Melissa's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

The villa was not safe. It sat too close to the black shrine, deep in the Reach. Travelers passed the broken road nearby. Melissa knew it. Elias slept behind the iron shades now, but a village would fear her face and his gaze. She needed a home no one would find. Marcus told her of a woman who read the tides. "She knows every hidden place," he said. "If a door exists, she's seen it." They walked a day to reach her. She sat on a wet stone where a creek met the road. Shells hung in her braids. She did not look up when Melissa spoke. "I need a place to hide," Melissa said. "For me and a man I can't look at without stone glass between us." "You're the eyes," the sea witch said. She still watched the water. "The current pushed your name to me last week. Along with a body I never called for." She rose. "There's a cavern behind a fall of water. No road goes there. The stone drinks light. Good for a woman like you." "Take us," Melissa said. "There's a cost." Yemaya turned. Her eyes were hard. "A charm was stolen from me. Bone from my own grandmother. A serpent guards the water you want. Coral grown into its scales. It turns flesh to stone, same as you." She let that sit. "Kill it, and the cavern is yours. I won't say more." Melissa felt cold. "A serpent that petrifies. Like my curse." "Then you two should get along," Yemaya said, and led them. The fall of water hid the mouth of the cavern. Mist hung in the air. Melissa left Elias by a broken way-station up the slope, safe behind the iron shades. She stepped through the water alone. The serpent waited in the dark. Coral ridges branched from its back like red fire. Its eyes glowed. It reared and opened its mouth. Melissa lifted the stone locket from her eyes. She looked straight at the serpent. Her gaze met its gaze. For a breath neither moved. Then the coral stopped bending. The scales went gray. The serpent froze mid-strike, stone forever. Her curse had beaten its own. She pulled the locket back down and breathed. The cavern was hers. Yemaya stepped through the water and touched the stone serpent. "It's done," she said. "The place is yours. Dry. Dark. No eyes but yours." She looked at Melissa. "But I keep my word only halfway. I did not send you to the water by chance." She pointed at the frozen serpent's split scales, where something pale gleamed. "My grandmother's bone. The thief fed it to that thing. Now you've made it stone. And I still need it out." Melissa had a home at last. She also had a debt she had not agreed to, buried in stone she had made.