Sable's Arc

Chapter 16 of 18

Gemma's words followed Sable down the hill. When they find the willow empty, they'll want to know where she went. But one person would ask first, and sooner. Her father. He still thought she was at the market. She had been gone two days. She had no basket, no coin, no story. She turned the lyre over in her hands and started for home. Her father sat on the front step. A bike leaned against the fence beside him, black with white streamers on the handlebars. Pastor Paul Brightwell stood next to it, helmet under his arm. Sable stopped in the road. Paul had helped her many times, but she had never wanted him near her father. "There she is," Paul said. He smiled easy. "Told you she'd come." Her father stood. His jaw was tight. "Two days," he said. "The market's an hour's walk. Where were you?" Sable opened her mouth. No lie came. She was tired of lies. She had hidden a dragon for weeks and told a dozen stories to a dozen people. She was done. "I wasn't at the market," she said. "I was on the cliffs. There was a dragon up there. A mother and her baby. I fed them. I hid them from the hunters. Two days ago I sent them away, over the far peaks, where nobody can reach them." Her father's face went hard. "A sling and a fairy story," he said. "You think I'll believe a child's toy killed a dragon." "I didn't kill it," Sable said. "I saved it." Paul stepped in. "She's telling the truth, sir. The whole fishing quarter knows. Twenty of us carried fish up that hill." He set a tin on the step. Caramels, wrapped soft. "Chromis sends these. Says your girl learned the deep channel better than grown men." Her father looked at the tin. Then at the lyre in Sable's hands. Then at the red-blossomed bush by the gate, its heart-shaped flowers hanging still in the evening. He did not speak for a long moment. "You could have died," he said. His voice cracked. "Alone up there. And I thought you were buying fish." "I know," Sable said. "I'm sorry I lied. I won't again." He crossed the yard and pulled her against his chest. He held her hard. The sling pressed between them, and he did not call it a toy. "You'll show me," he said into her hair. "Every cave. Every ledge. All of it." Paul pulled his helmet on and swung a leg over the bike. "She'll show you plenty," he said. "But not tonight. Feed her first." He pedaled off, streamers snapping. Her father let go and wiped his eyes. "Come in," he said. "There's a roast keeping warm. I set two plates." He'd set them yesterday, he admitted. And the day before. Sable followed him inside. The secret was gone. Her father knew everything now.