Maddie Brightwell's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

They left the crystal pool before the mist burned off. Maddie kept the vessel tight against her ribs, wrapped again in the dish towel. Nadiya walked ahead. Credence walked behind. Tank trotted close to Maddie's boot, his short breaths loud in the quiet. Nadiya stopped where the willows thinned. She tilted her head. Her pointed ears caught something Maddie could not hear. "Something took the scent from the water," she said. "It's coming through the trees. It wants the bottle before dark." "What is it," Maddie said. "Not the thing under the pool. Something the pool woke by carrying the news." Nadiya turned to Credence. "A ram. Black. Old eyes. It heard the light move." Credence set a hand on Maddie's shoulder. "You can't outrun it with the bottle open to the air. And you can't cast light. So we hide the scent." "How." "Bury it." Credence pointed at a shallow hollow between two roots of a huge weeping willow. Its branches hummed faintly when the wind moved them. "Under the tree. Its roots eat sound and light. The ram won't sniff through them before nightfall. After dark, the scent cools. You come back for it at dawn." Maddie's hand closed harder on the towel. "Leave it here. Alone." "Yes," Nadiya said. "Or the ram takes it off your body." Tank pressed against her calf. "Do it, Mads," he said, low. "I can smell it already. Wet wool and rot." Maddie knelt at the roots. She dug with her hands until the dirt went cool and dark. She unwrapped the vessel one last time. Light poured up her wrists, warm on the burn scar under her linen. The little sun turned inside the glass. She thought of her grandmother, who had reached for something like this and lost. She set the bottle in the hole. She covered it with the towel, then the earth, then a flat stone. The willow's trailing leaves brushed her hair. The hum under the bark changed pitch, softer, like a mouth closing. They walked away fast. Behind them, hooves cracked a branch. Something snorted. Maddie did not look back. Nadiya led them uphill until the sound fell behind and the light drained out of the sky. At a shelf of stone above the valley, they stopped. Maddie sat down hard. Her hands were empty for the first time in three days. Her palms shook without the weight. "It worked," she said. "For tonight," Credence said. "You gave up the bottle to keep the bottle. Remember that trade. You will make it again." Nadiya looked toward the dark trees below. "At dawn we go back. If the willow still hums, the sun is still ours. If it's quiet, something dug faster than we thought." Maddie pulled her grandmother's sun pendant out from her collar and held it in her fist. She waited for morning.