Linny Marsh's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

Linny stood in the flat, wrong light of the clearing and felt the air change. The wind dropped first. Then it came back cold enough to sting her teeth. Ice began to tick against the branches behind her. She turned and saw a wall of gray sliding through the frostwood trunks. A squall. She had maybe two minutes. Her paints were in her coat. Her hands were bare. If the paints froze they would crack the tubes. If her fingers froze she could not untie a knot or hold a brush again for days. She needed walls and a roof, and she had neither. She ran back to the tree line. The gray creature was already up, ears forward, watching the squall come. It turned and trotted along the edge of the clearing, low to the ground on its short legs, its long back swaying. It stopped at the base of a leaning frostwood and looked at her. "Show me," Linny said. The creature squeezed under the trunk and vanished. She dropped to her knees and looked. The tree had fallen against another and left a dry gap beneath, floored with old needles. Not big. Big enough. The first hard gust hit her back. She shoved her bundle in ahead of her and crawled after it. Snow chased her in. She kicked it out with her boot and pulled her blanket across the opening, wedging the edge under the trunk with her knife handle. Inside it was dark and close and smelled of sap. The creature was already curled at the far end, watching her with its wet, forward eyes. Its body took up half the hollow. Its fur gave off a low, steady heat. Linny worked fast. She dug her paint tubes out and pushed them under her shirt against her stomach. She flexed her fingers until they hurt. She wrapped her hands in the ragged hem of her coat, the same painted cloth she had cut her markers from. Outside, the squall closed over the clearing. Ice hit the blanket like sand. She pressed her back to the creature's side. It did not move away. Its ribs rose and fell against her spine. She held her hands under her arms and counted her breaths until they slowed. When the wind eased she lifted a corner of the blanket. The clearing was gone. Her twelve markers were gone. Snow lay a hand deep on everything, unbroken and blue in the dusk. The way back was buried. Linny let the blanket fall. Her paints were warm against her skin. Her fingers worked. She was alive, and she was lost. The creature huffed once and settled its flat head on its paws. "Tomorrow," she told it. "You take me the rest of the way." It closed its eyes. Linny did not.