Delphine Fernside's Arc

Chapter 2 of 11

Della set off through the trees with her little basket swinging, eyes hunting for a bigger vessel. She had not gone ten steps before something tickled her sleeve. A small black beetle clung to the red cuff of her strawberry-shaped hat, which she'd tugged off to fan her face. Its shell shimmered rainbow in the dappled light. "Oh," Della breathed. "Hello." The beetle did not move. It only looked up at her, steady and trusting, the way Pip had looked that morning from her pocket. She lifted her arm to brush it gently into the ferns. A thick green thicket rose nearby, fronds shading the dirt — surely a fine home for a beetle. But her fingers stopped halfway. The beetle tilted its head. Della's heart squeezed. She could not flick away something looking at her like that. "Fine," she whispered. "You can ride. But only till I find you somewhere better." She walked slower now, careful of every step, the basket bumping her hip. The new beetle sat perfectly still on the hat in her hand. She found a soft mound of moss wrapped in clover, sunlit and green. Della knelt and held the hat low against it. "Here," she said. "Soft bed. Good view. Plenty of friends nearby." The beetle considered. Then it crawled off the red brim and onto the clover, slow and certain, as if it had been waiting for exactly this stop. Della sat back on her heels and smiled, even as her chest ached a little. She tucked the hat under her arm. The basket still waited, empty of any bigger plan. But her hands were free again, and the forest was wide, and somewhere ahead something hollow and large was waiting to be found.