Linny Marsh's Arc

Chapter 11 of 22

Linny kept her back to the sound. The stone glowed under her knee. The sharpened stick trembled in her grip, but she held it steady. Whoever stood behind her had walked into a grove of ice-locked trees without breaking a twig. That meant they belonged here. She did not. "You're a long way from a fire," a voice said. A girl's voice. Young, but not soft. Linny turned on her heel and rose. The stranger stood five paces off, between two frost-laden trunks. She wore a thin green dress and no coat. Her arms were bare. Her feet were bare. Snow sat on the branches above her and did not fall. She looked warm the way a lit window looks warm from outside. Linny's own fingers were numb inside her painted sleeves. "What are you doing here?" the girl asked. "Studying the light." Linny lowered the stick but did not drop it. "Who are you?" The girl did not answer. She looked at the sketchbook under Linny's knee, then at the stone, then at Linny's face. Her eyes moved like she was counting. "I'm looking for a place," Linny said. "Three painters put it on canvas. They painted the light flat, like this. I came to find the rest of it." "It doesn't exist." "It does. I'm standing in a piece of it." The girl almost smiled. "A piece is not the place. And if the place existed, you wouldn't be the one to find it. You aren't worthy of it." Linny's face went hot. "You don't know me." "I know you brought a stick to a doorway." Linny opened her mouth to argue. The girl walked past her before the words came. She stepped over the stone without looking down. On the far side of it, between one step and the next, she was gone. No flash. No sound. The snow where her bare foot had pressed held the print for a breath, then filled itself in. Linny lunged. She dropped the stick and put both hands on the stone and stepped across it the way the girl had stepped. Her boot came down in snow. Just snow. She tried again from the other side. She walked around the stone. She knelt and pressed her palm flat to the warm surface and said, "Please." The light did not change. The grove did not open. Whatever door had been there was a door only for the girl. Linny sat back on her heels. Her breath fogged. The stone kept glowing, indifferent. She pulled the sketch out from under her knee. The square of flat light was still correct. She had proof now that the place was real and that someone guarded its threshold. She also had proof that the threshold would not open for her. She folded the paper into her inside pocket. She picked up the stick. She would have to find another way in.