Kat's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Kat stood over the round dent in the soil. The vine turtle had been dragged away. Kat could see the drag marks, but there were too many. Dozens of scuffed lines cut across the dirt, crossing and looping. Any one of them could mark the true path. Kat knelt and studied the ground, but the marks all looked the same. Pick wrong, and the witness would be lost for good. Kat pressed their palm flat to the deepest scuff. The soil felt damp there, colder than the rest. Something wet had crossed this ground. Kat leaned close and breathed through the gaps in their skull. Under the petals and earth came a new smell. Salt. Brine. The sea. A sound scraped behind Kat. They turned. Something moved between the flower rows, low and dark. Red streaks flashed along its body. Eight arms pulled it forward across the dirt, each one leaving a fresh scuffed line. Two huge round eyes rolled toward Kat, wobbling as it moved. An octopus, far from any water, dragging itself through the garden. Kat froze. The creature stopped. It lifted one arm and pointed at the ground, then curled the arm back and pointed again at the same spot. Kat looked where it pointed. One drag mark ran deeper than the others. Wet. Salted. It matched the cold trail under Kat's hand. "You made these marks," Kat said. Their voice scraped. "All of them. But you're showing me the real one." The octopus blinked its wobbling eyes. It slid one arm along the deep track, tracing it toward the garden's far edge. Then it lifted the arm and pointed away, past the flowers, toward a low gap in the brush. The creature had crawled every false line to hide the true one. Now it chose to reveal it. Kat stood and followed the wet track with their eyes. It ran straight and unbroken toward the gap, away from all the tangled marks. The salt smell grew stronger the closer the track came to the brush. Whoever took the turtle had gone toward water. Kat looked back at the octopus. "Why help me?" The creature only pulled itself onto the deep track and waited, arms coiled, eyes fixed on Kat. It would not answer. But it had already answered enough. Kat stepped onto the wet trail. The false marks fell away behind them. Ahead lay one path, salted and clear, leading past the garden toward the sea. The witness that watched their family taken had been dragged toward water. Kat could not tell why, or by whom. But the trail no longer forked. For the first time since the garden emptied, Kat knew exactly where to go.