Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 2 of 150

Ben walked all night with the sad-face box under his arm. By dawn his shoulder ached and the wood felt warm through his shirt. He stopped at a stream to drink and turned the box over in his lap. A hairline crack ran down the sad mouth, from lip to chin. He pressed his thumb against it. The mask inside gave one low hum, then went quiet again. The crack had not been there yesterday. He knew what a broken box meant. If the wood split on the road, the mask would sing, and the blue-scaled thing would come at a run. He needed the box bound, sealed, reinforced — and he needed it before the next hill. He followed the stream down to a narrow building tucked against the slope. It leaned forward like it wanted to run, all sharp angles and bright trim, two thin windows glowing at the front. A sign hung crooked by the door. Someone inside was hammering fast. He knocked. The hammering stopped. The door swung open on a woman his own height, blue hair cropped short, yellow jacket streaked with sawdust. She held a tack hammer in one gloved hand and a strip of copper in the other. She looked at his face, then at the box, then at the crack. "That's about to fail," she said. "Two hours, maybe less." "Can you fix it?" "I fix fast. That's the only way I fix." She stepped back to let him in. Her shop was one room. A workbench ran the length of the far wall. A model of a sleek, finned craft hung from the ceiling on wire, nose down, as if diving. She set his box on the bench under a lamp and ran a fingernail along the crack. "What's inside?" she asked. "Something loud. It has to stay quiet." She did not ask again. She cut two thin copper bands, notched them, and tapped them flat around the box with quick, even strikes. She worked glue into the crack with a knife tip. She wrapped the seams in waxed linen and pressed each corner with her thumb until the cloth held. "Name's Anita," she said, not looking up. "You're paying me later. I don't take coin from men who look like they've been running." Ben watched her hands. She finished in under twenty minutes. When she lifted the box and shook it hard by his ear, he heard nothing. "It'll hold to the border," she said. "Not past." "How do you know I'm going to the border?" She finally looked up. "Because something followed you here. I heard it cross the stream while I was working." Ben's hand tightened on the box. Anita was already at the back wall, pulling a second door open onto a path he had not seen from the road. "Go," she said. "I'll come find you. I want to know what's in the box."