Eden Riverwallow's Arc

Chapter 13 of 18

Kane left before dawn. The amulet stayed in Eden's hand. She could feel him at the other end of it, the way you feel a rope pulled taut across a room. He was somewhere in the trees, awake, tethered. Willow drifted through the wall and sat on the table. The black cat did not move for her. It watched Eden's fist close around the amulet. "You called him yet?" Willow asked. "No." "Why not?" Eden looked at the window. The cottage had washed the glass clean overnight. The sill smelled of lemon and old salt. "Because it hears everything in here. It gives me things. It watches who comes in." Willow nodded slowly. "You don't want it listening." "I don't want it choosing for me. Not this." The cat stood, jumped down, and walked to the door. It looked back once. Its tail curled a question. Eden pulled on her boots. She took the amulet and a knife. She followed the cat out past the moss line and into the woods. The corruption was gone. The ground felt ordinary under her feet, which was its own strange thing. The cat led her uphill. It moved through brush like it knew the path had been waiting. They passed the slope where the ram had stood. They passed a low stone Eden did not remember. The cat stopped at the base of a massive weeping willow. The tree hummed. Not sound exactly. A pressure against her teeth. Its branches hung to the ground in a full curtain. The roots had swallowed something; she could feel the shape of it buried there, warm and wrong. She did not touch the ground above it. She stepped around it. Inside the curtain of branches, the light went green. The trunk was wide enough to lean against. No wind reached her here. No cottage. No book on the table listening for her breath. "Here," she said. Willow slipped through the branches. "He won't like the tree." "He doesn't have to like it. He just has to come." Eden pressed the amulet flat against the trunk instead of a window. She said his name once. Quiet. Certain. The pull in her chest went slack, then tightened toward her. Branches shifted. Kane stepped through the curtain, favoring his hurt side, hair damp from the climb. His eyes flashed yellow once and settled. "You're a long way from the door," he said. "I needed somewhere the house couldn't hear." He looked at the roots. He knew what was under them. He did not say so. He sat down against the trunk beside her, close enough that his shoulder touched hers. "Then talk," he said. Eden let out the breath she had been holding since he gave her the amulet. The cat curled between their feet. Above them, the buried thing waited, and for the first time in weeks, it was not her problem to solve tonight.