Cherriese's Arc

Chapter 5 of 13

The first family had not come. Cherriese stood at the gate with her partner at the lodge door and watched the north road stay empty past noon. By the time the sun cleared the ridge, a single figure limped out of the tree line below the western slope. Not a family. One fairy, alone, leaning on a stick. Behind that figure, on the high shoulder of the slope, stood a weathered stone shape Cherriese had not built. It was a pale, pitted figure with a humanoid silhouette, half sunk in the grass, marking the spot where the stranger had first come into view of the valley. Cherriese went down to meet the exile at the gate and made the exile stop there. The fairy was thin, wing-torn, mouth cracked from thirst. Cherriese pointed to a curved stone alcove cut into the rock beside the path, its floor smooth from old water, its mouth ringed with blue and purple crystal. "Sit there," she said. "Drink. Then talk." The exile sat. Cherriese stayed standing. Until she knew what had happened on the road, she could not send her partner out, and she could not let anyone in. The exile said they had traveled in a group of six. They had followed the beacon light down the correct path for two nights. On the third night a man joined them at a fire. He was not a fairy. He spoke Cherriese's name. He said he was her husband and that he carried something of hers. The others trusted him. He led four of them down the western gully toward the false marker. The exile in the alcove had not gone. The exile had hidden in the brush and walked the rest of the way alone. The four were taken by iron-dust patrols before dawn. The man had walked away unharmed. Cherriese's hands went cold. She had felt him near for two days and told herself it was nerves. Now she knew. He had used her name to sort the trusting from the careful, and the trusting were gone. She asked the exile one question. "Did he carry a thin crystal, pointed at both ends, striped with color?" The exile nodded. "He set it on the ground by the fire. It threw light on all our faces." Cherriese turned to her partner at the lodge door. "He is using my wand to read them. We find him before dark." They found him an hour later at the foot of the pale stone figure on the slope, sitting in the grass as if he had been waiting. The wand lay across his knees, faceted and bright, chipped at one end but whole. He stood when Cherriese came up the rise. He held the wand out to her by the dull end. She took it. Her hand closed around it and the light steadied. She did not thank him. She told her partner to bind his wrists. The wand was hers again. The husband was inside the gate now, and she would have to decide what he was.