Cole's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

Cole stepped back onto the porch and knelt where the creature had gone through the window. Glass lay in the dirt. He needed a trail. Without one, the thing that carried Boulder's heartstone would be gone before nightfall, and Boulder with it. He found a scuff in the mud below the sill. One mark, half a foot long. Beyond it, the grass sprang back too fast. He walked a slow circle around the cabin, staff tapping. Nothing. The yard held no prints his eyes could read. He knelt again and pressed his palm flat to the ground, hoping for something Petra might catch. She came out behind him with the stone under her arm. "Anything?" Cole asked. Petra set the stone down and put her ear near it. She waited. She shook her head. "It jumped. Stones don't feel a jumper the same." Cole looked up. On the window frame, a small spider sat in the sun. Its body was patterned in bands of brown and cream. It turned to face him, then hopped two hand-widths sideways, landed, and turned again. It watched him with black eyes. He almost stood. Then he stopped and watched it back. The spider hopped down to the sill. Then to the porch board. Then to the dirt. Each jump landed in a spot Cole had already checked and dismissed. He crouched where the spider had landed last and saw it now, only because the spider had marked the line for him — a shallow oval in the dust, then another six feet on, then another. Not footprints. Landing points. Whatever took the heartstone moved the way the spider moved. "Veronica," he called. She came around the corner with the fox kit at her heel. "It jumps. Long. That's why there's no track between." She looked at the marks. "How far between?" "Six feet. Maybe seven." A voice behind them said, "Eight in soft ground. Five on stone." Cole turned. A short, bearded man stood at the edge of the yard in a worn vest, one thumb hooked in his belt. He had come up without sound. He looked tired around the eyes. "Silas Thornwood," he said. "Tracker. I've been on this print three days. Five toes, wide-set, heel too deep. I lost it at a creek south of here. Picked it up again this morning going the other way, carrying weight it wasn't carrying before." "It's carrying a stone," Cole said. "About this size." He cupped his hands. Silas nodded once. "That explains the heel." "Can you follow it?" "I already am." Silas tipped his head north. "Track goes toward the mountains. Fresh. If we move now, we close the gap by dusk." Veronica shifted Boulder's weight in the sling she'd rigged from her cloak. "Then we move now." Cole stood. The spider was gone from the sill. The trail was not.