Will bush's Arc

Chapter 5 of 26

Ollie's warning hung in the air. The porcelain was broken, the tall figure gone into the trees, but Kate still stood under the cherry tree with the hooded girl, and Will could hear paws on leaves down the ridge. A dog was coming. Living people were coming behind it. If Kate lingered here she would be found by the wrong things first, because the tall figure had not gone far. Will could feel it circling wide, marking her, learning the shape of her again. Will crouched low. "Ollie. I need eyes. I can't follow him and stay with her." Ollie whistled once, thin and sharp. A collie broke from the brush, the same one Will had used before, coat matted with burrs. Behind it came a raccoon with a white mask, hunched and quick, and a black cat that padded up to Will's knee as if it had been waiting all night. Will felt the pull in his chest that let him speak to them without words. He told the collie to circle Kate wide and lead her down the ridge toward the light. He told the raccoon to knock branches on the far side of the clearing to pull the tall figure's attention east. He told the cat to stay at Kate's heel and yowl if anything came close. The animals split. The collie loped to Kate and nosed her hand. The hooded girl swore and stepped back. Kate looked down, then followed the dog because the dog was moving with purpose. The raccoon crashed through dry leaves twenty paces east. A branch snapped. Something tall shifted in the dark behind the trunks and turned toward the sound. Will exhaled. Then the little ghost girl came back out from the trees, barefoot, white nightdress catching on twigs. Lily Whitmore. She held a pink butterfly cupped in both hands. Its wings barely moved. "It followed me," she whispered. "It won't fly. I think it's dying." Will looked at the butterfly, then at Kate's back moving away down the ridge, safe for now, the black cat close at her boot. He had done it. He had shielded her without being seen. But Lily was still here, and the butterfly in her hands was fading, and Will remembered the voice message he had sent, the girl he had promised to find, the girl who lost her body in the trees. Lily Whitmore. Same name. Same small hands. "Come with me," Will said. "Keep it warm. Don't let it stop moving." He looked once more toward the ridge where Kate had gone, then turned away from his sister, deeper into the Fen, because the child beside him was the one he had been searching for, and she did not know it yet.