Melodius Longwood's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Melodius lowered the flute. The vision of the smiling woman still burned behind his eyes, but a second face crowded in beside it — a woman he had passed at the edge of the trees an hour before dusk. She had stopped when she saw him. She had spoken a name that was not Melodius. Then she had turned and run. "There was someone else," he said. "Before I found you. In the trees. She knew me." Roswyn set her clay disk on a flat stone. The winged puppy on her shoulder yawned. "Knew you how?" "She called me a name. I didn't catch it. She ran before I could ask." "Red hair? Green cloak? Limps on the left?" "Red hair. I didn't see the rest." Roswyn wiped her hands on her dress. "There's a cottage past the ridge. Moss roof. An old woman lives there and brews for anyone who knocks. Red-haired travelers pass through. She'll know who." She led him up a footpath through ferns. The cottage sat in a hollow, its round door set into a hill of moss. A stone hearth smoked outside. No one answered the door. Roswyn pushed it open. Inside, shelves climbed the walls. Bottles in every color hung on hooks. An open book lay on a table beside a cold cauldron. Dried herbs swung from the beams. Melodius craned his neck under the low ceiling and stopped. On the table sat a wooden cup. Dark stain along the rim. The same cup from the vision. "Roswyn." She followed his eyes. "That's hers?" "That's the one I drank from." He turned the cup. A curl of red hair was caught under the base, pressed into a bead of dried wax. He held it up. Roswyn stared. "The woman in the trees," he said. "She was here. Recently." A sound came from under the floor. A slow scraping. Melodius stepped back. A round hatch in the corner lifted, and a long silver head pushed up through it — a burrow-wyrm the length of his arm, scales pale as moonlight, gemstones set along its jaw. It blinked at them without fear. "She feeds it," Roswyn said. "So she does live here." The wyrm nosed the cup, then Melodius's hand. It made a low sound that was almost a word. Then it turned and slid back into its hole, tail flicking once. Melodius pocketed the strand of hair. "She poisoned me here. In this room. And the other one — the one in the trees — knew me before that." "Two women," Roswyn said. "One who took your memory. One who might give it back." "And I don't know which is which." He looked at the open book on the table. The page showed a recipe written in a slanted hand. Halfway down, one line was underlined twice. His own name — the name he did not remember — was written in the margin.