Rose Tolan's Arc

Chapter 3 of 8

The trail climbed for an hour before it split in two. Rose stopped at the fork and looked from one path to the other. The left branch cut up through gray rock. The right branch curved into shadowed pines. She had no idea which one reached the sugar hills. The cat-dragon crouched between them, ears flat, tail twitching. It sniffed the left path, then the right, and made no move. Rose looked at the sky. The sun already dropped toward the peaks. "We have to pick soon," she said. "It gets cold fast up here." She pulled the map from her bag and knelt on the frozen dirt. The lines showed the sugar hills, but not this fork. Her fingers went stiff in the wind. She was about to guess when heavy footsteps crunched behind her. A huge shape came down the right path. He stood taller than any man, covered in shaggy brown fur, with faded overalls stretched across his chest. Rose froze. The cat-dragon puffed up, then sank down, calm. The creature carried a bundle of firewood under one arm as if it weighed nothing. "Lost, are you?" he asked. His voice was low and easy. He set the wood down. "Not many folk take this trail. Name's Sassy Jones. You look half-froze." Rose gripped her map. "I need the sugar hills. Before dark. But the trail splits and I don't know which way." Sassy Jones crouched to see the map. His finger, thick as a branch, tapped the paper. "The left rock climbs quick, but it dead-ends at a cliff. Sun sets, you'd be stuck on bare stone." He pointed to the right path. "Pines take longer. But it wraps around and climbs steady. That's your road to the hills." "You're sure?" Rose asked. "I walk it every week for firewood." He stood and hoisted his bundle. "Come on. I'll set you past the worst of it. Can't leave a kid to freeze out here." Rose looked at the cat-dragon. It rose and trotted straight onto the right path, tail up now, sure of itself. That settled her. "Okay. Thank you." They walked into the pines. Sassy Jones broke the wind with his wide back, and the going felt warmer. He pushed a fallen branch off the trail with one hand. The path bent and rose, just as he'd promised. After a while the trees thinned, and Rose saw pale slopes ahead, soft and white, catching the last light. "There," Sassy Jones said. "Sugar hills. I turn off here." He pointed to a narrow side track. "Keep the cat-dragon close. Those hills look sweet, but the cold up top bites harder than any dog." He lumbered off with his firewood. Rose stood at the edge of the pines, the hills glowing before her. She had made the right fork. But the sun was almost gone, and the wide white slopes offered no shelter for the night ahead.