Kate Bush's Arc

Chapter 1 of 21

Kate Bush stood at the base of the hill with salt in one pocket, a candle in the other, and a folded list of questions pressed against her ribs. Three years ago in February, her brother said he would be back for lunch. She made soup. He never came home. Everyone in Copsefire knew the hill was haunted, and he had known too, and he had gone up anyway. Kate had climbed it once and turned back. Today she meant to reach the top and ask the ghost what happened. She listened first. People said the ghost spoke from the peak, and if you were quiet enough at the base, you could catch the shape of a word. Kate held her breath until her chest ached. Wind moved through a cherry tree beside the path, shaking pink petals onto her boots. A peach tree stood further up the slope, fruit heavy on its branches out of season. She heard the leaves. She heard her own pulse. She did not hear a voice. A girl stepped out from behind the cherry tree with a canvas bag on her hip. Marrow Fen. Kate knew her from the notices pinned around town, the ones asking for help at the Fen's edge. Marrow looked at the salt line spilling from Kate's pocket and said, "You won't hear it from down here. Nobody does." Kate asked how she knew. Marrow said, "I've watched people try. They climb toward nothing and they don't come back the same." A man came down the path behind Marrow, holding a wooden box strung with copper wire. He introduced himself as Mr. Echo. He set the box on a flat stone and turned a dial. The needle inside twitched, then held still. "There is a voice up there," he said. "It is not loud enough to travel. My device measures where sound goes missing. Something at the top is swallowing it." He tapped the glass. "Your brother's name. Say it here." Kate said it. The needle jumped hard toward the peak, then fell dead. Mr. Echo opened his coat and took out a glass jar sealed with a carved lid, runes cut around its rim. "This holds sound the way a lantern holds flame," he said. "Speak your questions into it at the top. Bring it back down. I can pull the ghost's answer out of the silence it leaves behind." He pressed the jar into Kate's hands. It was warm. Marrow said, "I'll walk you as far as the second bend. After that you go alone. My dog went past that line and did not come out." Kate put the jar in her coat. She left the salt and the candle at the base of the cherry tree. Her list of questions she kept. She started up the hill with Marrow at her shoulder and Mr. Echo watching the needle behind her. The path narrowed. The wind stopped. She climbed toward the silence with something now to carry it home in.