Lena Marsh's Arc

Chapter 8 of 24

Lena slept an hour and woke worse than she'd hoped and better than she deserved. Nell had the door open before she'd tied her boots. Linny went ahead with the fox. Forge stayed back at the shop to sit with their father. The walk to the library was short and cold. Lena kept a hand on Nell's arm and pretended she didn't need it. The library rose off the square in dark stone, its tower thin against the sky. Colored glass held pictures Lena had never learned the meaning of. Linny pushed the door and the smell of old paper hit them. Fern stood behind the front table with her staff across it, the red crystal dull in the low light. Her glasses swallowed half her face. She looked at Lena. Then she looked at Linny and her mouth thinned. "You brought her," Fern said. "She's my sister," Lena said. "I know what she is." Fern set both hands on the staff. "Say what you came for." "A needle," Lena said. "Polona said you know how to find it. The one that can sew a living thing into cloth without killing it." "I know where the map to it is kept." Fern's eyes did not leave her. "What are you offering." "I have nothing to trade," Lena said. "I know that. I came anyway." "Then go home." Lena's hands stayed still at her sides. She made them move. "My mother had songs. She wrote them down. I can give you one. The one she sang the night my sister was born. No one else has it." Fern's face did not change. "One song. For a needle that no living person has held in forty years." "Ten, then. All of them." "Not enough." Nell stepped forward. "Take mine." Fern's eyes cut to him. "Yours what." "The true story," Nell said. "Why my mother left the fae. Not the one the village tells. The one no one has." The room went still. Linny turned her head. Lena felt her own breath stop. "Nell," Lena said. "It's mine to give," he said. He did not look at her. Fern lowered herself onto her stool. She uncapped an inkwell and set out a clean page. "Sit," she said. "Slowly. I want every name." He sat. He spoke for a long time in short flat sentences. Lena heard a bargain broken, a child promised, a knife, a river. She heard why the fae had not forgiven his mother, and why they would not forgive him. When he stopped, Fern's pen kept moving for another minute. Then she blotted the page and closed the book. She reached atop her staff and pulled off the red crystal. It caught the colored light and threw it back white. "It will guide you to the needle," Fern said. "Do not lose it. Ill need it back." Lena took it. It was warm. Nell would not meet her eyes.