Will bush's Arc

Chapter 30 of 41

Rose had barely gone when the cold came back. Not the cold of a passing spirit this time. A spirit that would not pass. Will felt it before he saw it, a slow drop in the air at the edge of the patch, as if someone had cracked a door onto winter. The daisies nearest the reeds began to droop. Their white edges browned. The thread to the porch-lit cottage at the base of the hill stayed taut, but the flowers it depended on were dying under his hands. He turned. A shape circled the patch at ten paces out. It did not step closer and did not walk away. It moved in a slow ring, head down, arms tight to its sides. Will could not see a face. He only felt the pull of it, the way a well pulls a stone. "Come in or go," Will said. "You cannot stand there." The shape kept circling. Two more daisies wilted. Will pressed his palms flat to the soil and called the barefoot girl. "Fetch someone who buries them. Fast." She came back with a small woman in purple robes, staff in one hand. Meridian Gravesight stopped at the edge of the patch and pressed her jaw with two fingers. Her back teeth. That was how she found the resting places. "How long has it circled?" she asked. "Since Rose left. A quarter hour. The flowers are going." Meridian watched the shape make another slow pass. "It does not know where to go. It will kill your patch trying to decide." "Then send it." "I need the grave. I have to walk out to find it. That takes time you do not have." Will looked at the wilting ring. "How much time?" "An hour to the marsh. Half an hour back. Your flowers have minutes." A second cold pressed in from the other side. Will did not turn. He knew the weight of her. "Move," Lady Moon said behind him. He did not move. "You cannot touch the patch." "I am not here for the patch." She stepped past him, bare feet silent on the browning stems. She walked to the circling shape and put one gray hand on its shoulder. The shape stopped. She spoke a word Will did not catch. The shape sagged against her like a child too tired to stand. "Take it," Meridian said. "West edge. Under the leaning stone. I feel it from here." Lady Moon nodded once. She looked back at Will. "You owe me nothing. This one is mine." Then she walked the spirit out of the ring and into the reeds. The cold went with them. The wilted daisies did not lift. Six were gone at the outer edge. The thread held, thinner now, riding on the flowers still open at the center. Meridian pressed her jaw again and frowned. "More will come," she said. "You have a smaller patch now." Will knelt and pulled the dead stems clear.