Lena Marsh's Arc

Chapter 22 of 24

Lena went down the stair with the needle still warm in her hand. The bell had rung once and gone quiet. Linny reached the door first and stopped. Nell caught Lena's elbow on the last step. Forge set his good shoulder against the wall beside the frame. The door was not their door. The wood had gone pale and grained wrong, and a thin seam of silver light traced its edge. It opened without a hand on it. Polona stepped through into the shop. Silver hair, bright eyes, the same plain robe she had worn in the glen. She looked at the fox on the stair, then at Lena's fingers around the needle. "He is stronger," Polona said. "I felt it from the tree line." "He is," Lena said. "Then the shirt is working. Then our terms are due." Linny stepped in front of Lena. "She hasn't finished." "The bargain was after the shirt is completed," Polona said. "I am early. I am also patient. I will take what I came for and wait for the rest." Nell's jaw set. He did not speak. He had his own debt with her, and they both knew it. Lena moved Linny aside. She had agreed. She had known the cost when she took the needle. She held out her hands, palms up. "Take it," she said. Polona set two fingers against Lena's sternum. The shop went still. The fox's ears flattened. A pull started under Lena's ribs, careful, like a thread being drawn through cloth. The pull found nothing. Polona frowned. She tried again. Her fingers pressed harder. Lena felt the tug reach deeper, into the place where her mother's songs used to sit when she was small. The place was warm. The place was full. But there was no loose end for Polona to catch. Polona lowered her hand. "Well," she said. "Well what," Linny said. Polona kept her eyes on Lena. "Your mother's power was lost inside you. You did not know where it went. Neither did I." A small smile lifted one corner of her mouth. "Every thread. Every stitch. You spent it back into yourself." "So you can't take it," Lena said. "I cannot collect what is no longer lost." Polona tipped her head. "The terms named a lost gift. The gift is found. The debt is void." Forge exhaled. Linny did not. "That's it?" Linny said. "That is it," Polona said. She looked once at Nell. "His debt, however, will come due…soon." She stepped back through the pale door. The seam closed. The wood of the shop door was ordinary again. Lena sat down on the bottom stair. The needle was still warm. Her hands were steady. Upstairs her father breathed in, breathed out, each one stronger than the last.