Kate Bush's Arc

Chapter 6 of 21

Kate came down the rise with the collie ahead of her and Ollie at her shoulder. The pale girl in the trees did not move. She stood on cold ground in a thin dress, her feet bare, her hair the color of wet paper. Ollie went stiff when he saw her. He said her name once, flat. Lily. The girl turned her head but her eyes did not fix on him. She said, I can't find it. I left it somewhere in here. Kate crouched at the tree line. She kept her voice low. Lily, we came to help. Where did you go in? Lily pointed past her own shoulder without looking. In there. It was cold. I was looking for something. I don't remember what. Ollie said, we have to find her body before the pale woman does. Kate nodded. She checked the trees behind Lily. Mist sat between the trunks. Nothing moved yet. Nothing had sound. The collie went first. It put its nose to the ground and pushed into the trees. Kate followed with one hand on the seam of her coat pocket. Ollie walked beside Lily. Lily did not walk so much as drift, half a step behind the dog, her mouth open a little as if trying to taste the air. Kate counted her salt pouches by touch. Six. Four full, two half from practice. She had to make them last. The dog stopped at a hollow between two roots. Kate knelt. A shoe lay in the leaves. A red shoe with a heel, small, wrong for a child, wrong for these woods. Then the other, a step further in. Lily said, those aren't mine. Ollie said, keep going. The collie pushed deeper. Kate saw a shape then, half under a fallen branch. A girl's body on its side, pale dress, dark hair with leaves in it, one hand curled near her mouth. Lily made a small sound behind Kate. She said, that's me. The air changed. Kate felt it in her ears first, the way sound thinned. The collie's panting went quiet. Ollie's mouth moved with no words. Between two far trunks, Kate saw a shape stand up out of the mist. Long ears. Human shoulders. Not the pale woman. Something else, watching. Behind it, further back, a second shape moved, taller, whiter, and the trees near it went silent in a widening circle. Kate ripped a pouch. Salt hit a flat stone by her knee with a hard crack. The sound came back into the wood. The collie barked. Ollie shouted, now, put her back. Lily stepped past Kate and lay down along the length of her own body. She did not sink in. She did not vanish. She lay there, matched to it, and her eyes closed. The body's chest did not rise. But her hand, the ghost hand, curled around the body's wrist and stayed. Kate grabbed Lily's shoulder. It was solid. Cold, but solid. She said, get up, we run. Lily opened her eyes and stood. The hare-eared shape was closer. The white one behind it was closer still. Kate turned the group toward the pass and tore a second pouch as she went, salt trailing behind them on the stones like a white thread. Lily ran barefoot at her side, holding her own arm as if afraid it would come off. Behind them, in the trees, someone with her brother's voice called Kate's name once, low, and did not call again.