Estella Valehollow's Arc

Chapter 6 of 11

Estella walked out of the hollow shrine with the wooden toy still warm in her fist. The wind had picked up, and the light was already tilting toward afternoon. She stopped at the edge of the clearing and looked back along her own tracks. The real path lay behind her, folded into ground she had already crossed. She closed her hand tighter around the toy and felt the small ridges of a child's grip worn into the wood. She knelt and set the toy on the snow. She whispered over it, and the wood gave a small pull, like a thread tugged from the other end. Estella followed it back the way she came. The pull bent her off the trail at a low rise she had passed without a second look. There, half tucked under a leaning pine, sat a small snow fort with a rough bench beside it. Tiny boot prints circled the door. A mitten lay forgotten on the bench. Estella stood over it, breathing slow. Adrian had walked his wife and Penny through here while she chased his lie north. The toy hummed once more in her hand and went still. She had the real trail now. By nightfall, she would have them. The new prints led east, three sets close together, slow and uneven. Estella followed them through thin trees until she found a rough tent pitched in a hollow. The fire pit was still warm. A child's blanket lay folded on a stone. They had rested here only hours ago. Estella pressed her palm to the ash and felt the heat answer her skin. She straightened and turned east, where the prints carried on. The day was hers again. She started walking, and she did not look back. The prints climbed a low ridge and dropped into a narrow draw. At the bottom sat a small stone house with a snow-heavy roof and a thin curl of smoke rising from the chimney. A warm light glowed in the upper window. Estella crouched behind a stand of birch and watched. A small shape moved past the glass, then a taller one drew the curtain shut. She set the wooden toy down in the snow beside her boot. She had found them. Tomorrow she would walk down and knock.