing moss and feathers. Behind it walked an old woman in a floral housecoat, a basket of cuttings on her arm. She hummed as she came, low and easy, the way some people breathe. "You're lost," the woman said. It was not a question. "I'm Cleo. I trade this road twice a season. I know every bend of it." Aster's chest loosened. "You know the way out of the groves?" "Better than my own hands." Cleo eyed the yellow fridge on the moss cart, the faint gold drifting off it. "That's bloom pollen. You found it." Her humming stopped for the first time. "Then you'll want to reach the meadow crowd fast, before it fades on you." Another voice cut in, sharp and clipped. A small three-winged woman buzzed down from the branches, a clipboard nearly as wide as she was clamped under one arm. Badges crowded her sash. "Milo Nara. I run the singing. Cleo brought me word a stranger took the bloom." She landed and looked Aster over once. "You have live pollen. It needs sound or it dies. The meadow has forty singers holding pitch right now. That's your route." Aster gripped the cart handle. "You can guide me there?" "Cleo guides. I set the schedule." Milo tapped her clipboard. "Three days on foot. Two if you keep my pace. You keep my pace." Cleo laughed and swung one of the moss dresses off the cart. "First, wear this. The trail past the stream runs cold at night. This moss holds warmth, and the color keeps you in my sight when the light drops." She pushed the glowing gown into Aster's four hands, then a feathered mask after it. "No arguing. I've buried travelers who argued." Aster pulled the dress over her clothes. The moss warmed at once against her arms. She fixed the mask, and Cleo nodded, satisfied. "Follow close," Cleo said, taking up her humming again. She turned her cart back the way she had come. "Keep the fridge singing. Keep your feet moving." Aster fell in behind the trader's cart, Cosmo and the moss cart at her side. She had lost her guide at the trailhead. Now she had two, and a road home at last. The woods no longer looked the same. They looked like a path.