Cache's Arc

Chapter 13 of 14

Cache stayed under the coop for another hour after the creature passed, waiting until the patrol route carried it far enough away that no sudden movement would draw it back. The corner smelled like damp wood and old feathers, and the straw beneath the floorboards rustled every time Cache shifted weight from one leg to the other. But staying still meant wasting time. Cache crawled out from under the coop and spotted a white chair tipped backward near the edge of the clearing, an open book resting on the seat and pastel berries scattered across the ground like someone had dropped them mid-snack. Perfect. Cache grabbed three of the largest berries and squeezed them over the shell, coating the lavender surface with pink juice. The yellow stripes disappeared under the stain. Cache grabbed straw from beneath the coop and pressed pieces into the wet juice until they stuck. The idea was half-formed—a disguise that looked like forest debris instead of an egg—but Cache could already see it working. Just needed more materials. More testing. Then Cache saw them. A girl stepping carefully along a stone path covered in pink moss, moving straight toward the coop. And ahead of her, a small winged creature with lavender skin flew directly at Cache, cutting off any retreat back toward the trees. Cache's legs froze. The sprite passed a wooden sign with a carved silhouette that matched its own shape, then dove lower. There was nowhere to go. The girl was twenty feet away. The sprite was ten. Cache dropped flat against the ground and pressed the straw-covered shell into the pink moss beside the path. The berry juice was still wet. The straw stuck out at odd angles. It wasn't finished. It wasn't right. But the sprite flew directly overhead without slowing, and the girl's footsteps stopped three feet away. Cache didn't move. The girl crouched down, and her shadow fell across the moss. Cache waited for her hand to reach out, for the disguise to fail like every other attempt. But she stood back up and called to the sprite, asking if it saw anything near the coop. The sprite circled back and hovered above the path, then shook its head. Cache's heart hammered. The girl walked past, following the sprite toward the rope barrier. Cache had been spotted—and missed. The disguise was terrible, unfinished, wrong in a dozen ways. But it had worked anyway, because Cache had finally stopped trying to look like something else and started looking like nothing at all.