Cyndi Cylendar's Arc

Chapter 2 of 6

Cyndi sat at her desk the next morning, marking spots on a map where new cameras would go. The scan had closed one door. She was already prying at another. Then she heard the front gate open, and two voices carried through the garden. She knew both of them. Goldie stood on the step with a small case at her feet. Sierra stood behind her, hood pushed back, green hair catching the light. Cyndi opened the door and kept her face soft. Goldie spoke first. "I'm moving in with Bella." She did not wait for a reaction. "She offered me a room. I said yes last night." Sierra folded her arms. "I came from Maplecrest to help her pack. I'm staying the week." Cyndi held the doorframe. "Bella asked you." Goldie nodded. "She wants to train me. My magic slips. She thinks she can help." Cyndi looked at Sierra. "And you knew." Sierra did not blink. "I knew this morning. I'm not sorry." Cyndi stepped back and let them in, because refusing would have told them everything. She watched Goldie fold clothes into the case in the front room. Cyndi tried one push. "Bella rejected me last month. You understand what it looks like, you going to her." Goldie kept folding. "It looks like I need a teacher and you aren't one." She closed the case. "I know you and Bella have a fight. It isn't mine. My hands are the thing I have to fix." Sierra sat on the arm of the couch and watched Cyndi the way a guard watches a door. By afternoon the case was by the gate. Goldie hugged Cyndi once, brief, and said, "I'll call." Sierra did not hug her. "I'm walking her over. Then I'm coming back here for the week." Cyndi understood the second sentence. Sierra was not visiting. Sierra was watching. Cyndi smiled and told them to be careful on the path. She shut the door and stood in the hall until the sound of their steps was gone. She went to her desk and pulled the map toward her. The cameras on Bella's study were now cameras on Goldie's new window too. That was a gain. But her own daughter had walked into Bella's house by choice, and her youngest had planted herself in Cyndi's front room with clear eyes. The circle around her had tightened on both sides in one afternoon. Cyndi crossed out two names on her ally list, because both women had daughters and both would hear this story by morning. She wrote a new line at the top of the page: move the charts out of the house tonight. Sierra would search. Cyndi would be ready when she did.