Finn Ashworth's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Finn slipped out the front of the shed and ran the long way around. The sun pressed hard on his neck. He kept low through the scrub and counted his steps, listening for his father's boots on the dry ground. He saw the old stone tower first, the one with the rope ladder bolted to its side, rising past the back of the hut. A man stood at its base. He had a wooden cart behind him stacked with bleached bones, and a small bronze scale clipped to his belt that swung when he turned. A scavenger. Drawn by noise. Looking for something to weigh and sell. The scavenger circled toward the well house. Finn broke into a run. He saw Marta step out from the low door, satchel clutched to her chest, glasses sliding down her nose. She must have heard the cart wheels and thought it was him. The scavenger lunged and caught her arm before Finn cleared the last stretch. "Finn," Marta said. Her voice was flat and small. "I can't. I trusted you." "I didn't know," Finn said. "I swear." He reached for her. The scavenger yanked her back two steps and whistled, sharp and high, toward the ridge. Finn's father came around the side of the hut at a fast walk, rifle already up. He looked at Marta in the scavenger's grip. He looked at Finn. "I can't believe you betrayed me," his father said. "You lied." He did not raise his voice. He took Marta by the other arm and pulled her past Finn without slowing. Finn started after him. His boot kicked a loose stone on the slope behind the well house, and a bigger stone above it shifted, then rolled. The boulder came down the short hill and pinned his ankle against the packed dirt. Finn screamed. The bone gave with a sound he felt in his teeth. "Dad," he yelled. "Dad, please." His father kept walking, Marta stumbling beside him. "You're not going to try to talk me into forgiving you," his father called back, "not yet." He never turned his head. Finn shoved at the boulder with both hands. It did not move. He screamed again, longer, and then a second time, until his throat tore. His father came back around the hut at a run. "Quit screaming," he snapped, and then he saw the leg. His face changed. He dropped the rifle and put his shoulder to the stone and rolled it off. He lifted Finn under the arms and carried him into the shed and laid him on the patched couch against the wall. Marta was gone. The scavenger was gone. Finn lay still and stared at the low ceiling and understood that he had lost her, and that his father was, for this moment, only his father again.