Mason Crafton's Arc

Chapter 10 of 15

Mason turned back up the slope instead of down. The birdbath could wait. Emma and Lily could not. Both girls stood on the path with their eyes fixed on Mason's hands, on the pink cloth, on the earring at Emma's throat. If they ran home now, the story would reach the valley by dusk, and the princess would hear that a stranger held her lost stud and the prince's cloth on the mountain. Mason had to keep them here, or turn them, before they could speak. "Come with me to the shelter," Mason said. "Both of you. It's close. Lily needs to sit." Emma did not lower the knife. "Why should we?" she said. Mason pointed at the scree above them. Fenwick Hollow still crouched at the edge of the laurel, watching. "He tracks by sound. If you run down alone, he follows. If you stay with me and the cloth, he lets you pass." It was half true. Fenwick had not moved since smelling the prince. But Emma looked at her sister's bare feet and lowered the knife an inch. They walked. Mason kept the cloth in front like a lantern. Halfway down to the shelter, two boys stepped from the rocks. Max and Oliver Cooper, the same brothers Mason had used at the swamp house. Max held the kitchen knife now. Behind them stood a smaller boy Mason had seen once at the market — Ethan Rivera, valley boy, no business here. "You said the pink cloth was a lie," Max said. "You made us tell the prince wrong." His voice was flat. "Our dad is still in the woods." Mason stopped on the path. Four children, one knife, one earring, one cloth. Any of them could carry the story down. Mason made the choice fast. "I lied to the prince," Mason said. "Not to you. The prince and princess do not own this forest. They command the dragon and they keep it from you. Your father went in three days ago because no one told him where the safe path was. I know the safe path." Mason held out the pink cloth to Max. "This keeps the deep creatures off. Take it. Find your father. Do not go home first." Max took the cloth. Oliver grabbed his brother's sleeve. Ethan stared at the earring on Emma's chain, then at Mason. "What about her?" Ethan said. Mason turned to Emma. "The stud is the princess's. If you give it back, she thanks you and forgets you. If you give it to me, I put an end to her hold on the dragon, and the forest opens." Emma looked at Lily. Lily was chewing her thumb, tired, done. Emma lifted the chain over her head and dropped it into Mason's palm. Mason closed their hand around the stud. The boys went uphill with the cloth. Emma carried Lily down toward the shelter, not the valley. No one was running home. Mason had the jewel now, freely given, and four witnesses bound by their own errands into silence. The bird was still the missing piece. But the mountain path was clear, and the princess did not yet know her stud was gone.