Rebecka Evertrue's Arc

Chapter 30 of 66

Rebecka rode north from the coast with the mare pushing hard. Aiyana kept pace beside her. The compass lay flat on the mare's neck, needle still, useless now. The last student was warded like the man in the pines. Somewhere in the northern woods he sat by a black stove, cutting hair and thread into a shape of her daughter. Rebecka had hours, not days. She pulled up at the tree line. "I don't know where the cabin is." "Then ask something that does," Aiyana said. Rebecka reached into her jacket and drew the small vial she kept knotted to the potion cord. She broke the seal and spoke the eye's name into the smoke. The floating eye bloomed above her palm, blue iris ringed in gold thread. "North woods," Rebecka said. "A cabin. One man. A black stove. He is making a doll of a girl." "Searching," the eye said. It drifted up through the pine tops and was gone. Rebecka dismounted. She could not chase blind while it looked. She paced the moss and counted arrows again. Thirteen. Aiyana stood watch on the road. The eye returned inside a quarter hour. "Found." "How far." "Two hours at a hard ride. Follow the creek that forks left at the burnt cedar. The cabin sits in a clearing with three stumps and a shed. He is inside. He is bent over a table. The doll has a face now." Rebecka's stomach dropped. "A face." "Not finished. He is cutting the mouth." "Ride," Aiyana said. They rode. The eye kept pace above the trees, calling turns. Burnt cedar. Left fork. Deer track through the alders. The mare's flanks steamed. Rebecka's thighs burned. She did not slow. They came up on the clearing from the south. Three stumps. A shed. Smoke thin from the roof pipe. One horse tied at the rail. "He has not looked up in an hour," the eye said. "He does not know you are here." Rebecka slid down and moved to the wall on foot. She set an arrow to the string. Aiyana took the back of the cabin. Rebecka counted three and kicked the door. The man jerked up from the table. Thin. Gray at the temples. A knife in one hand, a small wooden figure in the other. Ninka's hair braided at its scalp. He opened his mouth. The bow hummed. Close enough to kill. She loosed. The arrow took him through the throat. He fell across the table and the doll rolled to the floor. Rebecka picked it up. She cut the hair free with her knife. She cut the cord. She dropped the wooden body into the black stove and watched it catch. "Done," the eye said. "Not yet," Rebecka said. She still had the ride back. And Ninka waiting behind stone.