Aster Alloway's Arc

Chapter 7 of 26

Aster followed the compass past the eyeball shrub and into deeper woods. The glowing glass spores swung and pointed straight ahead. She looked up and stopped. A cliff rose in front of her, taller than her shop and smooth as glass. The pollen trail led up and over the top. There was no path. No handhold. She pressed a palm to the rock and found no crack to grip. Four arms could not climb what had nothing to hold. She stepped back and checked her wristwatch, the one etched with tiny flowers and four small arms for hands. The century bloom opened soon. She did not know the exact hour, but the days were slipping. She could not wait. She could not climb. She sat and dug through the pack Bella had given her, hunting for anything useful. Her hand closed on cold metal. She pulled out a grappling hook tied to a long rope ladder. A small chest hung from the bottom, its front carved into a grinning mouth of sharp teeth. Bella's sister had packed this. Aster had carried it for days without knowing. She untangled the ladder and hefted the hook. Above the cliff edge grew a knot of roots and a stubby tree. Aster whirled the hook and threw. It clanged off the rock and fell. She gathered the rope and threw again. This time the hook sailed over the edge and caught. She pulled hard. The rope held. She climbed. The ladder swung against the stone and knocked her knuckles raw. Halfway up her boot slipped and she hung by two arms, breath loud in her chest. She reached with a third hand, found a rung, and pulled. A pastel-winged beetle drifted past her face, calm in the still air. Aster almost laughed. She kept climbing. At the top she rolled onto flat ground and lay still. The hook had bitten deep into the roots. She hauled the ladder up behind her so nothing could follow, then checked the toothy chest at its end. Inside sat a spiked purple fruit, wrinkled but whole. Bella's sister had saved it for the climb she never finished. Aster ate half and tucked the rest away. She stood and looked ahead. The compass burned hot against her palm and pointed across a wide plateau. Far off, a huge island floated low over the ground, woven from lavender bushes and bright toy bricks. Its cold shadow spilled across the plateau in a slow curtain. The pollen trail ran straight beneath it. Aster wiped blood from her knuckles and coiled the rope over her shoulder. She had beaten the cliff. But the shadow ahead moved, and the trail passed under tons of drifting island. She would have to time her crossing before that weight rolled over the path and cut her off. She checked her flowered watch and started walking.