Thornwyn Mossbrook's Arc

Chapter 4 of 38

They reached the cottage before dusk. Thornwyn set the girl on the bench by the hearth and gave her bread and honey. The deer folded its legs by the door. The crow took the rafter. Thornwyn watched the girl chew and thought the hardest part was done. She was wrong. In the last of the light, the deer lifted its head. Its ears turned toward the north window. The long tail went still. Thornwyn crossed to the sill and looked out. A track ran through the soft dirt at the edge of the garden. Pad, four toes, claw marks past the toes. Cat. Big. She measured it against her palm and her palm fit inside. She knew this one. A lynx had worked the ridge above her cottage all summer. It had never come down. Now it had. The girl's smell was new here, and unfamiliar meant worth checking. Thornwyn shut the window and barred it. She looked at the girl. The girl looked back and did not ask. "Something's out there," Thornwyn said. "I'll send it off. You stay by the fire." She took her staff from the corner. She stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind her. The deer came with her. It moved without sound across the yard and stopped at the tree line, one hoof forward, head high. The crow dropped from the eave and swept a circle over the pines. Thornwyn set the butt of her staff in the dirt. She spoke the old ward, the one her mother taught her before she left the grove. Green light ran down the wood and into the ground. She walked the perimeter of the cottage and drew a ring, hearth to hearth, closing at the door. Halfway around she saw the lynx. It stood between two trunks, tufted ears flat, eyes reflecting the last light. Bigger than she'd guessed. She did not raise the staff. She raised her free hand, palm out. "Not this one," she said. "Take the ridge. Take the deer trails. Not this one." The piebald deer stepped forward and lowered its head. The crow landed on a branch above the cat and cried once, hard. The lynx flinched. It looked at Thornwyn. It looked at the closed door. It turned and went. The brush moved once and then did not move again. Thornwyn stood in the yard until her hands stopped shaking. She finished the ring. The green light sank and held. She went inside. The girl was on the bench where she'd left her. Bread crust in her lap. Eyes wide. "Gone," Thornwyn said. She sat beside her. The girl leaned against her arm and did not move away. Thornwyn kept still and let her stay. She had held the ridge tonight. The lynx would circle wider now, and the ward would hum for a week, maybe two. After that she would have to walk it again. And the market was in six days.