Marrow Fen's Arc

Chapter 7 of 11

The girl slept on the plank floor with the cat still on her chest. Marrow watched her edges hold and thought about the bulletin board back in town. Six names. Marrow had memorized them all. To get this girl home, Marrow needed her name. Without it, she was no one's daughter, no one's sister. She was just a shape in a nightdress on a shed floor. Marrow knelt beside her and asked. The girl's mouth moved. The hiss came out again, thin as a draft. She shook her head and touched her own throat. Marrow remembered the rule the dead boy Ollie had taught them by example in the moss: names went first when the Fen ate you. This girl had been in there too long. Marrow tried the alphabet. They tapped letters on the plank floor and watched her face. She flinched at nothing. She tried to shape a word and her lips made an O and then a soft sound like a puff of air, and then nothing. Her hand went to a spot above her collarbone and pressed there, hard, like she was trying to squeeze the word up. The cat's tail flicked once. Marrow uncorked the green flask again. One drop had firmed her. Two had brought her grip back. Marrow tipped a third onto her tongue. The girl swallowed. Her eyes cleared. She sat up under the cat and looked at Marrow with a whole face, present, awake. She opened her mouth. Nothing came. She tried again and put both hands over her mouth and started to cry without any sound at all. Outside the shed, a dog barked. Marrow knew the bark. It was their collie, the one the Fen had returned. The dog scratched at the door and Marrow let it in. It went straight to the girl and pushed its nose under her hand. The girl's fingers closed in the ruff. Then the collie turned its head toward the doorway and growled low. Two shapes stood in the grey outside. A tall rabbit man and a tall rabbit woman, spectral, armor at their shoulders, edges lit faint blue. They did not come in. The woman lifted one hand and pointed north, past the shed, past the trail Marrow knew. The man set a small glass jar down on the threshold. Runes moved on its bands. A soft light sat inside it, waiting. Then both figures thinned and were gone. Marrow picked up the jar. It was warm. Marrow understood. The girl's name was somewhere the girl could not reach, and these two knew where. Marrow had kept her alive. Marrow had not gotten her home. The shed door stood open on the north trail, and the collie was already at the threshold, looking back to see if Marrow would follow.