Orin Wanderwood's Arc

Chapter 7 of 26

Kate's door closed behind them. The room was small. A table, two chairs, a stove gone cold. Orin took the chair by the wall so his back wasn't to the window. Marrow stayed by the door. Mr. Echo did not come in. Through the thin glass Orin could see him at the road, the white rabbit at his boot, both watching the tree line where the long-eared shape had stood. Kate set the bucket on the floor. "Someone saw you at the well," she said. "By tonight the whole street will know a boy walked out of the Fen. Marrow's notice has your face on it." "I know," Orin said. He had felt it the moment the woman across the road stepped out onto her step and did not step back in. He had felt it in the two men who stopped talking by the cart. "I need to find Lily. I can't do that from a cell." Marrow spoke from the door. "Notice says you killed a woman at the north pass. Reward's forty silver. Half this town would take it." She looked at Kate. "He didn't do it. I'm sure now. But sure doesn't matter to a rope." Kate stood at the window a long moment. Then she walked to a shelf above the stove and lifted down a small painted panel. A dark swallow flying under a thin moon. She turned it over. Underneath, tucked into the frame, was a folded paper. She unfolded it on the table. It was the wanted notice. Orin's face, badly drawn, the words KILLER and REWARD in heavy ink. "My brother left this here before he went up," she said. "He said the woman at the pass was killed by the pale one on the hill. Not by a boy. He wrote it on the back." She turned the paper. There were three lines in a cramped hand. A name. A date. And the words: the pale woman did this. "Will saw it happen." Orin read the lines twice. His hands were flat on the table to keep them still. "Then take it to whoever holds the warrant here," he said. "Before someone at the well decides to be brave." Kate folded the paper. "The constable drinks with my father. He'll listen once. That's all we get." She looked at Marrow. "You come. You're the bounty on the notice. If you say he's cleared, it holds." Marrow nodded once. They went out the back way. Kate walked ahead with the paper in her fist. Marrow walked at Orin's shoulder. The street behind them was already filling with voices. By the time the constable set his cup down and read Will's three lines and struck Orin's name from the book, the sun was past noon and the shape at the tree line was gone. Orin was free to walk in Copsefire. He was not free to leave it. Kate said, "Now we find where they went."