Rowan Switched's Arc

Chapter 2 of 25

The garden stayed empty for a long time after the folk left. Rowan brought the hawthorn cutting and the milk tooth back inside and set them on the kitchen table. Fourteen nights to the dark moon. Fourteen nights to learn what the tokens meant, or walk up the hill guessing and be bound to whatever the crowned woman decided they were worth. Rowan went to the room that had once been the nursery. The crib still sat under the low window. The wood was dark and carved with knots the old woman had never explained. Rowan knelt beside it and ran a hand along the rail. The hawthorn cutting fit into a notch on the headboard. It slid in like a key. The milk tooth fit a small hole in the footboard, right where a child's mouth would have reached. Rowan pressed both into place. The crib creaked once and held its breath. Behind Rowan, the rocker began to move. The old woman sat in it. Not warm, not solid. Her face was bone under thin light. Her hands gripped the arms of the chair as if she had been waiting there since she died. "I kept it from you," she said. "I am keeping it still. Listen." Rowan did not move. "Tell me what they are." "A contract," the old woman said. "The cutting is their claim. The tooth is yours. If you carry both to the hill and offer them together, you agree that the trade was fair. You accept the cradle you were left in. You lose the name they took. If you offer only the tooth, you refuse the trade. They must hear it. They must answer." Her jaw worked. "The one who taught me this was small. Wings like torn glass. Black eyes. She came to the window the night I took you in. She said if you ever asked, tell you the tooth alone. Never both." The rocker slowed. "Her name was Thorn Nightwhisper. She is not your friend. But she did not lie to me." Rowan lifted the milk tooth from the crib. The hawthorn cutting they left in the notch. It darkened at once, sap running black along the wood. Somewhere past the garden, something in the dead-head plot let out a thin sound, six small voices at once, the little lantern-bearers laughing or crying, Rowan could not tell which. The old woman was fading. "They will come for the cutting before the moon," she said. "Do not fight them for it. Let them take it. Keep the tooth on your tongue when you climb." Rowan closed their hand around the tooth. The rocker stopped. The chair was empty. Outside, the crowned woman's small folk were moving in the garden already, lanterns swinging low through the wilted heads, coming for what was theirs. Rowan had thirteen nights left, and now they knew which token to keep.