Roxanne DeMarco's Arc

Chapter 2 of 7

Roxanne knew the dress held stolen names. She did not know how they were held. The symbols painted along the bodice and hem meant nothing to her, and she could not sell or destroy the gown until she understood the binding. She had priced silk by touch for twenty years. This she could not read. So she carried a rubbing of the largest symbol back to the one man who had gone still at a single thread. Finnegan tended bar down the row. Fifteen years he had studied every face that came through his door, hunting the thief who took his gold. He barely looked at her now. He looked at the paper. "Where's the rest," he said. "On the dress. I made a copy." He pushed the paper back. "Copies lie. I need the mark itself." She brought the gown that night, folded in a sheet. The fabric stayed cold through the cloth. Finnegan laid it on the bar and traced one symbol with a bare finger. He pulled his hand away fast. "This isn't a lock," he said. "It's a knot. A binding knot. Names tied to the wearer, not the dress." He tapped the brooch at the collar. The stone was warm under the lamp. "This ties it shut. Pull the pin, the knot slips. Every name comes loose at once." "Loose to where?" "To whoever wears it." He wiped his hand on his apron. "Don't wear it. Don't pull the pin." The door opened. No bell rang. The gray woman stood inside, pale from hair to bare feet. The lamps dimmed as if the room lost air. Finnegan went rigid. Roxanne stepped between the woman and the gown before she chose to. "You," Roxanne said. "You told me the dead sewed their names in." "They did." Lady Moon looked only at the brooch. "That was pinned to me once. It carries my name too." Roxanne understood then, all at once. "The knot ties the names to the wearer. Your name is one of them. That's why you can't rest. Someone tied it shut and took it from you." The woman said nothing. That was answer enough. "If I pull the pin," Roxanne said, "the names come loose. Yours with them." "Yes." Lady Moon's flat voice tightened. "And every other name at the same moment. To whoever holds it. You do not want them in you." Roxanne looked at the warm stone, the cold silk, the symbols she could finally name as a knot. She knew now what bound the names. She also knew she could not simply cut them free. To loose Lady Moon's name, she would have to loose the whole knot into a living body. Hers, or someone's. "Then I have to find another way to untie it," Roxanne said. Lady Moon was gone. The brooch sat warm on the cold gown, and the choice sat with Roxanne.