Sassy's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

The seeker sank deeper. Her breath had slowed to almost nothing. Sassy knelt beside her and watched the trance pull her down, past the doorway he had opened, toward a place he could not follow. He had no medicine strong enough to call her back. The willow's tears sat in a jar at the market stall now, sold to the platypus merchant. Without them, her spirit would drift too far to reach. He needed another way, fast. He remembered the sharp-eyed opossum who kept a stall past the willow. People whispered she was a witch who hoarded rare medicine and never shared it cheap. Sassy had avoided her for years. She frightened him. But he had no choice left. He carried the seeker's still body through the trees toward the market. The opossum stood over a spread of glass vials, clutching a leather pouch to her chest. Test tubes poked from it. Her tail curled tight around her feet. She did not look up. "Please," Sassy said. "My seeker is sinking. I need a medicine to wake her." "Then you need the willow's tears." She smiled without warmth. "Which you already sold. I heard. I hear everything." She pulled the pouch closer. "I keep mine. I do not give it to fools who trade away their own." Sassy's chest tightened. He knew she was right. He set the seeker down and knelt in the dirt before the stall. "I asked no questions once," he said. "I gave a man fire when he needed water. It broke him. Seven years I watched him climb back. I will not lose another." His voice cracked. "I am not asking cheap. I am asking honest." The opossum's tail loosened. She studied him a long moment. Then a mud-caked man stepped out from behind the carriages, the same one who had helped him quiet the tree. Big Lez. "He listened to the tree, love," Lez said. His voice was low and clipped. "I watched him do it. Bloke's not a fool." He stopped there, jaw tight, as if the word tree cost him something. The opossum looked between them. Slowly she drew one vial from the pouch. The liquid inside caught the light like water. "Not the willow's," she said. "But close kin. Deep water. It reaches far." She held it out but did not let go. "You give this wrong and she drowns instead of waking. You still want it?" "I asked the tree what it felt," Sassy said. "I will ask her the same. Drop by drop." The opossum released the vial. Sassy tipped one drop onto the seeker's lips. Her throat moved. He waited, counting her breaths, then gave another. On the fourth drop, her fingers twitched. Her chest rose full and deep. Her eyes opened. She looked at Sassy, lost, seeing nothing she knew. She was awake. But her forgotten spirit had not come with her. She had returned empty.