Petra Voss's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The lunchbox sat heavy on the counter. The entity was caught, the relic freed. But Abigail would not stop shaking. She gripped the counter's edge, staring at the door. "I can't go back," she said. "She'll know. She always knows." Petra needed the girl calm. A trembling child at her counter meant no work, and the empty box still waited on the highest shelf. "Sit," Petra said. She pushed a stool toward the girl. Abigail did not sit. Her knees knocked. Four years in that schoolhouse had wound her tight as a spring. "You did a hard thing tonight," Petra said. "You showed me the salamander. Without you, the shell would have taken me." She let the words land. "That was brave." Abigail's eyes flicked to her. "Brave girls still get caught." Petra knew fear like this could not be argued away. It had to be spent. She set the mallet down. "Come," she said. "There's a place behind the shop. You'll rest there while I think." She led the girl out the back. The fog hung low. A rusted playground crouched in the weeds, swallowed by vines. A slide, a frame, two swings on chains. Abigail stopped at the edge of the cracked tiles. "A playground," the girl whispered. She had not seen one in years, maybe. She stepped onto it. Her hand found a swing chain, cold and gritty. She sat. The chain groaned. She pushed off with her heels. Petra watched. The girl swung, slow at first. Her braids lifted. The tremble in her hands did not stop, but it changed. It became the ordinary shaking of a child moving fast. For a moment Abigail was not a girl who feared a locked chest. She was only a girl on a swing. "She keeps things in a box," Abigail said, still swinging. "Like your turtle. She breaks them open to teach us. Then someone gets hurt." The swing slowed. "I'm always the one who watches. She keeps me because I remember every seal." Petra understood then. The girl was not a student. She was a tool. A pair of eyes that never forgot a weak point. "Then you're worth too much to punish," Petra said. "You'll stay here. You'll sleep in the back room. If your teacher comes, she comes to me." Abigail's feet dragged the swing to a stop. She looked at Petra with wide, wet eyes. "You'd stand between us?" "I need my hands free to finish my work," Petra said. "A shaking girl is no help. A rested one might be." Abigail wiped her face. The tremble settled into something small and steady. She nodded. "I'll stay." Petra walked back inside. The lunchbox waited, heavy with its prisoner. The relic waited too. Now she had a keeper of seals under her roof, and a teacher who would come looking. She climbed the ladder toward the highest shelf, the empty box gleaming above.