Peter Kline's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Peter Kline ran from home two nights ago. Now he crouched in a stone cave on a frozen tundra, and a shark was hunting him. Not a real shark. A gray bull shark with black eyes, cursed onto him by the witch who caught him in the woods. She had touched his forehead and laughed. "Your worst fear will chase you," she said. Since then the shark swam through the air like water, ready to survive out here. The shark found him at dusk. Its fin cut across the snow outside the cave mouth. Peter pressed his back to the cold wall. His nasty clothes were stiff with frost. He was small, and the shark was longer than three of him. It knew he was inside. It circled the entrance, mouth open, teeth like white saws. Peter knew he could not fight it. He grabbed a heavy stone and hurled it. The rock bounced off the shark's snout and did nothing. The shark surged forward, jaws snapping shut where his leg had been a second before. Peter scrambled deeper into the dark. The cave narrowed. Soon there would be nowhere left to run. Then a small hand grabbed his wrist. A girl pulled him sideways into a crack he had not seen. She was younger than him, barefoot, with leaves tangled in her wild hair. Scratches covered her arms. She smelled like pine and dirt. She was the wild girl he had glimpsed twice near the trees, the one raised by the animals out here. "Quiet," she whispered. She pointed at the shark, then at her own eyes, then made a slow wave with her hand. Peter did not understand. She rolled her eyes and dragged him toward a hollow tree stump wedged in the cave wall. She shoved him inside it. The shark rammed the stump. The wood cracked but held. Peter's heart slammed. The girl crouched in front of the stump and did something strange. She went completely still, like a stone. She stopped breathing loud. She made no fear at all. The shark slowed. Its black eyes searched the cave. Peter understood at last. The curse fed on fear. The shark hunted the smell of it. He forced his breath to slow. He thought of nothing. He made himself empty and calm, the way the girl showed him. The fin drifted. The shark turned in a slow circle. Then it swam out through the cave mouth and vanished into the falling snow. The tundra went silent. Peter climbed out of the stump, shaking. The girl watched him without a smile. She had saved his life, but she had not spoken one real word. Peter now knew the rule of his curse. Feed it fear and it hunts. Stay calm and it leaves. He also knew this could not last forever. Calm would break. And the girl who saved him was a stranger who might leave at dawn.