Marrow Fen's Arc

Chapter 1 of 11

Marrow Fen checked the bulletin board at the crossroads for the fourth day in a row. Their notice was still pinned where they left it, corners curled from rain. Below it hung six other pleas, each written by a different hand, each asking after someone who had walked toward the Fen's edge and not come back. Marrow had come to town to hire helpers. Instead they had become a list-keeper, memorizing the names of strangers' brothers and daughters, promising themself they would bring every one of them home. No one had answered Marrow's notice. The townspeople crossed the square with their eyes on their boots. Marrow's uncle had taught them how to read a trail and how to hold a knife, but he would not cross into the Fen himself, and neither would anyone here. A week ago Marrow's dog had followed them past the tree line and had not followed them back out. Three of their warning markers had been pulled from the north pass and stacked at their door in a burial pattern Marrow's grandmother used to draw in ash. Marrow had tried the Fen alone once already. Alone would not work again. Marrow was pulling the notice down to rewrite it when two strangers stopped at the board. The man wore a long dark coat and carried a brass instrument on a strap. The woman beside him held a candle stub and a paper folded into quarters. She had a red sleeve stained dark at the cuff. "You wrote this one," the woman said, tapping Marrow's notice. "Fen's edge. People not coming back." "Yes." "How many?" "Mine is one dog and three markers," Marrow said. "The board says six people." The man lifted the brass instrument. A needle inside it twitched toward the trees. "Sound goes missing out that way too," he said. "Not only at the hill." He lowered the device. "I am Mr. Echo. This is Kate Bush. Her brother went up the hill three years ago. We are looking for what takes people quietly." Kate Bush unfolded her paper and showed Marrow a short list of questions. "I climbed the hill. I did not get answers there. Your Fen is closer." She refolded the paper. "We will help you search. In exchange, you take us where the markers were moved." Marrow thought of the burial pattern at their door and the six names on the board. They thought of the dog. "Deal," they said. They pulled the notice down, folded it, and put it in their pocket. Then they wrote a new one and pinned it up: Search party forming. Meet at the north pass at dawn. Bring salt and a lantern. Above the words, in the corner, Marrow drew a small swallow so the families would know which notice was theirs to watch.