Aster Alloway's Arc

Chapter 15 of 26

Inside the mushroom café, the crowd made no room. Aster found a bench near the fire and set her pack down. She reached in for the bundle she had carried since the eyed shrub. The bone and the scrap of cloth. Proof of Bella's sister. Her fingers came out damp. Frost had seeped through the pack. The cloth was going soft. One more day in the cold stretch and it would rot to nothing. A voice cut across the noise. "That will fall apart." An elder with four gentle arms sat by the window, moss braided in her silver hair. A folded dress lay across her lap, half-stitched. Aster knew her by trade, not name. The seamstress who traveled the woods and sewed dresses that did real work. Every neighbor swore each one carried its own strange gift. "It's proof for a friend," Aster said. "Her sister died out here. I can't lose it to the wet." The elder held out a hand. "Show me." Aster passed the damp bundle over. The elder turned the cloth once. "A hundred years old. Newt-marked pack. I sewed one like it, long ago." She said nothing more about that. She reached into her sewing kit and drew out a small pouch. Hand-stitched, packet-sized, the seams tight and even. "Dry inside. I sew them for seeds. Seeds hate damp too." Aster took the pouch. The fabric felt thick, almost stiff. "It won't soak through?" "No. That's the attribute. The stitching turns water." The elder watched Aster fold the bone and cloth inside and pull the drawstring shut. "But it needs cold to stay. So does your pollen." She nodded at the chiming fridge on the cart by the door. Aster looked at the fridge, then the pouch. Cold kept the pollen alive. Cold could keep the cloth from rotting. But the fridge held the pollen loose, and the pouch alone would freeze stiff. She needed a barrier. "I have to keep it dry and cold at once." The elder set aside her half-sewn dress. She reached into the fridge cart's lower shelf and lifted out a clear glass case, sealed clean, glints along its edges. "For treasures. Fits the shelf." She opened it. "Pouch goes in this. Case goes in the cold with your pollen. The glass keeps the wet out. The cold keeps both safe." Aster set the sewn pouch inside the glass case and pressed the seal shut. She slid the case onto the fridge shelf beside the humming canister. The chime kept ringing. The glass fogged, then cleared. Through it she saw the pouch, dry and still. "It will hold to the meadow," the elder said. "Past that, I don't know." Aster closed the fridge door. The proof was safe now, sealed with the pollen. One bundle for Bella. One for six years of chasing. Both riding the same cold cart, one day from the singers.