Will bush's Arc

Chapter 8 of 26

Marrow got Will up the ridge on her shoulder. His leg dragged. Her boots slid in the wet leaves, but she did not stop. She had a map in her head he could feel through her grip — every trail, every marker. She said only what he needed. "Your sister is at the pine chalet. South road. The creature is outside it. We have to go around the field." Will nodded. He counted his breaths he did not need and tried not to slow her. They came out above the field. Below, the chalet showed one lit window. The door was barred. Between the chalet and the tree line, the pale woman stood in the grass with her back to them. She was not moving. She was speaking. She was speaking with Will's voice. "Kate," his voice said, soft and near the door. "Kate, it's me. Open it. My leg is bad. Please." The words were his. The pitch was his. Will felt his mouth open with nothing in it. Marrow's hand tightened on his sleeve. "She took it at the shed," Marrow said. "That's the lure." Inside the chalet, a shape moved past the window. The bar on the door lifted an inch. Will tried to shout. No sound came. The pale woman had it all. He grabbed Marrow's knife hand and shook his head. Noise from them would only pull the creature onto Marrow, and Kate would still open the door. He needed Kate to know. He looked down at the field and found the collie he had left days ago, curled in the ditch, waiting. He reached for the dog's mind the way he had before. The collie's ears came up. Inside, Kate stood at the door with her hand on the bar. Her list of questions was folded in her pocket. On the sill in front of her sat a dandelion, gone to seed, that she had picked at the north pass the day Will first showed himself. She had carried it since. She had told no one. She looked at the white head of it now and remembered — Will had crushed one exactly like it in her palm the last morning she made soup. Not the voice at the door. The dandelion. She lowered her hand from the bar. She cracked the window instead and blew the seeds out into the grass. They caught the lamp light. The collie broke from the ditch and ran through them, barking, straight at the pale woman's back. The pale woman turned. Will's voice broke off mid-word. The creature at the tree line lunged for the dog instead of the door. Marrow was already moving Will down the slope through the far reeds while the pale woman chased the noise she could not eat. Kate slid the bar back home. She put the empty stem on the sill. "Not yet," she said to the room, and waited for morning.