Woodson's Arc

Chapter 5 of 10

They reached the grove past midnight. Lunara leaned harder on Woodson with each step. The trees thinned, and a clearing opened before them. Woodson stopped. In the center grew a single plant, its bud closed tight and gray. He had walked six weeks and four days for this. Now it looked dead. "It waits for the moon," Lunara said. Her voice had gone thin. "It opens only under full light. Nothing else will make it bloom." Woodson looked up. Clouds crossed the sky in slow drifts. The moon showed, then hid, then showed again. He set Lunara down against a pine and knelt beside the bud. Cold sweat stood on her brow. The black vein had climbed past her elbow now, dark under the pale skin. "When it opens," she said, "cut the stem clean. Too high and the sap runs out. Too low and you kill the root." She pressed a small knife into his hand. "You get one bloom. Then a frost comes and the rest die." Woodson gripped the knife. He had made his living waiting for one clean shot. He waited now. The clouds pulled apart. Moonlight poured into the clearing and struck the bud full. The gray petals shivered. Slowly, they peeled back. A silver flower opened, glowing from inside like a coal. He did not rush. He found the joint low on the stem, above the root, below the head. He cut once. The stem parted clean. Sap beaded silver at the break. He turned and pressed the bloom to Lunara's lips before a drop could fall. "Drink." She drank. For a long moment nothing changed. Woodson's chest went tight. Then the black vein in her arm began to fade. It pulled back from her fingers, down her wrist, gone. Color rose in her face. Her breath came full and slow. She lifted her head, and the moonlight caught her silver antlers and lit them white. Woodson forgot the knife in his hand. He had hunted this woman to kill her. He had come for her antlers, and now those same antlers shone above a face he could not look away from. She was not a prize. She was alive because of him, and he did not want to leave her side. Lunara caught him staring. She did not look away this time. "You did not miss," she said. "No." His voice came rough. "I don't miss." She reached up and touched the back of his hand, the one still holding the knife. Her fingers were warm now. "You could have taken what you came for. You gave it to me instead." Woodson set the knife down in the snow. The vein was gone. The bloom was spent. She would live. He had crossed the peaks to end her, and instead he had saved her, and he understood, kneeling there, not being able to look away.