Kate Bush's Arc

Chapter 9 of 21

They walked north through wet pine and low mist. Kate held Will up on one side, Ollie on the other. Will's legs dragged. His feet had changed shape inside his shoes and he could not lift them clean. The collie moved ahead, nose down, checking the ground. The black cat kept pace at Will's heel. Kate could feel her brother's weight growing. Not heavier. Looser. Like something inside him was coming apart. Half a mile on, Will's knees gave. He went down in the wet leaves without a sound. Kate knelt over him. His eyes were still his, but the whites had gone gray. His hand in hers had stopped feeling like a hand. Ollie crouched across from her. "He's going," Ollie said. "The shape won't hold to the glade." Kate looked at the sky. The moon sat low and full above the pines, watching them the way she had watched at the salt line. Kate hated her. "How long?" Kate said. Ollie shook his head. "Before dawn we lose him. Sooner if he keeps slipping." Kate went through her pockets. Six salt pouches. A pencil stub. The folded list of questions. Nothing that could hold a body together. She had no jar this time. She had no voice to catch. She had a brother going soft in her arms under a moon that wanted them found. The cat stepped onto Will's chest. It sat there, small and heavy, and put one paw over his heart. Will's eyes moved to it. His breathing steadied. Not fixed. Steadied. Kate stared. She remembered what Ollie had told her once, that the dead spoke to animals when they could not speak to the living. The cat was doing something. Not healing him. Weighting him. Keeping him in the shape he still had. Kate pulled the list of questions from her coat. The paper Will had drawn the swallow on. She pressed it flat against his other hand and closed his fingers around it. "This is yours," she said. "You wrote your name inside it once. Hold it." His fingers closed. Weak, but they closed. She looked at Ollie. "We carry him. The cat rides. We don't stop." They lifted him between them. The collie took the lead again. The cat stayed on Will's chest, eyes forward, one paw over the paper and his heart together. Kate felt him settle in her arms. Still slipping. Slower now. She had bought time, not a cure. The moon above the ridge tracked them step for step. They walked until the trees thinned and a pale ring of oaks rose ahead. Nine of them, evenly spaced, waiting. Kate counted to the fourth and stepped through with her brother in her arms. Behind them the ring closed. Inside the glade, someone was already standing at the center stone, turned toward her.