Elder Bright's Arc

Chapter 8 of 10

Dawn came gray and thin. Elder Bright met Granny Mossroot at the garden gate, his pocket watch already ticking against his palm. She did not speak. She turned and walked, and he followed with the table folded under his arm. The watch counted down the only dawn he had. He lost her at the first bend. One moment her purple hat moved ahead of him. The next, the path was empty. He stopped, breathing hard. On a flat stone by the road sat a small bouquet of wildflowers — poppies, daisies, blue stalks bound with a green thread. She had set it there. A sign. Keep going. He followed the flowers. Another bunch waited at a fence post. Another at a split in the trail. The watch hand crawled forward. He came at last to a bright playground, slides and swings standing still in the wet grass. No witches. No Granny. Only a child's swing moving in the wind. His chest went cold. Wrong place. Dawn half spent. Then he saw it — one last bouquet, tucked under the yellow slide, pointing down a narrow track behind the trees. He ran. The track opened into a clearing, and there it stood: a dark wooden clubhouse with stained glass eyes and carved symbols around the door. Smoke rose from its chimney. Voices inside. Granny Mossroot waited on the step, arms folded. "You're slow," she said. "They are listening. Bring the table." Elder Bright snapped the watch shut. He had found them. The dawn had held. He lifted the table and climbed the stone step, and the door of the coven opened to let him in.