Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 8 of 150

They came out of the water half a mile on, where the cut widened and the stone went dry. Ben climbed the bank first and pulled the reinforced box out from under his coat. The copper bands were dark with wet. He pressed a thumb to the lid seam. The wood gave under it like bread. A low buzz slid out through the crack and back in again. "It's swelling," Ben said. "It's going to open." Anita crouched beside him. She turned the box in her hands and stopped at the corner where the grain had lifted. "Water got past the wax. If the wood keeps growing, the bands won't matter. It'll split around them." Justin was already digging in his pack. He set out the last two boxes his grandmother had carved. Both had the sad face cut deep into the lid. "Move it. Now. Before that thing catches up to hear it." "Ten seconds of hum," Ben said. "Same as before. Something heard us last time." "Something's already behind us," Justin said. "Ten seconds or a split box. Pick." A man stepped out of the brush above them. Brown coat, wild hair, boots caked to the ankle. He had the look of someone who had walked through the night. He saw the three of them, the boxes on the stone, the wet box shivering in Ben's hand, and did not slow down. "You seen a long table," he said. "Lanterns. People eating." Ben stared at him. "No." "Which way's the ridge." "Behind us. Don't take it." The stranger looked at the sky. The sun was already low. "Sundown," he said, mostly to himself, and started up the slope without waiting. "Wait," Anita called. "Shout when you're over the top. Loud as you can." He did not answer. He kept climbing. Ben set the wet box on a flat stone. He put one of the carved boxes beside it, lid open. Justin held the second box ready. Anita drew her knife and slid it under the swollen lid of the reinforced box. She worked the copper band up first, then the wax. "On three," she said. Far up the ridge the stranger's voice broke open in a shout — a long, wordless call about a feast, about a table, about being late. It rolled down the rock. "Three," Anita said. She pried the lid. The hum poured out, thin and hot in the ear. Ben lifted the mask — pale wood, teeth bared, eyes wide — and set it in the carved box. Justin dropped the lid. The hum cut off. They held still. Down in the hollow, nothing moved toward them. Up the ridge, the shouting went on. Ben looked at the ruined box in his hands. The wood had split from corner to corner. One box left after this one. Three relics still out there. And whatever had heard the shout now knew which slope to climb.