Oswin Merrick's Arc

Chapter 2 of 9

Oswin followed the map down toward the low wood, the folded scraps warm against his chest. Rain started thin, then hard. By the time he reached the flat trail below, the stream had jumped its banks. Brown water raced across the path, waist-deep and climbing. On the far side, the amber fern glowed through the downpour, its broad fronds bright as a lantern. The path bent past it and down. He had to cross. He couldn't. He tested the water with one boot. The current yanked his leg sideways. A man alone would go under and stay under. He pulled the brass compass from his jacket and checked the needle, as if direction could fix depth. It couldn't. The far bank sat twenty feet off, and the water rose while he watched. The parrot screeched from his shoulder and lifted off. It flapped low across the flood and landed on something in the middle of the stream. Oswin squinted. Not a rock. A shell. An armored beetle stood braced in the current, big as a cart wheel. Water broke around its ridged back and split into two smaller flows. Its legs were sunk deep in the streambed, and it did not move. The bird hopped along its plated shell and screeched again, looking back at Oswin. He understood. The beetle was a stone in the river that would not wash away. He waded to it, gripping the shell's rim. The metal-hard plates held. He pulled himself up beside the parrot and crouched low. From there the far bank was ten feet, not twenty. "Move," he told the beetle. He pressed his weight forward. The creature turned its head, eyes calm, and took one heavy step toward the far side. The current pushed. The beetle dug in and held, then stepped again. Oswin rode its back through the deepest water, low, both hands locked on the shell. The beetle climbed the far bank and shook. Oswin dropped off onto solid mud, soaked and shaking, but across. The parrot landed on his wet shoulder. He laughed once, sharp, and pressed his hand to his chest. The map was gone. He tore his jacket open. The pocket hung empty. Somewhere in the crossing the folded scraps had slipped free and gone downstream with the flood. Eleven scraps, one true north, all of it drawn from memory and aligned by hand. Washed away. He spun and stared at the roaring water. No going back into that. He turned the other way. The amber fern towered over him, close now, marking the bend where the path dropped into the sunken hollow. He stood at the edge of the dangerous place, no map left to guide him, only the landmark he'd finally reached and the dark trail past it. The beetle waited beside him. Oswin wiped rain from his eyes and stepped past the fern, down.