Petra Voss's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

The turtle still thrashed on Petra's counter when the moth returned. It tapped the window glass, the same ink-black wings edged in blue. Petra watched it and understood. Its work was not done. She had the relic, but not the way to seal it. The moth wanted to show her more. She took up her lantern and pushed out the door. The moth led her through wet dark to a sagging schoolhouse. Its paint peeled. Its windows hung broken. A bell rusted in the crooked tower. Petra had passed this place for years and never entered. The moth slipped through a gap in the door. Petra pushed the warped wood and followed. Inside, a lantern burned. A hunched woman in a patterned cardigan knelt beside a locked wooden chest. Her glasses were too big for her face. A girl with braids sat at a splintered desk, her knees bruised, her hands trembling on the wood. The woman looked up and smiled crooked. "You touched something you shouldn't have," the woman said. "I can smell it on you. Turtle-water and old ink." Petra did not move. "You know the moth." "Ms. Fitch keeps things too," the woman said. She patted the chest. "Locked things. I teach the children not to touch them twice." She glanced at the girl. "Some children never learn." The girl, Abigail, stared at Petra with wide eyes. "She has a turtle," the girl whispered. "The moth told her." Edna Fitch stood. She unhooked a small tin lunchbox from her chest. Mud sealed its seams, dried hard as clay. She held it out. "You can't open your turtle. Not without letting the thing inside run loose." She tapped the mud crust. "You need a fresh seal. A new prison to catch what spills out. This holds one. It has held one before." Petra reached for the lunchbox. Edna pulled it back. "Warn her," the girl said, trembling harder. "The mud must stay whole," Edna said. "Break the turtle's shell over this box, and the entity drops into the tin instead of the world. Then the box seals shut on its own." She smiled wider. "But you get one chance. Miss, and it takes you." Petra took the lunchbox. It was heavier than tin should be. Something shifted inside, though it looked empty. She understood then. This was not empty. It had caught something once, and the walls remembered how. "Why give me this?" Petra asked. Edna's crooked smile did not move. "Because I want to see if you'll use it right. Or if you'll be careless." She sat back down beside her chest. "Most people are careless." Petra walked out with the mud-sealed lunchbox against her chest. The moth did not follow now. Its work was finished. She had the relic, and now she had the trap to catch what guarded it. All that remained was the breaking of the shell, and the one chance she would get to do it right.