Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 15 of 150

They ran east until the trees broke and the ground turned to reed. Ben stopped at the edge of a shallow pond and put his hands on his knees. Two carved boxes in his coat. Three relics still to find. Barb Dwyer had a third box waiting, but only for another jar of tears, and Barb was half a day south. He had no half a day. "We can't split," Justin said. "You go back to Barb, we lose the map. We keep east, the next relic hums loose in your pocket." Anita crouched by the water and wiped her face. "Then we make one here. Before we reach the cup." "Make one." Ben straightened. "With what." "Barb's boxes are wood with a sad face carved on them. That's the rule. Wood. Sad face." She looked at him. "We have wood." Ben felt the shape of it before he understood it. He pulled the small keepsake box from his inside pocket. It was old, dark, the lid smooth. His mother's. He had carried it since he was a boy. He had never opened it in front of anyone. "That won't work," Justin said. "It's not carved." "Not yet." Ben set it on a flat stone. Anita handed him her knife. He did not know if the trick was the carving or the sadness in the carver. Barb cried into the wood. Barb charged tears. He thought the wood only listened if you meant it. He cut. A curved mouth, turned down. Two eyes, thin. His hand shook and the second eye came out crooked. He kept cutting. He thought about the girl sitting against the wall of a stone room with her hands folded, waiting for them to come back. He thought about how they might not. Something moved in the reeds across the pond. A lean shape stepped out of the grass. Blue scales along its shoulders, orange marks on its legs, a wolf's build gone wrong. It lowered its head and stared at Ben across the water. It did not cross. Water masked scent. It knew he was here anyway. "Ben," Anita whispered. He kept cutting. Three lines under each eye. Tears. He pressed his thumb to the wood and it came away wet. His own. The creature took one step into the pond. Two. Ben closed the lid. The face was rough but it was a face. He held the box out flat on his palm and waited. Nothing hummed inside it. Nothing needed to. He tucked it against the other two in his coat. Three boxes. Three relics left. "Move," he said. They went back into the trees. The creature stood in the water behind them, watching, uncertain which way to follow. Ben ran with three boxes knocking against his ribs and did not look back.