Holli's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Holli did not go back to the shore for three days. She kept the stone chip in her pocket and the black-and-blue book on the table. The chip cut a small sore into her palm and she let it. She needed a way to stay inside herself when the current moved through her. Strength would not do it. She had tried strength. She needed a rope tied to her own body that the water could not cut. She walked into the wet woods above the cliffs before dawn. Void was already there, sword across his knees, hood up. He had said the night before that he would come if she asked. She had asked. Three black wolves stood behind him in the fog, watching her with yellow eyes. He did not explain them. "They follow me sometimes," he said. "They will not touch you." She set the black iron pot down between them and filled it with seawater she had carried up in a jar. She dropped the stone chip in. The water turned pale blue and began to move on its own, a slow swirl with white foam at the center. "An old recipe," she said. "It shows you what you actually want. Gotim left it in the book." Void looked at the pot a long time. "I don't know if I should look," he said. "I know," she said. "That is why I need you and not someone else." Her plan was simple. She would touch the current from up here, far from the water, and Void would hold the pot between them. If her mind began to spread, he would say her name. The pot would show him whether she was still Holli or already gone. He was the anchor. The chip in the pot was the price. She would not cross either. She knelt and put her hand on a root that ran down to the sea. The current came up through the wood, slower than in the sand, but real. She caught it. Her mind began to thin at the edges the way it always did. She felt the ships that had sunk along this coast, the broken one with red sails half-buried in silt below her. She felt herself starting to leave. Void said, "Holli." She heard it. She stayed. She held the current for four breaths and let it go clean. She opened her eyes. The pot was still. Her hand shook, but her hand. Void was watching her, not the water. "You were here the whole time," he said. "I was," she said. She wiped blood off her palm where the chip had cut through. She had done it. A name and a price, spoken and held, had kept her inside her body. She put the chip back in her pocket. It felt heavier. She understood now what an anchor cost the person who agreed to be one, and she understood she would have to ask him again.