Petal Willowbloom's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Petal stayed kneeling at the spring until her knees ached. The fawn lifted its head from the water and stepped off the marble floor. It walked past the lotus flowers at the base of the columns and onto soft ground beyond the pavilion. Petal stood. She thought it would stop again, the way it had stopped at the ivy wall. It did not. It kept walking, slow and steady, until its teal-tipped ears slipped behind a screen of ferns. She took three steps after it and stopped. The path past the pavilion narrowed and grew dim. She did not know where it went. She had promised to keep her vigil on her feet, beside the messenger. But the messenger had not waited for her this time. It had wandered, not led. There was a difference, and she felt it in her chest. She walked to the place where the fawn had last paused. A smooth stone sat at the edge of the path, dusted with neon moss. Two small hoofprints pressed into its surface, clear as ink. A bright pink dragonfly rested on the rim and did not move when she knelt. The stone had not been there before. The guardian had marked the spot. Whether it meant wait here or follow further, she could not tell. Petal sat back on her heels and made herself think. If she chased the fawn into the dim path, she might pass the very sign the guardian had set for her. If she stayed and the fawn was meant to be followed, she would fail him twice in one day. She pressed her palm flat to the marked stone. The hoofprints were turned toward the pavilion, not away. The fawn had left her a direction back, not forward. She had her answer. She returned to the spring. Beside the pool, where butterflies drifted over the smooth stones, she built a small arrangement so the guardian would know she had chosen. She gathered river rocks from the spring's edge and stacked them low. On top she set a round stone she found among the lotus roots, painted by weather into a face of bright petals, with small red beetles clinging to its sides. Around the base she laid a ring of tulips she pulled, one by one, from a rainbow bed that had opened near the columns while she worked. She did not know when the tulips had appeared. She only knew they were meant for her hands. When she finished, a small shed stood at the far side of the pavilion that she was sure had not stood there at dawn. Its walls were set with river rocks in every color. Its roof was layered in pale shells. The door faced the spring. Petal understood. The vigil here was hers to keep. She sat down beside her stone face and the ring of tulips, and she waited where the guardian had told her to wait.