Selene Nightwhisper's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Selene followed the ghost girl down the slope. The pale woman stayed on the ridge with the moon. Selene could feel the weight of it up there, held by other hands, wrong and steady at once. Her own hands shook at her sides. The ghost girl walked ahead through wet grass, torn hem dragging without catching. Past the graveyard. Past a low stone fence broken in places. Down to a taller wall thick with vines that swallowed the stones under them. The ghost girl stopped at the wall. She did not climb. She turned and faced Selene with her black eyes. "Not yet," she said. "You said lead." "I said trade. I have not decided if I trust you with the trade." She stepped closer. Her bare feet made no mark in the dirt. "Anyone can steal a paper. I need to know you can carry a name from the dead and not drop it. Say one for me. A real one. From your side of the wall." Selene looked past her at the two spired towers rising beyond the vines, mirrored and joined at the roof, windows dark. Somewhere in the west tower, a locked room. Somewhere in it, a paper with this girl's name. Selene's hands would not hold a pen right now, much less pull down the sun. She had nothing to offer but words. She thought of the graves behind them, the wilted heads of the memorial flowers, the small stones scoured smooth. She thought of her mother. "Elspeth Moonwhisper," Selene said. "She died before her promise was kept. A child was involved. She was tethered by it, and she went north as a lure so the living could pass. Say it back to me and it stays said." The ghost girl's mouth moved around the name once, silent, then again with sound. Her shoulders dropped a small distance. She lifted one hand and held it out, palm up, the way a child asks for a coin. Selene put her shaking fingers over it. The tremor slowed. Not gone. Slowed. The ghost girl's touch was cold and exact, like a splint. "Selene Nightshade," the ghost girl said. "That is my name. Someone paid to scrape it off my stone. The deed is the only place it still exists in writing. Get it out of that room and I will hold your hands through the sun-working tomorrow night. Fail me and I keep my hands to myself." She let go. The tremor came back at once. She turned and stepped through the vines as if the wall were open air, then looked back through the leaves. "Come. West tower. Top floor. The family sleeps hard." Selene set her palm on the vines and began to climb. The moon watched from the ridge. The sun slept under the world. She had a name in her mouth now, and a debt attached to it, and no way back up the slope until the paper was in her hand.