Petal Willowbloom's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Petal kept her seat in the hollow oak through the long middle of the day. The stone warmed in her palm. Down the path, her standing arrangement of roses and daisies held steady, and butterflies still came and went. The cabin door stayed shut. She had told herself she would not move, and she had not moved. But her stomach had begun to fold in on itself, and the folding had grown teeth. She had not eaten since before she came. The forage she knew lay a good walk from here, past the bend where she could no longer see the cabin. If she went, she might miss the first sign. If she stayed, the hunger would take her attention from the watching, which was worse. She pressed the stone harder and looked around the hollow for anything she had missed. The oak had been kinder to her than she knew. Someone, long ago, had set a small wooden bench just outside the split trunk, its back carved with daisies and berries and a name worn soft by weather. Vines had climbed the seat over the years. One of them, twisting up the armrest and into the low branches, was heavy with pale grapes. They hung in a thick cluster within arm's reach. White, round, full. She had been sitting beside her supper. She pulled one free and bit. The skin broke clean. The juice was cold and faintly sweet. She ate slowly, a few at a time, and watched the path. The hunger eased. She did not have to leave. The oak had given her what she needed to keep her promise. When she looked up again, something had changed at the edge of the clearing. A bed of tulips stood near the cabin wall that had not been there at dawn. Red, yellow, blue, violet, green — every color crowded together over a scatter of smooth river rocks. Petal knew that ground. It had been bare earth an hour ago. No one had walked past her to plant them. Beside the tulips, a young fawn stepped out from behind the cabin. Its coat was marked with small white lotus shapes, and the tips of its ears were bright teal. It looked at her once, calmly, the way the presence in the clover had looked at her. Then it lowered its head to the flowers and began to graze. Petal sat very still. Her hand closed around the stone. The guardian had answered. Not with a voice, not with an open door, but with a bed of color where there had been none, and a small living thing sent to stand in it. She had stayed. She had been fed without leaving. And now she had her first sign. The waiting was no longer only hers. It had become a thing the two of them were doing together.