Iris Meadowrest's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The tether held through the night, but Iris could not read it. Iris sat on the tomb step at dawn with a hand on the catnip and felt only warmth. Warmth did not tell them when. If the sleeper rose while Iris was in town buying feed, or asleep in the cottage, it would surface among the cats with no one to answer for it. Iris needed a signal. A bell. Something that would pull them back to the tomb before the ground opened. Iris tried the obvious thing first. Iris strung a length of twine from the catnip patch to the cottage door and tied a tin cup to the end. If the ground moved, the cup would fall. By noon a crow had knocked the cup off twice. Iris cut the twine down. Iris was still holding the twine when the ghost girl stepped out from behind a memorial stone. Bare feet. White nightgown. The same girl from yesterday. Iris had not learned her name. "That won't work," the girl said. "String breaks. Cups fall for nothing." "I know," Iris said. "Do you have a better idea?" The girl looked at the catnip. "Flowers turn. When something reaches for the living, flowers turn toward it. I saw it once in a garden by a chalet." "I don't have those flowers." "Plant some." She shrugged. "Or ask her." She pointed past the yew. Meridian Gravesight stood at the gate with her staff, as if she had been waiting for Iris to run out of bad ideas. Iris walked over. Meridian did not open the gate. "You felt it move," Iris said. "My teeth felt it," Meridian said. "It's climbing slow. You'll get days, not hours. But you need to know the hour." "Tell me how." Meridian reached into her robe and set a small wooden chest on the top of the gatepost. Iron corners, worn lid. "Bury this at the catnip. Keep the key on you. When the sleeper is one night from the surface, the lid will lift on its own. You'll hear it wherever you are, if it's yours." "If it's mine?" "You tethered it with your salt. It's yours." Meridian pushed the chest across the stone. "Don't open it before it opens itself." Iris carried the chest to the tomb. The three-legged white cat watched from the moss. Iris dug a shallow bed in the catnip, set the chest inside, and pressed the earth back over the lid. Iris kept the key on a cord around their neck. The ghost girl was already turning away. "What's your name?" Iris asked. "Lily," she said, and did not stop walking. Iris sat by the tomb until dark. The chest was quiet under the soil. The cord was warm against Iris's skin. When the lid moved, Iris would know. Iris would be here when the ground opened, and not somewhere else.