Nell Larkspur's Arc

Chapter 21 of 23

Nell looked at Lena. He had rehearsed the words on the ridge, in the cellar, on the walk down. They were gone now. Her hand rested on his knee. Her nails were blue at the tips. He opened his mouth. "You," he said. Nothing else came. He swallowed. "I—" He tried again. The word he wanted sat like a stone behind his teeth. He looked at the floor. A drop of blood from his sleeve had made a dark coin on the boards. Beyond the shop window, a woman with a basket stopped and cupped her hands to the glass. She saw him. She moved on quick. "They saw," Nell said. That word came easy. Fear was easier than the other thing. "The window. They saw me bleeding on your floor. Pointed ears. Green in them." He met her eyes. "It will be at Hild's door before noon." Lena did not look at the window. She kept looking at him. "His father threw mine out of this village," Nell said. "Marched him past the last house with dogs. I was not born yet. My mother told me at the tree line, once. Hild grew up on that story. He will finish it." His hands shook on his knees. "Not just me. You. Your father. Linny. He has cause now. He has witnesses." She was quiet. He thought she was working out how to send him off. It would be sensible. He would go. "Nell," she said. "Look at me." He looked. "I know what he is," she said. "He’s been coming for our family, our shop, for years." She wiped her thumb under his eye. "He was coming for us anyway." He stared at her. "You never said." "I am saying now." "Lena—" "I am not sending you out that door," she said. "Not to the woods. Not to him. If he wants this shop he can come and take it while you are sitting on my couch." The fox padded in from the front and set her chin on Nell's boot. The green tail curled around his ankle. From behind the curtain came the small sound of Linny speaking low to her father, and a thin chitter he knew—the chipmunk in her pocket, the one Lena had made a coat for from nothing. He found her hand and held it. "I meant to say something else," he said. "Before all that." "I know," Lena said. "Say it later." Outside, boots struck the cobbles at a pace that was not a neighbor's. Two sets. Three. They stopped at the shop door. A gloved hand rapped the wood, polite, three times. Lena stood. She did not let go of his hand. "Stay sitting," she said, and went to answer it.