Will bush's Arc

Chapter 32 of 41

The owl's chord held the gap, but Kate's pull began to wander. Will felt it slide sideways along the thread, searching. She was reaching, but she had nothing solid in her hands. Her fingers closed on dirt. Without something to grip, her reach would drift past his patch and lose him in the dark. Elspeth stood at the edge of the flowers with her arms folded. She had watched the thread tilt for a full minute without speaking. "She has no anchor," Will said. "She is reaching at air." "Then give her one." "I have nothing to give her from here." "You have the jar." Will remembered. The jar of dandelion seeds. He had blown them into it himself, the last afternoon in her yard. Kate kept it on the shelf above the sink. He had seen her touch it a hundred times through the thread. "She does not know to hold it," he said. "Then tell her," Elspeth said. "Once. Through the owl's chord. That is what the second anchor is for." Hoot did not look up. His fingers stayed on the fret. "I can carry one word," he said. "Not more. The chord will crack." Will knelt in the center of the daisies. He pressed both palms flat. He put the word into the soil and let the owl's chord lift it. One word, pushed down the thread on the note that already held. Jar. The chord bent. Hoot's beak tightened. He steadied the string and the chord came back clean. Will felt Kate stop. The wandering pull went still. Then it moved, quick and certain, back into the cottage. He felt her feet on the boards. He felt her hand close on the shelf. He felt her lift the jar down and carry it into the yard and kneel again in the dirt. Her reach came back through the thread, and this time it was heavier. She had the jar cupped between her palms. The seeds pressed against the glass. The pull found the center of his patch and held there, exact. The thread went tight from the jar to the daisies to Will's hands. No slack. No drift. The bare patch under Hoot's chord stopped mattering, because Kate's grip did the work now. Elspeth watched the line a long moment. "It is set," she said. "She holds you. You hold her. The flowers do not have to be perfect anymore." Hoot lifted his fingers off the strings. The chord faded. The thread did not. "You spent the word," Elspeth said. "You have no more to send through him tonight." "I do not need one," Will said. Kate's hands were on the jar in her yard. His hands were on the soil in the patch. Between them the line ran clean, and for the first time since the daisies died, he could feel her reaching straight at him.