Spore Willowveil's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Spore stepped out of the library with the basket under one arm. The hair was still closed in his fist. North pulled at his chest like a hand on his shirt. Sylvara flew ahead through the trees, low and quick. He followed. The ground changed after a hundred steps. The hum thinned. It did not go silent, but it grew patchy, like cloth eaten by moths. Spore stopped. He knew this feeling. The last time he felt it, he had run, and he had gotten lost for two days. "Something ahead is drinking the life out of the dirt," Sylvara said. She hovered at his ear. "Small patches. If you step in one, everything goes quiet inside you too. Including her." Spore pressed the hair tighter. He could feel his mother in the ground, one thread among many. If that thread cut, he did not know if he could find it again. "I can't see the patches," he said. "Neither can I. Not from the air. The grass looks the same." A boy drifted out from behind a leaning tombstone. He was see-through. Pink and purple mushrooms grew where his hair should be. His feet did not touch the ground. Beyond him, small pastel stones stood in crooked rows behind a low iron fence. Spore had not noticed the graveyard through the trees. "You have a cap too," the ghost boy said. He smiled. "I'm Oliver. Do you want to catch fireflies?" "I can't stop," Spore said. "The ground is sick ahead. I'll lose my mother if I step wrong." Oliver floated closer. He looked at the trees to the north. His smile went flat. "The quiet spots," he said. "I know them. I float over. I don't feel them in my feet because I don't have feet." Spore looked up at him. "Will you show me?" Spore said. "Walk in front. Point at the bad ground." "Yes," Oliver said. Quick and direct. "If you catch fireflies with me after." "I will." Oliver drifted forward. Spore followed one step behind. Sylvara flew above them both. Oliver stopped and pointed at a stretch of moss that looked no different from the rest. "There," he said. "Go around." Spore stepped wide. The hum in his chest held. His mother's thread stayed. They moved that way through the trees. Oliver pointed. Spore stepped around. Six patches. Seven. The last one was wide as a road. Oliver hovered along its edge until Spore was clear. On the far side, the ground hummed clean again. The thread pulled harder now, sharper, closer. Spore's wings tugged him north on their own. He let them. "You promised," Oliver said behind him. "After I find her," Spore said. "Come with me. Please." Oliver thought a moment. Then he drifted after Spore, mushrooms bobbing, and the three of them went on into ground that no longer tried to swallow them.