Orin Wanderwood's Arc

Chapter 5 of 26

Orin walked in front with his hands where Marrow could see them. The plum twig pressed against his chest under his shirt. Behind them, the reeds hissed. Not wind. Something moving through them at a steady pace, matching their speed. Marrow glanced back once and did not glance again. "It's out of the Fen," she said. "It's on the road now. Walk faster." The road was two ruts in packed dirt. Ahead, a lantern burned low on a stump. That was her camp — a canvas lean-to, a fire pit, a pack. A man sat by the pit with a small brass box on his knee. Black coat, black hair, a white rabbit at his feet, ears up. He looked at Orin, then past him, at the thing following. "It's close," he said. "The box is losing sound at ten paces behind you." "Mr. Echo," Marrow said. "I told you to wait at the pass." He did not answer. He turned a dial on the brass box. The needle jumped and held. "It eats sound," he said. "Same as her. Different mouth." Orin stopped at the fire. The hare-eared shape stepped onto the road behind them. Tall. Thin. The ears were the only part of it that moved. Marrow drew her knife. Mr. Echo stood up slow. "A knife won't reach it," he said. "It goes quiet before the blade lands." He looked at Orin. "You brought something out with you. From in there." Orin pulled the plum twig from his shirt. Three bruised blossoms still clung to it. He did not know why he offered it. He held it out. Mr. Echo took it, looked at it once, and crushed the blossoms in his fist. The scent came up sharp and sweet. The rabbit at his feet bolted straight at the hare-eared thing. The thing turned its head to track the rabbit. In that half-second, Mr. Echo threw the brass box into the fire pit. It burst open. Every sound the box had swallowed for a year came out at once — screams, church bells, a dog barking, a woman singing. The road roared. The hare-eared thing folded in on itself like paper in water. It did not run. It came apart. The ears fell last, twitching in the dirt, then gone. The rabbit trotted back and sat by the ashes of the box. Marrow lowered her knife. Her hand shook once, then stopped. Mr. Echo looked at the empty road. "That was the last one I had," he said. "Three years of listening." Orin sat down hard in the dirt. The twig lay broken in Mr. Echo's palm. Marrow crouched in front of Orin. "You're not the man on the notice," she said. "That thing wanted you specific. Nobody hunts a killer that hard." She stood. "In the morning we go to Copsefire. There's a woman there looking for her brother. You and her should talk."