Kate Bush's Arc

Chapter 18 of 21

Will sat up against the wall of Creakfall House and rubbed his throat. His color was back. His fingers held their edges. Outside, the thing on the porch shifted its weight and a board groaned. Kate looked at the door. The collie had not moved. Marrow kept her hand on the dog's back. Mr. Echo held the brass box on his knee but did not open it. Kate understood what the quiet meant. They could keep Will inside. They could not walk out. Elara Rootwhisper packed her empty bottles into the satchel. "He is bound now. The hum stays in his blood. But you brought the hunter here on his voice, and it will not leave while he breathes inside these walls." She looked at Kate. "You wanted him whole. He is whole. Now you cannot carry him out." "Can you kill it?" Kate asked. "No," Elara said. "I can send it looking somewhere else. For a price I do not want to pay again." She reached into the satchel and set a tall bottle on the boards. Purple smoke curled inside the glass. "This was made for a ghost boy who needed to walk between. It will pull a spirit halfway out and drag it far from here. The creature follows spirits. It will follow this one." A gray shape stepped from the back room where no one had been. Elspeth Moonwhisper. She stood barefoot on the warped floor and looked at the bottle. "That is mine to drink," she said. "I am not ready." "You will never be ready," Elara said. "You broke a promise to a child. This buys the boy time to keep his sister alive. Count it toward the debt." Elspeth did not answer for a long moment. Then she picked up the bottle. Her hand shook once and steadied. She uncorked it and drank. The smoke went into her mouth and out through her ribs. Her outline thinned. A pull started at her chest, tugging her toward the broken window at the north wall. "Open the door when I am past the porch," Elspeth said. "It will chase me across the ghost orchard and lose the house. Take him out the south side. Walk. Do not run." She stepped through the wall as if it were fog. Outside, something on the porch made a wet sound and turned. Boards cracked as it moved off the steps toward the north. Kate waited a slow count of ten. Then she lifted Will by the arm. He stood on his own. Marrow opened the south door. The collie went first. Mr. Echo went last with the box ready. They walked into the cold light between the pale fruit trees, and no one came after them. Behind them, Elspeth's pull thinned and thinned across the field, carrying the hunter away from her brother for as long as she could hold.