Will bush's Arc

Chapter 31 of 41

Will worked the dead stems out of the soil while the thread hummed thin above him. Six daisies were gone at the outer edge. The gap they left showed as a bare patch of dirt, and the thread crossing it dipped low, like a wet rope between two posts. He could feel Kate at the far end of it, moving in her kitchen. He could also feel the slack. If she reached tonight, the reach might slide right through that soft spot and never find him. He pressed his palms to the empty ground. Nothing pushed back. The living daisies still open at the center held the line, but the line was uneven now. He called the barefoot girl and sent her for help. Elspeth came first, walking through the reeds with her sleeves dragging. She stopped at the bare patch and looked down at it the way a person looks at a hole in a boat. "You have a break," she said. "Not a tear. Worse. A soft place." "Can it be closed?" "Not by flowers. Flowers take weeks. You do not have weeks." "Then by what?" "A second anchor. Something living that hums the same note as your patch. Set it in the gap. The thread will ride on both." "I have no living thing." "You have neighbors." The barefoot girl brought the owl next. Hoot Hendrix stepped out of the reeds with his guitar across his back. Will had heard the owl play at the edge of the marsh some nights, slow chords carried on the wind. He had never asked for anything. "She said you need a hum," Hoot said. "A steady one. In the bare patch. Until dawn." Hoot looked at the gap. He looked at the thread. He unshouldered the guitar. "F sharp minor," he said. "I know that one." He sat cross-legged in the dirt where the daisies had been. He set his fingers on the neck. The first chord came out clean and low. The thread above the gap lifted a hand's width and steadied. Elspeth watched the line. "It holds. As long as he plays." "He cannot play forever," Will said. "No. But he can play until she reaches." Meridian came back through the reeds then, jaw pressed, and stopped at the edge. She looked at the owl, at the thread, at Will. "Tonight," she said. "The flowers in her yard turned an hour ago. I passed the cottage. She is kneeling in the dirt already." Will felt it as she said it. A small, warm pull at the center of the patch. Kate's hand, reaching. He put his own hand into the thread and pushed back. The line went tight over the owl's chord. It did not slip. It did not sag. It held from the porch below to the daisies to Will's palm, one clean rope across the gap, and Kate on the far end pulling with him.