Vera Bole's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Vera did not sleep after Gideon left. At dawn she found him where he preached, near the trees past the inn. His owl sat on his shoulder, both eyes glowing pale. She blocked his path. "You know more than you said. Who made me. What the cord does. You will tell me." Gideon looked at his board, not at her. "I told you enough to ruin your sleep. More would ruin your life." "My horses are dead." Her voice cracked. "Three of them. I did that without knowing why. You can end the guessing." "I can't end it. I can only point." He shifted the board on his shoulders. "Whoever wound that cord watches for the unraveling. You start pulling threads, they come. That's not a fight you win, Vera." "Then who watches? Give me one name." He went quiet. The owl turned its head toward the road. A man walked toward them, dressed in a clean black suit that did not belong on a dirt path. He moved without hurry, like the ground already knew to hold still for him. Gideon stepped back. He did that for no one. "Silverstone," Gideon said, low. "Leave the girl out of your accounting." So the preacher knew this man. Vera's stomach turned. Henry Silverstone stopped a few feet off. He looked at Vera the way a farmer looks at a tool left in the rain. "You're the watcher," Henry said. Short. Flat. "Placed near the willows. You've been reporting." "I don't report to anyone," Vera said. "I shoe horses." "You did both. You just didn't know the second part." He glanced at Gideon. "He's right. Pull the thread and it screams to the one who tied it. That one isn't mine." A pause. "Fine. It isn't my master's either. Someone inside his house. Working against him." The words landed cold. Vera was not one man's tool. She was a piece in a fight between two of them, and neither had asked her. "Then cut it out," she said. "You're something more than a man. I can see it." "No." Henry's face closed. "Cutting it wakes the maker. The maker comes here, to your inn, to your guests. You want that? No." He turned to go. "Stay dull. Keep shoeing. Let them think their spy sees nothing. That's the only door you have left." He walked off. Gideon would not meet her eyes. "That's the truth," the preacher said. "All of it. I hoped you'd never get it." He gathered his board and left her on the road. Vera stood alone. She had wanted knowledge. Now she had it, and it sealed her in. She could not touch the cord. She could not run. She could only pretend to be blind while an unknown enemy used her hands to empty a stable. But she knew one new thing. The maker hid inside a great house. And a house could be found.