Will bush's Arc

Chapter 34 of 41

The thread hummed between the jar in Kate's yard and the daisies at Will's feet. Will could feel Kate's breath on the glass. He had said her name through the line and she had said his back. Now the channel sat open like a door no one would close. On the ridge above them, something had turned its head toward the sound. Elspeth stood at the edge of the patch. Her bare feet did not press the grass. "She has to shut the jar," Elspeth said. "Now. Before the pale one finds the seam." Will knelt in the flowers. He pushed his voice down the thread. "Kate. Close the jar. Put the lid on." In her yard Kate lifted her head. The collie sat pressed against her knee. Kate did not answer. She looked at the jar in her hands and turned it once, slow. "She heard you," Elspeth said. "She is deciding." "She's deciding wrong," Will said. He felt the ridge shift. A weight moving through pine. Not the pale woman herself, not yet, but a listener leaning in. The cherry blossoms by Kate's porch trembled, all their faces still turned to the glass. Will pressed both palms into the soil. "Kate. Please. It's listening. Close it." Kate's shoulders went stiff. She had felt the second presence in the line. Will felt her feel it. Her jaw set. She lifted the lid from the porch step beside her. She held it above the jar. She said, quiet, "I'm keeping the seeds." "Keep them," Will said. "Just shut the mouth." "Say one more thing first." Elspeth's head came up sharp. "No. Will. No more words through it." Will looked at the daisies. He looked at the cherry tree turned toward his sister. He chose the smallest true thing he had left. "Two sugars," he said. "Same as mine." On her porch Kate made a sound he had not heard from her in three years. A short laugh, wet at the edge. Then she pressed the lid down onto the glass and turned it until it caught. The channel closed. The seam of light between the jar and the daisies dimmed to a thin steady pull. The listening weight on the ridge held for a breath, then slid back into the trees. Not gone. Delayed. Will stayed on his knees in the flowers. His hands shook in the dirt. Elspeth crouched beside him. "She sealed it. Good." "She heard me," Will said. "Yes." "She'll open it again." "Yes," Elspeth said. "And now the pale one knows a voice moves through that jar. It will come for the glass before it comes for you. You have to decide, before she lifts that lid twice, whether the jar stays in her house at all." Will looked down the hill. The cherry blossoms had turned back toward the porch. Kate sat with the sealed jar in her lap and would not let it go.