Estella Valehollow's Arc

Chapter 7 of 11

Estella stayed crouched behind the birch as the light failed. The window above went dark. She did not move. She watched the stone house breathe smoke into the cold, and she counted the hours until dawn in slow, even breaths. Tomorrow had been the plan. Tomorrow might still be the plan. But she waited, and she watched, in case the house gave her something sooner. The sky turned the gray of old iron. The door creaked open. A small figure slipped out in stocking feet, dragging a blanket behind her. Penny crossed the yard toward an old stone well, its carved roof heavy with snow. She leaned against the cold stones and peered down, calling softly into the dark, as if something below had spoken her name in a dream. Estella rose. She crossed the snow without sound. She knelt beside the well and met Penny's startled eyes, and she pressed one finger to her own lips. The girl's mouth opened and no sound came out. Estella lifted her, blanket and all, and walked back into the trees. Behind them the well stood quiet, the only mark on the trampled snow. The house slept on. Dawn had not come. Estella had. Deep in the pines, Estella set the child down on a fallen log. Penny clutched the bright flowered blanket to her chest. Her eyes were wide but dry. Estella folded the corner of the blanket back and tucked it under the girl's chin. "You will be quiet," she said. "You will walk where I walk." She took the blanket's edge in her fist like a leash. Adrian had carried this child through the snow to keep her safe. Now Estella carried her away. The reckoning had a shape at last, and it was small, and it was warm, and it held her hand.