Sienna Du’for's Arc

Chapter 8 of 19

Sienna slept under a low pine at the edge of the mill road. She kept her bag under her head and her knife on her chest. No one came. No boots on the path, no lantern, no voice. She lay awake and worried anyway. Amelia had held her hand and had also held a purse. Amelia knew her name and her face and the sum written under it. A kind woman could still count. Sienna turned that thought over until the sky went gray. Then she made herself a rule. She would go back to the tree. Amelio knew the grove, and Amelia had told her to stay away, and she would go anyway. She had promised Clementine a visit every day. A promise to a tree was still a promise. If Amelia sold her, she would find out at the tree, and at least Clementine would hear it. She walked in at the back of the grove and watched the bricks for a long time before she stepped onto them. No black coat. No blonde hair. Only pilgrims leaving small things at the roots and moving on. Sienna sat down against the trunk and told Clementine about the pear, and about the heel of a hand striking a jaw, and about a woman who had said she would not say a word. She said it out loud because saying it to the bark made it smaller. A shadow crossed the bricks near noon. Sienna's hand went to her knife. It was only a boy with a cup of water for the roots. He poured it and left. She breathed again and stayed. Amelia came at dusk. She stopped at the gap in the wall and did not step through. Her hands were empty. "He woke up," she said. "He asked where you went. I told him the river road north." Sienna stood. "Why send him wrong." Amelia looked at the tree, not at her. "Because you listened. I said it once." She glanced back over her shoulder. "I won't come here again. He watches me now." Sienna took a step onto the grass. "Amelia." Amelia shook her head once. "Don't. He reads my face." She paused at the wall. "The mill isn't safe past this week. Go south. Pick a town he wouldn't guess." Then she was gone through the gap, quick, the way a person leaves who does not want to be followed. Sienna stood on the grass with her hand still half raised. The fear she had carried since morning went out of her all at once, and something heavier settled in its place. Amelia had chosen. Amelia had also left. Sienna sat back down at the roots and told Clementine she would come tomorrow, and the day after, until the week ran out.