Cassidy fernwillow's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Cassidy Fernwillow wanted to sell wishes to travelers, and today a traveler had finally come. The old man leaned on his walking stick at the edge of the road, watching her spread her wares across the grass. Cassidy knelt among them, her red-and-white hair falling over her face. She had painted trinkets, glass beads, and small canvases that shimmered when the light hit them. Each one held a wish, if a buyer only stood still long enough to choose. But her shop had no walls, no roof, no counter. It was just a mess of things laid on the ground. The old man frowned. "Where is your shop, girl? I see no shop." Cassidy looked at her scattered wares and felt her face grow hot. A gust of wind lifted a small canvas and flipped it into the dirt. She grabbed for it with her black-nailed fingers. "It's here," she said. "All of it. Just give me a moment." The old man shook his head. "I need a real seller, not a picnic." He turned and walked on. Cassidy watched her first customer shrink down the road. Her stomach twisted. Without a place to house her wares, no one would ever stop and stay. Then wheels creaked behind her. "That looked like it hurt." Cassidy turned. Finn Snow leaned against a wooden wagon, his blue arms crossed, his white hair catching the sun. He was the wandering bard she had hired weeks ago to guard her and drive her road. He held his staff loosely, the way he always did, like it was part of his hand. Behind him stood the wagon he'd found abandoned in a ditch and hauled here by mule. "He was my first customer," Cassidy said. "And I had nothing to show him." Finn thumped the wagon's side. "Then stop selling from the dirt." The wagon was a wreck. Gray boards, a broken step, one warped door. But it had big wheels and a wide flat side, and it rolled. Cassidy stood slowly. She walked to the wagon and pressed her palm to its dull wood. She looked at her cup of paintbrushes tucked in her belt. "It's ugly," she said. "So fix it," Finn said. "You paint wishes onto beads. Paint one onto this." Cassidy worked until dark. She scrubbed the boards, mended the step, and hung her canvases inside. Then she painted. Flowers curled up the sides in green and gold. Vines wound around the door. On one panel she painted a spray of white bell-shaped blossoms, arched like tiny lanterns. When she finished, the wagon glowed under the moon. She had a shop now. A shop with wheels, that could roll down any road. But as Cassidy stepped back, she saw the truth. The wagon was old, and its axle groaned when Finn moved it. One more hard road might break it. She had a home for her wares at last. Now she had to keep it from falling apart.