Fiona Latch's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Fiona did not sleep. She sat by the fire ring until the wood turned to ash, then watched the front door until gray light showed under it. The woman on the porch was gone. The warden was gone. Her neck no longer burned. But the promise she had made three years ago pulled at her the way a leash pulls a dog. She had to go past the stone arch and find the track with the sled marks. She had to know what her mark was for. The trouble was simple. She had not stepped off the porch in three years. If she left the hall empty, the wrong person could walk in behind her back. She found the cleaner mopping the floor near the door. Blonde ponytail, gray shirt, name tag. Kira Weld worked the halls at odd hours and never asked questions. Fiona had watched her walk past guests who did not see her. Kira saw them, though. Kira saw everyone. "I need the door watched today," Fiona said. "One shift. Maybe two." Kira wrung the mop out. "You never leave." "I know." "Who do I turn away?" Fiona had prepared for every question but that one. She thought of the woman with the fox. She thought of the two before her. "Anyone who asks about me," she said. "Anyone who asks about the mark on my neck. Anyone carrying an animal. A warden in a blue coat. If your neck feels hot at the door, that is them. Bolt it and wait." Kira did not blink. "My neck doesn't do that." "Then watch their hands. Watch their boots. If the boots have old snow crusted above the ankle, they came from past the arch. Do not open the door." Fiona pulled a folded paper from her pocket. She had written the names of every guest expected that week, room by room, the way the peeling directory in the lobby used to list them before the labels curled off. "These are allowed. No one else." Kira read the list once. She put it in her shirt pocket. "The lonely woman in room four stopped picking up her mail last Tuesday," she said. "Nobody noticed. I did. I can watch a door." Fiona believed her. She pulled her coat from the hook. Her hand shook on the bolt. She had turned this bolt a thousand times to keep people out, never once to let herself go. She slid it back. The cold hit her face and her boots crossed the threshold for the first time in three years. Behind her, Kira set the mop against the wall and took Fiona's chair by the fire ring. The door shut. The bolt slid home from the inside. Fiona stood on the porch with the whole track ahead of her. The lodge was covered. She was not.