Will bush's Arc

Chapter 9 of 26

Marrow set Will down in the reeds at the far edge of the field. His leg would not hold. The knee bent the wrong way when she let go, and he sank onto his side in the wet grass. Above them the ridge climbed back into pine. Below, the chalet held its one light. The pale woman was somewhere in the trees, chasing the dog. Dawn was maybe four hours off. Kate was three fields away and might as well have been on the moon. "I can't carry you and outrun her," Marrow said. She was breathing hard. "Not both." She looked at his leg. "And you can't walk." Will knew it. He had known it since the slope. He looked up through the pines. The sky above the ridge was clear and the moon sat full over it, so bright it flattened the field to paper. He thought of Kate at the window. He thought of the dandelion stem on the sill. He would not reach her by morning. Not on this leg. Not on any leg he had left. He reached for Ollie instead. The ghost boy came out of the reeds without a sound, small and tired, the butterfly gone from his hands. Behind him drifted the little girl in the white dress Will had seen days ago at the tree line. She held Ollie's sleeve. Will understood then that Ollie had been carrying more than one lost thing through the Fen. "I need you to go to her," Will said. "To Kate. Tonight. Before the pale woman comes back." Ollie shook his head. "She won't see me." "She saw the seeds," Will said. "She'll see you if you bring her something of mine." He pulled at the memory he had left — the crushed dandelion, the soup, the last morning. He gave the shape of it to Ollie the way he had given commands to the collie. "Tell her I'm alive as I can be. Tell her not to climb the hill again. Tell her to wait for spring and I will find a way down." Ollie took the little girl's hand tighter and nodded. They went across the field low through the grass, two pale shapes under the moon, and slipped under the chalet's back eaves. Will watched the lit window. After a long minute Kate came to it. She looked out at nothing anyone living could see. Then she lifted her hand off the sill, slow, and pressed it flat against the glass. Will let his head fall back into the moss. Marrow crouched beside him and did not speak. The message was delivered. His sister knew he was near. He had not reached her, and he would not, not tonight — but she had heard him, and she would wait. He closed his eyes and let the ridge hold him until the pale woman came back for what was left.