Kaia Stormweaver's Arc

Chapter 2 of 6

The hummingbird was gone, and the light was going with it. Kaia stood at the edge of the marsh, bag heavy on her hip. She had followed the bird too far. The cove lay behind her now, hidden by reeds taller than her head. Ahead, water and mud stretched into shadow. The air turned cold against her wet ankles. She had no fire, no roof, and no path back she could trust in the dark. She made herself think. Night here meant cold and wet. She needed to be off the ground and covered before the light died. Kaia searched the marsh for anything useful. Her sandals sank in the mud with each step. On a hump of higher ground, she found it. A wide cushion of moss grew thick over a fallen log. She pressed her palm into it. Soft and springy, dry on top. She dug her fingers under the edge and pulled. Whole sheets came free, heavy and cool. She stacked them in her arms and carried load after load to a dry patch under a leaning tree. A branch snapped behind her. Kaia spun. A raccoon sat three feet away, watching her with round black eyes. Its ringed tail curled around its paws. It did not run. It tilted its head, then reached out and patted the pile of moss, as if testing her work. Kaia laughed, surprised. "That's mine," she said. "Find your own." The raccoon chirred and did not move. It seemed to have decided she was interesting. Kaia knelt and kept building her bed, and the animal crept closer, sniffing the moss and her sleeve. She named it in her head. Stan. It felt right for such a bold little thief. "Fine," she said. "You can watch." Stan settled at the base of the tree. Kaia worked faster now, oddly steadier with company. She layered the moss deep, a mattress between herself and the wet ground. Then she pulled more sheets over a low branch to make a roof, packing them tight so the cold could not slip through. When she crawled inside, the moss held her weight and gave back warmth. Dark came fast after that. The marsh filled with frog sound and the drip of water. Kaia lay in her nest of moss and did not shiver. Stan tucked himself against the moss wall, close but not touching, a warm shape in the black. She had beaten the night. But lying there, she saw what the day had cost her. She was deep in the marsh now, farther from the reef than she had ever meant to go. Her bag of flowers sat by her head, but the way home was lost in the dark. Morning would show her how far she had wandered. And Stan, she guessed, would still be there to see it.