Cove Belle's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The man on the far bank did not move toward the bridge. He stood beside a weathered wooden post at the water's edge, a post ringed with notched dates and gathered round with smooth river stones. Cove had never seen it before. He had cut it and set it there while he waited. Each notch was a day. The lowest ring of marks went deep into the wood, as if he had carved them angry. The top ring was shallow, almost gentle. He rested one hand on the post like it was the only thing keeping him upright. "I know you won't cross," he called. His voice came clean across the water. "I built the bridge so you'd know I wasn't hiding which side I was on." He named her then, quiet, the way he had three winters ago in a room with a fire. He said he had counted every day since she left. He pointed at the post. He said the deep notches were the months he spent angry, and the shallow ones were the months he stopped being angry and started being sorry. Cove felt the words land in her chest like stones dropped into still water. Her hand tightened on the bow until her knuckles ached. He reached into his coat and took out a small tarnished locket on a chain. He held it up so the sun caught the silver. "You pressed this leaf the morning you left," he said. "I kept it. I didn't open it for a year." He set the locket down on top of the post, on the highest notch, and stepped back from it. He did not ask her to come get it. He just left it there and waited. Behind him, two slender figures watched from the ferns at the treeline, leaves braided into their hair, eyes the color of river stone. Forest spirits. They did not speak. They had come to witness, the way they always came when something true was about to be said or broken. Cove opened her mouth to test him. She had a fight ready. She wanted to ask him why he had waited weeks instead of knocking, why he had built a bench for two before he knew her answer, why he thought a locket would undo what he had done. None of those questions came out. What came out was the truth. "I don't know if you mean any of it," she said. "And I don't have a way to find out from here." He nodded once, like he had expected that. "Then don't answer today," he said. "The post stays. The locket stays. Come back when you want to read it." He turned and walked to his fire and sat down with his back to her, giving her the bank. Cove lowered the bow. She did not cross. She did not call out. She walked back up the trail with nothing in her hands and the shape of the notched post burning behind her eyes, and she knew she would come down again.