Cassidy fernwillow's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

By afternoon the road stayed open, and travelers filed past the merchant's cart to Cassidy's wagon. She sold three beads before a hooded man stepped up. He set a coin on her table and pointed at the wish menu. "One wish," he said. "For a safe road home." Cassidy plucked a bead from her rack and dropped it in his palm. He didn't leave. "Prove it works," he said. "Show me the magic. Or take back your bead and give me my coin." Cassidy stared at the bead in his hand. The wish was real, but its magic only bloomed later, on his journey. She had no way to make it glow here, now. Other travelers slowed to watch. If she failed this test in front of them, her wagon's trade would die. She reached for her moonbrush, then stopped. A painting wouldn't answer him. He wanted the bead itself to speak. Beth Litwick came up the path just then. The old inn owner walked slow, her white hair dragging the moss behind her. Cassidy had bought a room from her that first night; Beth had watched her paint till dawn and said nothing. Now Beth stopped beside the hooded man. She looked at the bead, not at Cassidy. "Sixty-one years my lantern stone burned," Beth said. "I lit it the night I was born. You couldn't see the magic in the stone. You saw what it did. Light, every night, without fail." She turned her flat eyes on the man. "A wish is the same. It works on the road, not on this table." The man frowned. "Then I've bought nothing I can see." Beth didn't soften it. "You bought a promise. Carry the bead. If your road stays safe, you'll know. If it doesn't, come back and shame her in front of the town." She said it plainly and stopped. Cassidy held her breath. The man weighed the bead. He looked at Beth's steady face, then at the travelers waiting behind him. Slowly, he closed his fingers around the bead. "Fair," he said. "I'll carry it." He pulled his hood lower and walked off toward the edge of town. Cassidy let out her breath. "Thank you," she said. Beth didn't smile. "He'll come back," she said. "Safe or not, he'll come back. And he'll tell others what he found." She turned to go, then paused. "You sell promises, girl. Word travels faster than any bead. Make sure the road stays safe for him." Beth walked back down the path. Cassidy looked at the coin on her table. She had kept the sale. But now her whole trade rested on a wish she couldn't watch. If that hooded man met trouble on the road, he'd return, and every traveler here would hear it.