Willow Fenwick's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The gold vein under the tree's bark pulsed once, then again. The boy did not move. Willow watched his shoulders shake inside his too-thin jacket and felt the swamp lean toward him the way a hungry dog leans toward meat. Then she heard it: a wet, slow sound in the ferns behind the grove. Something was dragging itself closer. "Pippin," she said. "What's in the reeds." The frog person hopped up onto the root beside her and squinted. His yellow eye went wide. "Oh. That's not good." The thing slid out between two cypress knees. It was a slug the size of a hog. Its body glowed a soft green, veins of light moving under its skin in the same rhythm as the tree's bark. Two long stalks lifted from its head. The eyes at the tips fixed on the boy. "It came for the light," Pippin said. "He lit up. It felt him." The boy backed against the tree. "What is it?" "Old," Willow said. "Older than the songs. It eats what the tree wakes." She had seen tracks like its trail once, a long time ago, and had hoped never to see the maker. The slug oozed forward. A ring of moss blackened under it. Willow's left hand was numb to the wrist this morning. She flexed her fingers and felt nothing. If the slug reached the boy, the tree lost its offering and she lost the last chance to wake it. If it reached the tree, worse. She stepped between them. "Stay against the trunk," she told the boy. "Hands flat on the bark. Don't let go." He obeyed. The gold vein brightened where his palms touched it. Willow crouched and scooped a handful of the salt still ringing her old ritual. She walked toward the slug, slow, and drew a line in the mud across its path. She did not sing. She spoke plainly. "You are not invited." The slug hit the salt line and hissed. Steam lifted off its skin. It reared back on its foot, stalks whipping, and its glow flared bright enough to throw her shadow long across the roots. Then the light in it guttered. The huge body sagged. It turned and dragged itself back into the ferns, leaving a slick trail that smoked where the salt had touched it. Willow's knees gave. Pippin caught her elbow with both small hands. "You held it off," he said. "You didn't kill it. It'll come back hungrier. And it won't come alone." She looked at the boy. His hands were still on the bark. Under his palms, a second gold vein had opened in the tree. The sleeping face's mouth had curved, just a little, into something closer to a smile. "We can't stay in the grove," Willow said. "Get up. Both of you. We're going to the cabin."