Willow's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

That evening Willow carried a lamp into the yurt. She sat at the small writing desk and smoothed a sheet of paper flat. Beside it stood a jar of dark ink and a tall feather plume. The father's dried thistle lay at the corner of the desk, where she had set it to remember why she wrote. She dipped the feather and waited for the words. They would not come. She wrote a line about a girl under a willow tree. She crossed it out. She wrote a line about fever and crossed that out too. Every word sounded like a stranger's grief, not Fiona's. She pressed the feather down so hard the tip split. The paper tore. She set the plume aside and closed her eyes. "That's not what I said." Willow opened her eyes. Fiona stood across the desk. Her red hair moved in no wind. Her white gown gave off a pale light that touched the ink jar and the torn page. She was the ghost from the dream, the daughter the grieving traveler could not see or hear. She looked at the crossed-out lines with a flat face. "You're writing about how I died," Fiona said. "He already knows how I died. He carried that thistle a whole year." Willow's mouth went dry. "Then tell me what to write." Fiona leaned close. The lamp flame bent toward her. "Not grief. He has enough grief." She paused. "I never told him I loved him. I ran out of time. The fever took my voice before I could say it." Willow picked up the feather again. Her hand shook. "That's the message. That's the whole song." "Say it plain," Fiona said. "I'm not sad anymore. I only need him to hear it." Willow dipped the feather. This time she did not plan the line. She wrote what Fiona said, in Fiona's short words. I'm not gone. I'm not hurting. I love you. I should have said it. She filled the page. The ink ran fast. She did not cross out a single line. When she finished, she read it back under her breath. The words were simple and true. They fit the red bird's melody like a hand into a glove. She looked up to thank Fiona. The ghost was gone. The lamp flame stood straight again. Only the thistle and the finished page remained on the desk. Willow held the paper to the light. She had the melody from the bird, and now she had the words from the girl herself. Tomorrow night the father would hear his daughter speak. But reading the lines again, Willow felt her stomach tighten. These were not words to make a crowd weep for coin. They were one child's last love, meant for one man. If she sang them wrong, she would not move him. She would break him.