Patch's Arc

Chapter 2 of 7

The compass pulled Patch downward for hours. The needle jerked left at a rust-choked junction, then steadied on a low tunnel where the smog thinned to a pale haze. He followed it until the brick gave way to worked stone. A round door sat in the wall, carved with vines and small moons. Warm light leaked under it. Patch had expected a pit. He had found a nursery. He put his ear to the wood. Someone was humming. The tune broke off and started again, wrong each time. He drew his sword and pushed the door open a finger's width. Inside, the room was too clean. A rug. A low cot. A kettle on a small stove. On the rug sat the witch who had cried him awake. She was grown tall now, taller than he remembered, in a starred robe and nothing else below it but a thick white diaper. A pink pacifier bobbed in her mouth. She was stacking wooden blocks and knocking them down. Patch's stuffing went tight. He stepped inside. "Bella," he whispered. She looked up. The pacifier fell into her lap. Her eyes filled, cleared, filled again, like something was fighting for the front of her head. "Bear," she said. Then, sharper, "Patch. You shouldn't— sorry, blocks are very— okay. Focus." She pressed her palms to her temples. "Someone hexed me. At the school. I came down here to break it alone so nobody would see me like— well. Like this." She gestured at the diaper. "Yeah. It's as bad as it looks." "Who's keeping you?" "The smog keeps me. It likes soft things." She giggled, clapped a hand over her mouth, and glared at it. "Sorry. Not funny. It thickens if I try the door. I've tried the door a lot." Patch climbed onto the cot and cut the ribbon someone had tied around her wrist. The knot was warm. It hissed when it parted. Bella gasped and sat up straighter, like a string had been cut inside her too. "Compass," he said, holding it out. "It follows live vents. We go out the way I came." She took his paw. Her hand was bigger than his whole body. They went to the door. The door was gone. Only stone stood where it had been. Behind them, the kettle began to whistle on its own. The pale haze at the ceiling darkened and lowered. The compass needle swung once, twice, and stuck. Bella looked at the needle. Then at Patch. The pacifier drifted back toward her mouth and she slapped it away. "Okay," she said. "It knows you're here now. That's worse." Patch tightened his grip on the sword. The smog was already sliding under the vanished door, feeling for them along the floor.