Will bush's Arc

Chapter 24 of 26

Will kept his hand on the daisy stems and counted closes. Kate had knelt in her yard. She had put her hand on the ground beside the charred board. The tether was live now, humming under his palm. Then the barefoot girl came running through the broken wall. She said the pale woman was on the path. She said the pale woman had turned her face toward the flowers. Will saw her before the girl finished speaking. The pale woman walked between the trees at the edge of the patch. Her head tilted. She was listening to the pulse in the stems. She could feel Kate reaching. She meant to cut the thread before Kate finished her reach. Will called for Elspeth. She came through the wall in her gray robe and stopped when she saw the pale woman. "She will pull the daisies up by the roots," Elspeth said. "She has done it before. Sound will slow her but not stop her now. She has scented the reach." "Then give me something that will stop her," Will said. Elspeth reached into her robe. She drew out a small bottle. Purple smoke moved inside it. "This was kept for a ghost boy," she said. "It binds a spirit to the seam between living and dead. One who drinks it stands in both. The pale woman cannot take what stands in both." She held it out. "If you drink, you stay here. You do not cross back to the void. You wait by the flowers for five years in this shape, and she cannot touch you. But you cannot leave the patch. The seam is only where you drink." Will took the bottle. The pale woman was ten steps from the stems. He thought of Kate's hand on the dirt by the step. He thought of the white flowers leaning toward her palm. He uncorked the bottle and drank. The smoke went down cold. His hand on the stems became a hand. His weight came back into his knees. The daisies pressed against his fingers like real flowers. The pale woman stopped at the edge of the patch. She reached for the nearest stem. Her fingers passed through it. She reached for Will. Her fingers passed through him too. She stood there a long moment with her head tilted. Then she turned and walked back into the trees. Will sat down in the dirt. Elspeth watched him from across the patch. "You are anchored now," she said. "You cannot walk to the chalet. You cannot answer a knock. When Kate reaches for you on her night, you must reach from here or not at all. And when the five years end, the seam ends with them." Will put both hands on the stems. The pulse was still there. He had bought the flowers their five years. Now he only had to be here when Kate lifted her hand.