Dolly Bell's Arc

Chapter 5 of 8

Morning came to the garden park. Dolly Bell woke stiff on the bench, her two kittens asleep against her side. Rosie snored. Rosemary's tail twitched in a dream. Dolly looked at them and saw the problem plain. She had a troupe now, but no home for it. The kittens owned nothing. No shoes fit for the road. No bag, no bedroll, no walls. The next rain would soak them through. Rosie woke and stretched. "Where do we practice today?" she asked. Her paws were bare. Her flower dress was thin. Dolly had no answer. A troupe needed a place to sleep and drill, somewhere the wolf's lightning would not draw eyes. Out here in the open, bandits could find them. Dolly stood and studied the trees where her wolf rested. Its wings folded slow. On its back sat her saddlebag, packed the day she left home. She had carried it village to village and never emptied it. Now she knelt and opened the flaps. Inside lay more than she remembered. Two spare cloaks, small enough for kittens. A roll of blankets. A folded tent of waxed cloth. Coins she had saved for an inn that never welcomed her. Dolly laughed. She had been looking for shelter to enter. She had carried shelter the whole way. "Rosemary," she called. "Help me set the poles." The shy kitten crept over. Together they raised the tent between three trees, deep in shade. The wolf lay across the entrance like a wall. No villager would wander close. No bandit would dare. Dolly cut the spare cloaks down with her knife. She stitched two little capes, one for each kitten, warm and gray to hide the pink dresses on the road. She wrapped their bare paws in soft cloth boots. Rosie turned in a circle, showing off. "We look like real performers," Rosie said. "You are real performers," Dolly said. "Now you have gear." The cat-dragon nosed inside the tent and curled in the blankets. Rosemary danced a slow chorus in her new boots. She did not slip. Rosie sang, and Dolly lifted her glowing microphone to catch the tune. The crystals woke pink under the canvas. For the first time the troupe had a roof, however small, and a floor to drill on out of the rain. By dusk they had a rhythm. Wake, rehearse, pack the tent onto the wolf, walk to the next shade. A troupe that carried its own home could not be turned away at any gate. It only needed roads. Dolly folded the tent at dark and lashed it to the saddlebag. Then she stopped. The coins she had saved were nearly gone, spent on cloth and cord. And a moving camp left tracks. Deep prints in soft ground. The wolf was heavy. Anyone who wished to follow them now had a trail to read.