Ellen's Arc

Chapter 3 of 45

The barn grew slowly, too slowly. Ellen's arm burned to the shoulder now. The rash climbed past her elbow in a wet red band. Each step pulled the swollen skin tight. Her mouth was dry stone. She had no water and no salve, and the poison worked deeper with every yard. Her knees buckled. She caught herself on the cracked ground and stayed there, breathing hard. The barn still stood far off, its dark loft window watching her like an eye. She would not reach it. Then she heard boots on the dirt. A man crossed the flat toward her, calm as a Sunday stroll. He wore a black pinstripe suit and a low hat, both wrong for this dead place. A gold ring flashed on his hand. He stopped a few feet away and looked down at her swollen arm. "You picked a bad plant, sweetheart," he said. His voice was flat and sure. "That stuff'll kill you slower than a bullet. Not slow enough to enjoy it." Ellen dragged the knife from her coat and pointed it at him. Her hand shook. "Stay back." He raised both palms, unbothered. "Easy. I'm Vincent Marconi. I run things around here." He crouched to her level. "You need water and a poultice. I got both, back at my place. You got nothing but a shaky knife." She searched his face for the trap. She found no kindness there, only calculation. But the knife weighed a ton in her fist, and the plain swam gray at the edges. She lowered the blade. "Why help me," she said. "I don't do free." He pulled a canteen from his coat and unscrewed the cap. "You drink now. Then you owe me. Simple." He held the canteen to her lips. Ellen drank. The water hit her throat like life itself. She gulped until he pulled it back. Then he tore a strip from a cloth in his pocket, wet it, and pressed it against the raw skin of her arm. The sting eased. Her head cleared. "There's a woman I want gone from my barn," Vincent said. He nodded toward the red building. "She and her friends squat there. Trouble. You get them out, you eat and sleep under my roof. That's the deal." Ellen's heart turned over. Women. Cast out, hiding in the barn she had walked toward as her one shelter. The very people she meant to save. She looked at the wet cloth on her arm, at the man who owned the water and the barn both. She was not dying anymore. She was in his debt instead. "Fine," she said. "Take me there." Vincent stood and helped her up. She swayed but held. The barn waited ahead, no longer her refuge. Now it was the price of staying alive, and the women inside were the ones she had come to Ashplain to protect.