Roxanne DeMarco's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Roxanne spread the diagram flat on her workbench and set the dress beside it. The pin at the collar sat quiet now, but she knew what one wrong pull would do. The names of the dead would spill into her hands. The diagram showed the first knot clearly. Loop under, cross left, ease the tail through. She had followed patterns her whole life, but never a binding knot. Her fingers hovered over the thread and would not move. "You've stalled," Lady Moon said. She stood by the window, gray and still, the ghost who had led Roxanne this far. "Pull it or don't." "If I slip, they come out into me," Roxanne said. "All of them at once. I need someone who's done this." "There's no one," Lady Moon said. Her voice went flat, the way it did when she closed a subject. But Roxanne remembered Selene's words. Mine is the last of the lineage. She had said it too fast. Roxanne wrapped the dress and went back to the dark house with the carved moons above its door. Selene met her at the salt line. Her huge black eyes gave away nothing. "You left with nothing. Now you're back." "I'm not buying her name," Roxanne said. "I need my hands steadied for one knot. Teach me the first pull. Nothing more." Selene tilted her head. "Why would I hand you the skill I sell?" "Because you want something I can find." Roxanne had listened when Selene talked. A deed, kept in a room Selene's fingers passed through. Proof she owned her ground before the family that erased her. "You can't touch a door handle. I can. I'll get your deed. You show me the first knot." Selene went quiet a long moment. Then she stepped back from the salt. "Bring the dress in." Roxanne crossed. Lady Moon stayed outside, unable to pass. On the table Selene laid the collar bare and set Roxanne's fingers on the thread. "Feel the tail. It wants to run. Don't chase it. Hold here." Her cold hand pressed Roxanne's thumb down. "Loop under. Now ease, don't yank." Roxanne breathed and pulled. The knot loosened a hair. A thin voice rose from the cloth, a stranger's name spoken once, then gone into the dark. The first dead name went home. The pin did not flare. Nothing spilled. Roxanne's shoulders dropped. She could do this now. Knot by knot, she could free them all. "The rest match this one," Selene said. "Except hers." She glanced at the window where Lady Moon waited. "That knot answers only to lineage. You freed a name today. You did not free that debt." "I know," Roxanne said. She wrapped the dress. "And now I owe you a deed." Outside, Lady Moon looked at the cloth, then at Roxanne. "One down," she said. "And you've bound yourself to her to do it."