Fenwick Thistleboom's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

She stood up from the pavilion step with the ring closed in her fist. Fenwick scrambled after her. The bog stretched dark ahead, and somewhere past the reeds her old house waited. He had promised her a ridiculous night. This was not that night. But he fell in beside her anyway, because she was walking and he had not seen her walk before. They had not gone far when the chimes began. Rusted tin cylinders swung from a driftwood beam set across the path. They knocked together with a low, hollow song. She stopped. "My sisters hung those," she said. "They ring when anyone steps near." Fenwick squinted past the beam. Small shapes lifted from the reeds — tiny dragons with shimmering wings, circling once, then darting off toward the trees. Watchers, he understood. Messengers. "Then we don't step near," Fenwick whispered. He pointed sideways, off the path, into the black water. She frowned at him. He grinned, already pulling off his boots. "You said tonight. You didn't say the easy way." She waded in after him. They moved slow and quiet around the chimes, water at their hips. Past the beam, a wreath of rusted chain twisted with waterlogged driftwood floated across the channel — knotted thick, meant to snag a boat or a leg. Fenwick gripped one end. She gripped the other. Together they lifted it just enough to slip beneath, and the chimes behind them never sang. The house rose from the muck on the far side. Its shutters were nailed shut. Algae climbed its sinking walls. She set her hand flat against the door and breathed out, long and shaking. "I'm here," she said, to no one Fenwick could see. Then she pulled a nail from the shutter with her bare fingers. The wood gave a soft crack. They were inside the watch now, and there was no quiet way back.