Raven bones's Arc

Chapter 3 of 7

Asher's bone was winning. Raven watched it as they walked. Overnight his left forearm had gone white to the elbow, worse than her own slow spread. He flexed the fingers and the knuckles clicked like dry sticks. Her three bone fingers had taken months. His whole arm had turned in days. "It's fast," she said. "Too fast." Asher pulled his jacket sleeve down over the bone. "Then we cover it." She found a small shop built into the row, its front smothered in fungus and climbing flowers. Mushrooms crowded the awning. The glass held a few hanging shirts and a stack of folded ones, pale with dust. Raven shoved the door. It gave. Inside smelled of mold and old cotton. She grabbed a long black coat off a rack and pushed it at him. "Put it on. Cover the arm." Asher shrugged into the coat. The sleeve swallowed the bone. He said nothing, but his jaw tightened. He hated being handled. She knew that. She did it anyway. "I can't slow it," she admitted. "I don't even know what it is. I'm just hiding it." She buttoned the coat for him because his bone fingers couldn't grip. "That's all I've got right now." He looked at her hands on the buttons. "It's enough." Two words. From Asher that was a lot. Then the smell hit her. Rotting wood, something sweet beneath it. She froze mid-button. The same smell that had taken her town. She lifted her head and turned until it burned strongest. It came from the street, through the open door. "Down," she breathed, and pulled him behind the folded shirts. Through the dusty glass she saw it pass. A thing walked on four legs where a dog should walk. Its ribs showed bare and white. Fur hung in wet clumps. Flowers and mushrooms grew straight out of its spine, bright and swaying. One red eye rolled in the ruined skull. It dripped as it moved. Behind it came the shape that led it. Tall, two-legged, more bone than body, blooms bursting from its shoulders. It held nothing, yet the dog-thing followed like it was leashed. Raven pressed Asher flat. His bone arm was cold against her side. The pair stopped outside the glass. The dog-thing swung its skull toward the shop. Raven did not breathe. She watched the red eye search the dark. The tall shape made a sound, low and wet. The dog turned and followed it on down the street. The smell faded west. Raven let her breath out slow. Her hands were shaking. Not from fear alone. She had learned something. The bone spread. It made new legs, new eyes, new hunters. Asher's arm was turning white in days. She finally saw where that road ended. "That's what it does," she whispered. "It doesn't just mark us. It finishes us." She gripped his coat. "We find out how to stop it. Fast. Before your arm becomes the rest of you."