Candie's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Candie found the woman at dawn, curled against the roots of an old apple tree. She had no shoes. Bruises ringed both wrists. When Candie knelt, the woman flinched and pressed deeper into the bark. Someone had left her out here to die. Candie meant to find that someone, but first she had to get the woman to speak. So far, the woman had said nothing at all. Candie carried her home to the glass cabin. Sunlight poured through the clear walls and lit the wooden floor. She laid the woman on the elegant bed, tucked the blanket high, and waited. The woman stared at the door. Every time Candie moved, her eyes snapped back to the latch. "You're safe," Candie said. "Nobody comes here but me." The woman's lips trembled. No words came. Candie asked who had hurt her. She asked where the woman had come from. Each question made the woman shrink smaller. Candie stopped asking. Fear had sealed the woman shut, and pushing only tightened the seal. Candie tried food instead. She set a plate on the low table by the couch, a strange piece half bench and half table. On the plate she piled berries, apple slices, and mushrooms she had gathered that week. The woman looked at the food. She did not reach for it. Her hands stayed knotted in the blanket. Then a whimper came from the porch. Candie opened the door. A wolf pup stood shivering on the step, small and gray, its bright eyes fixed on the warmth inside. It must have trailed her scent from the woods. Candie scooped it up before it could bolt. The woman sat up. Her whole face changed. She reached out both arms, and a sound broke from her throat, half sob, half word. "Give her," the woman whispered. "Please. She's mine." Candie set the pup in the woman's lap. The woman folded around it and wept into its fur. The pup licked her chin. For the first time, the woman's shoulders loosened. "They took her from me," the woman said. "When they left me. They threw her after me like trash." Her voice steadied as she stroked the pup. "His name is Dorne. He owns the mill past the river. I saw the ledgers he keeps. He couldn't let me leave with what I knew." Candie held still, afraid to break the spell. The woman had a name now, and so did the man who hurt her. "He thinks I'm dead," the woman said. She lifted her face. "You have to help me. He'll do it to another girl before spring." Candie looked at the bruised wrists, the pup, the untouched food. The silence was broken. Now she had a name, a place, and a warning. The man who left this woman to die did not know she had lived. Candie meant to keep it that way until she reached his door.