Corinne's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Corinne carried the mossy box back across the old stone bridge that led to her door. Planks sagged under her boots. The marsh hissed behind her. She had just settled the box on her table when footsteps sounded on the bridge behind her. A man in a traveling cloak stopped at her threshold. He smiled too easily. He asked about a cracked bottle he had heard rumor of, and whether she might let him see it. His eyes moved past her shoulder, hunting the room. Corinne did not answer. She stepped outside and stood beside the bone totem she kept near her door. Skulls wired to a leaning post. Bones swinging in the damp wind. She rested one hand on it and watched his face. "You came over my bridge," she said. "You can go back the same way. I sell nothing today." The man's smile thinned. He looked at the totem, at her hand on it, and at the dark water behind her where small finned shapes broke the surface and listened. He weighed it. Then he turned and walked back across the planks. Corinne stood by the totem until his shape was gone. Her newts sank below the cattails by the well, quiet again. She went inside and bolted the door. The buyer was gone, but he had known to come. Someone had spoken of her bottle where water could hear. The seal was still cracking, and now her secret was a rumor on the road.