Marrow Fen's Arc

Chapter 6 of 11

The tall shapes and the three dead were gone into the grey. Marrow stood on the hard ground at the Fen's edge with the black cat at their boots and the girl in the nightdress still beside them. She had not walked into the grey with the others. Marrow did not know why. The girl's hand was on Marrow's sleeve, and Marrow could see the weave of their own coat through her fingers. "They didn't take you," Marrow said. The girl shook her head. Her mouth moved. No sound came. She tried again and only a thin hiss came out, like wind under a door. She looked at her own hand and watched it thin. Her edges were going the way the fog girl's had gone. Marrow had seen it once already today and knew what came after. Marrow crouched and took stock. Knife. Water skin half full. Three strips of dried meat. A small flask their uncle had pressed on them the last time they went out, green glass with gold banding, stopper still sealed. He had said only, drink it if you are dying. Marrow had never opened it. The cat butted its head against the flask and sat down on the girl's bare foot, pinning it to the ground. The girl looked down. Her foot stayed where the cat was. "Shelter," Marrow said. "I need a roof. Now." They knew the tin-roofed shed on the east trail. Half a mile, maybe less, if the ground held the way ground was supposed to hold. Marrow lifted the girl. She weighed less than the coat. The cat trotted ahead three paces and looked back, the same way it had at the moss. They moved fast. The girl's head lay against Marrow's collar. Once she went so faint Marrow could see the trees through her shoulder, and Marrow shook her, and she came back a little. The cat stayed ahead. At the shed, Marrow kicked the door open and laid the girl on the plank floor. The cat jumped onto her chest and settled its full weight there. The girl did not lift. She stayed. Marrow understood the cat now. Marrow uncorked the flask. The stopper came free clean. The liquid inside caught the grey light and threw it back gold. Marrow tipped a drop onto the girl's lips. She did not swallow. Marrow tipped another. Her throat moved. Her hand closed on Marrow's wrist, and the grip had weight in it. Her edges firmed. Not solid. But held. Marrow sat back against the wall. Outside, a bird cut across the grey, dark and forked-tailed, gone before Marrow could name it. The girl breathed, or did the thing that passed for breathing. Five names on the bulletin board still. This one, whoever she was, was the first Marrow had kept. Marrow did not know her name yet. They would learn it, and then they would carry her home.