Moon Wanderwood's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Moon sat on the cottage step beside the fox. Her atlas lay open on her knees. It showed the wagon and three paths, but not this hollow. She had reached the cottage by following a tail, not a count. Unless she could tie this place to her wagon, it would never touch her map. "I need a line home I can't lose," she said. The fox tipped its head, as if listening. She stood and tried the cottage door. It swung open. Inside, by the cold hearth, sat a chest of pink and teal wood. Its lid lay back. Jewels spilled over the rim, red and green and white, bright in the dim room. Pearls rolled loose among them. Moon knelt and lifted a handful. They caught the firelight and shone. Then she understood. She did not need to remember numbers. She could lay a trail she could see. "Markers," she whispered. "One every ten steps. Back to the wagon." She filled her pockets. The fox trotted to the door and looked back, ready to lead again. "No," Moon said. "This time I follow you, but I mark the way. Then I can walk it alone." They set off. The fox wove through the thick trees. Moon counted ten steps, stopped, and pressed a jewel into the moss at the foot of a trunk. A red stone winked up at her. Ten more steps. A pearl on a flat root. The paths twisted, but her bright stones did not move. They stayed where she left them, fixed like her wagon. She counted each gap, not the whole long walk. Ten was easy to hold. When wisteria brushed her face, she did not lose her place. The last jewel sat behind her, plain to see. She could always count from there. The trees thinned. There stood her wagon, round and painted, right where she had left it. Moon pressed the final stone into the dirt beside its wheel. She turned and looked back. A line of winking jewels led into the trees, each one ten steps from the last. She opened her atlas on the wagon step. She drew the wagon first. Then she marked each jewel, a dot for every ten steps, counting the gaps she had just walked. The dots curved north and east, past the hollow, to the cottage. Her pencil touched the last point. She drew a small square and a curl of smoke. The cottage sat on her map now. Not a memory. A path of stones she could walk again, and again, without the fox. Moon looked at the trail of jewels. One cottage was pinned. The forest held more, each hidden, each uncounted. But now she had a method that would not break. She closed the atlas and pocketed a last red stone. Tomorrow she would follow the smoke and lay another line.