Nell Larkspur's Arc

Chapter 23 of 23

The clapping outside faded as the neighbors drifted back to their errands. Nell stayed in the doorway until his hand stopped shaking in Lena's. Moss watched them from behind the curtain, one bare foot balanced on the other. The boy had nowhere to sleep. Lena's father lay sick in the back room, and the shop had no space for a strange child with pointed ears. Nell knew what he had to offer, and he did not want to offer it. He had already taken up too much of her air. "He can come with me," Nell said. "Up the hill. There's a cot by the stove." Lena looked at Moss. Moss looked at the fox. The fox thumped her tail once against the floorboards. "Tonight?" Lena said. "Now," Nell said. "Before I wear out my welcome." She did not argue. She wrapped a heel of bread and a wedge of cheese in cloth and pressed it into Moss's hands. Then she pulled her shawl from the peg and followed them out. They walked up the path as the sun set behind the ridge. Moss kept close to Nell's leg. The fox trotted ahead, green tail flicking through the long grass. When the shack came into view on its hill, Moss stopped and stared at the carved beams above the door. Nell pushed the door open. The room smelled of pine and old smoke. Moss went straight to the cot by the hearth and sat down like he had always lived there. He unwrapped the bread and ate in small bites. His shoulders dropped for the first time all day. Lena stood in the doorway. "Will he be safe? This close to the trees?" "My mother is out there," Nell said. "She held them at the fence. She'll hold them at the tree line here too." He believed it. Saying it made it truer. Lena nodded. She looked at Moss, then at the fire, then at Nell. He drew a breath to say the thing he had been holding since the cellar. That he loved her. That he had known it since the fae circle. The fox pushed between them and rubbed her whole side against Lena's shin, chin to tail. Lena laughed, quiet, and crouched to scratch behind the leaf-shaped ears. "She's a good friend," Nell said. The words he'd meant to say folded back down his throat. "So are you," Lena said, casual, still scratching the fox. She stood and brushed her palms on her apron. "I should get back to Father and Linny. Thank you, Nell. For everything.” She touched Moss's hair on her way out. The door closed behind her. Nell stood by the hearth. Friend. He turned the word over. Maybe that was all she had ever meant. Maybe that was the honest shape of it, and he had been dressing it up in his own head. Moss looked up from his bread. "You're sad." "I'm fine." He sat down by the fire and did not look at the door.