Fenwick Thistleboom's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Fenwick Thistleboom knocked on the mossy door for the fifteenth time, ready to promise the bog-witch the most ridiculous night of her life. This time, she answered. Not with her face, but with her voice, low and tired through the cracked wood. "There is one thing," she said. "Bring me my mother's locket, and I will walk out with you." He pressed his ear close. She told him where it lay: past the tangled roots, behind a barricade of sharpened stakes sunk into murky water. Her sisters had built it long ago to keep her in, or to keep something else out. She did not say which. Fenwick walked the short path until the bog opened wide. The stakes leaned like crooked teeth. Beyond them, half-sunk in the muck, stood the broken shell of an older tower, its stones scattered, ivy chewing the walls. That had been her home once, before the new tower, before the silence. He could see the glint of silver chain caught on a root inside. He waded in. The water bit cold up to his chest. A stake tore his sleeve and then his arm, and the red ran warm into the green. But his fingers closed around the locket. He climbed out shaking, bleeding, grinning, and turned back toward her door with the prize in his fist.