Nettle Reed's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Nettle waded back to the marble sculptor and followed the line of his lifted hands. They pointed down into a black pool where thick, thorny vines coiled across the surface. The tendrils moved slow, like sleeping snakes. Whatever he was showing her lay beneath them. She crouched on a half-sunk stone and stared. Through a gap in the writhing vines, she saw rust-orange bars wavering under the water. A gate. Something was caged, or something was kept out. Her sister's face flickered behind her eyes. She rolled up her sleeve. Nettle pushed her arm through the gap. A thorny tendril brushed her wrist and tightened. She did not pull back. Her fingers found cold iron, then a slot in the bars, then a small object wedged inside — flat, hard, carved. She tugged it free as the vine bit into her skin. Blood threaded the water. She yanked her arm out and fell backward onto the root. In her shaking palm lay a wooden token, no bigger than a coin. A face was carved into it. A face she had been trying to find for three years. She opened her tablet and pressed the token beside her sketch. Her hand was bleeding, but she was smiling. The swamp had let her keep it. For now.