Sierra Ashwood's Arc

Chapter 7 of 8

Sierra set the sealed bundle on the desk, beside the faded city maps. Wax sealed one end. Cord wrapped it tight, knotted three times. Whoever hid it had meant for no easy hand to open it. She turned it over. The canvas gave nothing away. Rush it, and she might slice through whatever fragile thing waited inside. The orange and white cat leapt onto the desk. It sniffed the bundle, then patted the cord with one paw. Sierra pushed it gently aside. "Not helping," she said. But the cat had shown her something. The cord was the lock. Cut the cord, not the canvas. Her own knife was heavy, meant for rope and brush. Too clumsy for this. She scanned the desk. Among the papers lay a slim knife with a bright, carved blade. The last explorer's tool, thin as a letter opener, balanced light in her hand. She tested the edge against her thumb. Sharp and fine. This blade could part a single thread. Sierra pinned the bundle against the wood. She slid the delicate blade under the first knot. She worked slow. The cord was old and stiff. One strand snapped. Then the next. The cat watched, tail twitching. She held her breath and cut the last loop. The cord fell away. The canvas loosened. She peeled it back one fold at a time. Inside lay a flat wooden case, and inside that, pressed sheets of paper. Not maps. Drawings. Careful ink studies of a tree unlike any in Gourdhollow. Twisting branches. Orchids spilling from every joint, pink and yellow, roots dangling in the air. A cultivated thing, drawn by a patient hand. Beneath the drawings sat a folded note. The words used the same strange language as the books. But at the bottom, a small map. Not the city. A rough sketch of this very valley, marked with a single X far downstream, past the river's last bend on her own chart. Beside the X, one word she could read. The explorer had written it in her tongue, as if for whoever came next: "Grove." Sierra spread her chart beside the drawing. The X sat well past her farthest measured point. Empty space on her map. Unwalked ground. The last explorer had found something out there and hidden the way to it under a plank, unwilling to let it be lost or taken. She pressed the note flat and copied the X onto her own chart, a faint mark at the edge of the known. Her atlas had a new blank to fill. The cat curled on the warm papers and closed its eyes. Sierra rolled the drawings back into their case and tucked it in her pack. She looked at the doorway, at the gray light and the swollen river beyond. Whatever grew at that X, no map showed the path to it. She would have to find it herself.