Primrose Egghart's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Primrose turns the crystal egg over in her palm, watching the light scatter across her fingers. Then it moves. Not a slip or a roll from her hand shifting. A deliberate turn, like it's deciding something. She sets it back in the basket, but it keeps moving, pushing against the moss lining until it reaches the edge. The basket tilts. Just barely, but enough that she has to grab it to keep the other eggs from spilling. The crystal egg doesn't stop. It rolls to the very rim and stays there, pulling the whole basket forward like it weighs more than glass should weigh. Primrose looks down at it, then up at the path ahead. The egg isn't trying to escape. It's trying to lead her somewhere new. Again. She takes a step, testing. The egg settles back into the basket, content. She stops, and it rolls to the edge again, insistent. This time she can see where it wants to go — a pathway lined with flowers and decorated eggs, trees arching overhead in pink and yellow blooms. She's never noticed it before, though it's bright enough to see from anywhere in the hunting grounds. Beyond the trees stands an arch wrapped in ribbons and roses, marking an entrance she doesn't recognize. The egg pulls harder. Her basket tips so far forward that her other eggs shift and knock together. If she doesn't follow, she'll lose them all. Primrose grabs the basket with both hands and runs. Not because she wants to, but because the crystal egg gives her no choice. It drags her forward, the basket swinging wild at her side, her dress catching on grass and flowers as she rushes past the stone marker, past the gazebo, toward the arch she's never seen before. The egg glows brighter the closer she gets, throwing colored light across her face like a hundred tiny mirrors. She can see herself reflected in each facet — running, breathless, pulled along by something she thought she understood. But when she passes under the arch, the egg stops moving. The basket steadies. And Primrose realizes she's standing in a place she doesn't recognize, surrounded by paths that lead in directions she's never walked. She sets the basket down carefully and kneels beside it. The crystal egg sits still now, no longer pulling, no longer glowing. It brought her here and then let go. Primrose looks back at the arch, then forward at the unfamiliar paths branching out in three directions. She could go back. The arch is right there, and she knows the way home. But the egg didn't bring her here to turn around. It brought her here to choose. For the first time since the hunt began, Primrose isn't following something that's running away. She's standing at the start of something new, and the egg won't decide for her. This time, she has to decide where to go next.