Raven Meadows's Arc

Chapter 8 of 25

Word had spread, and Willow's warning came true faster than Raven wanted. Three days after the scout left, more strangers waited at the reeds each morning. Raven had three finished huts. But the newer frames she'd raised stood bare-ribbed against the sky, no roofs, just walls and open air. The marsh rain would come tonight. She could smell it. Anyone sleeping in those frames would sicken by morning. Raven climbed onto the nearest frame with a hammer and told herself she could nail slats fast enough. She couldn't. Her hands shook by noon. She'd fixed half of one roof when the first drops hit her glasses. She wiped them and kept going, alone, the way she always did. Then the tool chest appeared beside the frame. Small, weathered, packed tight with hatchets and drills. Finn set it down and didn't look at her. He'd never lifted a hammer here. He carried his mother's book everywhere and helped with small things, quiet things. Building wasn't one of them. "Where'd you get this?" Raven asked. "The gnome. Traded herbs." Finn pulled out a hatchet. "You can't do all three alone." "You don't build," Raven said. It came out sharper than she meant. Finn stopped. His sentences got short when something hit close. "My mother built. Before the pack." He didn't say more. He climbed the frame across from her and started splitting slats. They worked. The rain grew steady. Raven's arms burned. She knew two hands and a pup weren't enough. Two more frames, and the sky was going dark. A whistle cut through the rain. Raven looked down. A creature stood at the frame's edge, brown fur dappled gray, dressed in a ducky onesie, a wooden flute in one paw. She'd never seen it before. It played three soft notes, then set the flute down and picked up a drill. "Who are you?" Raven called. The creature only smiled and drove the drill into a beam. It worked like it had built a hundred roofs. Behind it, two strangers who'd waited at the reeds all day climbed up too. They took hatchets. They took slats. Nobody asked. They just showed up and worked, the way Raven always had for everyone else. Raven stood on the frame and watched them. Her throat went tight. For once, she wasn't the only pair of hands. They finished as the rain turned hard. Three new roofs, slate-dark and solid, over walls of stone and wood. Raven climbed down soaked and half-sick, same as always. But the frames had roofs now. The strangers ducked inside, dry. Finn stood beside her, book tucked under his coat. "They're staying," he said. "Yeah," Raven said. She looked at the full huts, then past them at the reeds. More shapes waited there in the rain. More than the roofs she had. The huts were done. The line was longer.