Summer Sun's Arc

Chapter 11 of 15

Summer Sun sat on the barn step with the green scarf across her lap. Angela and Tracie had gone inside to hang theirs by the door. The knock had come and gone before Summer Sun could open it. She had seen Matilda's back on the path, walking fast, not looking back. Summer Sun ran her thumb along a dropped stitch and laughed once, short and surprised. Then she stopped laughing and thought. She had made Matilda crack a smile once, in the clearing, over cold toes. That did not count. A laugh pulled out of someone by a joke was not the same as a laugh they chose. Summer Sun had spent weeks trying to trick this witch into brightness. The scarves on the step were the first honest thing between them. She stood up and folded the green scarf over her arm. She walked to the bramble cottage alone. Smoke came from the chimney now, thin and clean. Summer Sun knocked. Matilda opened the door with needles still in her hand and a half-finished scarf hanging from them. She looked at Summer Sun and did not speak. Summer Sun held up the green scarf. "You dropped a stitch here," she said. "I don't know how to fix it." Matilda stared at her. Then she stepped aside. Summer Sun came in and sat at the table by the fire. Matilda took the scarf and set it flat. She picked up a small hook from the shelf and worked the loose loop back into the row. Her fingers were quick. Summer Sun watched them and did not say anything cheerful. She did not fill the quiet. After a while Matilda said, "There. It will hold." Summer Sun said, "Thank you." Matilda did not look up. She kept her hand on the scarf. Then something in her face moved. Her mouth went crooked. A small sound came out of her, dry and rough, like a cough that had forgotten it was a laugh. She put her hand over her mouth. She looked at Summer Sun with wet eyes and shook her head. "I don't know why," she said. Summer Sun did not answer. She only nodded. Matilda sat down across from her and set the needles aside. The fire popped. Summer Sun felt her chest go warm, not from the stove, from somewhere deeper. She had heard Matilda laugh. Not a full one. Not the kind that finished a job. But a real one, chosen, not pulled. Summer Sun smiled and kept the smile small, so she would not scare it off. She thought of the person who had lasted three weeks, years ago, and how that laugh had come out the same way, half a cough, half a surrender. She stayed at the table until the light through the window went orange. Then she picked up the mended scarf and walked home. Matilda watched her go from the door this time.