Jordin Yu's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Ray still had not let go of the page. Jordin held one edge; Ray held the other. The hut behind Ray smelled of dried herbs and wet wood. The thing that had moved in the dark stepped forward into the lamplight and became a man. Slightly Hispanic-looking, denim vest, hands out of his pockets now. Ray's alien companion, the one Ray covered for. Pablo did not look at Jordin. He looked at the page. "You want it," Ray said. "I keep it. That's the deal I made with myself a long time ago." "I need to read it," Jordin said. "I wrote it. I don't remember writing it." "That's your problem." Ray's voice went flat. "Not mine." Jordin's hand shook on the paper. Six days without sleep pressed behind his eyes. He could rip it. He could run. He would lose half and Ray would lose half and Marshwood would keep cracking. He let go. "Then let me copy it," he said. "Here. In front of you. The page stays with you." Ray's jaw worked. Pablo spoke for the first time. "Fair." One word, dropped like a stone. Ray looked at him. Pablo shrugged. "He bleeds. You saw." Ray folded the page once and set it on the plank table. He did not sit. "You bring what you have." Jordin pulled the sheet from his jacket. Translucent vellum, faint guide marks, the last clean one from his desk. He also set down the worn leather satchel he'd carried from Ray's own porch step — the one Ray had left there weeks ago and never come back for. Ray stared at it. It had been his great-uncle's. Jordin had kept it dry. "Trade," Jordin said. "The bag for an hour with the page." Ray picked up the satchel. He turned it over. His thumb found a stitch he must have known by feel. He set it down on his side of the table. "One hour," Ray said. "I watch." Jordin laid the vellum over the torn page and began to trace. His own handwriting came up through the sheet, letters he did not remember shaping. 1692. Marshwood witch trials. Names crossed out. A curse laid into the soil. A second block of writing below in a script that tilted the wrong way, as if written by someone else using his hand. He copied every mark. His nose started to bleed again near the end. He wiped it on his sleeve and kept tracing. When the hour closed, Ray took the original back and slid it inside his jacket. Jordin folded the vellum against his chest. "Read it somewhere I'm not," Ray said. Jordin walked out onto the wooden stair. He had the copy. He could not yet read the second hand on the page, and he did not know whose it was. That was the next problem. He went to find someone who might.