Fern Falco's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Fern Falco had drawn the door nineteen times, and nineteen times it stayed too small to walk through. She knew it belonged to her. She had known since the first sketch, back when her hands still shook. Behind that door, something waited for her in Goremaw. She could feel it the way you feel someone staring. If she could draw it full-size, it would open, and whatever waited would finally cross over. But nothing in Goremaw held still enough to draw on. The ground was soft moss and rot. Walls sagged like wet paper. She pressed her chalk to a tree trunk and the bark crumbled. Her door shrank to a palm-sized scribble, locked and useless, like all the others. She walked until her feet ached. Then the light changed. Ahead stood a cluster of giant mushrooms, their caps wide as rooftops. Pink moss hung from each cap in long strands, and every strand ended in a tiny glowing light. The whole grove breathed a soft pink glow. Fern stopped. The stems were pale and smooth and tall. They did not crumble. They did not sag. Here was a surface at last. She climbed between the stems. Her chalk-white hand looked almost dark against the paler stalk. She touched it. Firm. Dry. She raised the chalk and began. This time she drew big. She drew the door as tall as herself, pressing until the chalk squeaked. The frame. The long crack down the middle. The handle she had never once been able to turn. The glowing lights swung around her and lit every line. For once the door did not shrink. It held. Her hand moved faster. She was nearly done. Then something near her feet shifted. A strand of pink moss slid sideways. It was not moss. A snake lifted its narrow head and looked at her. Then another. The grove was full of them, coiled through the stems, braided into the hanging light. They had been part of the pretty glow the whole time. Now they uncoiled, stem by stem, a living plant made of snakes, pouring toward the door she had drawn. Fern finished the last line and stepped back. The chalk door darkened at its center. The handle turned on its own. It opened. Cold air poured out, and the snakes rushed toward the gap like water finding a drain. Fern had wanted the door open. She had wanted what waited to cross over. She had not asked what else was listening. She stood in the pink light and watched the first shape move in the dark beyond the frame. It was not small. It was not slow. And the door was already too wide to close.