Jack Timber's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Jack stopped at the edge of the grove with the tempered axe across his shoulder. Two pines stood ahead. Both looked the same to him. Both had bark like scabbed skin and needles the color of old blood. He had one clean swing at each. Pick wrong, waste it on the stronger tree, and the blade would chip before he reached the weaker one. Then the wolves would come back at dusk and find him with nothing. He needed to know which pine to take first. He turned away from the grove and cut down through the fields toward the graveyard. He had heard the villagers speak of the ghost girl who lived there. They said she asked the dead things the living could not. The graveyard sat behind a low iron fence. Carved pumpkins burned on the paving stones. The trees inside had no leaves, only bare fingers. A small figure sat on a headstone, barefoot, her hair the color of pond ice. She was reading a book with a locked clasp. She did not look up when Jack's boots hit the gate. "You're loud for a man with a candle for a face," she said. "Seraphine Graves." "Jack Timber." She turned a page. Symbols on the paper moved when he tried to focus on them. "You want to know which tree dies easier." "Someone told you." "The builder told me." She nodded toward a grave at the back with black flowers on it. "He watches the grove. He says the north pine has a split root. Lightning, forty years ago. The heartwood on the east side is soft." "And the other one." "Sound as stone. Save it for last. Your axe won't survive it if you go the other way." Jack shifted the haft on his shoulder. "Why help me." She closed the book. Her eyes were too pale. "The roots choke the graves too. My dead are hungry. Cut the pines and they feed." He nodded once and turned to go. "Timber." He looked back. "Strike the north pine from the east. One swing. The wolves smell blood on the wind already." Jack ran the cart track back to the grove. The sun sat a hand above the ridge. He circled the north pine and found the split root under moss, exactly where she had said. He set his feet on the east side. The bark there gave under his thumb like bruised fruit. He swung. The axe went in to the eye. The pine screamed, a long thin note, and split down the trunk in a black seam. It came down away from him and shook the ground. The blade came out clean. No chips. No new teeth in the edge. One tree left. One swing left. Jack pulled the axe free and heard, from the ridge above the grove, the first wolf answer the pine's scream.