Zane's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

Zane walked home through the gray dawn. The curse was chained. Maya was safe. He should have felt light. Instead he felt hollow, like a room where something used to sit. He reached his stone cottage by the river and found the door already open. His family was inside, packing. Maya knelt by the hearth, folding her jacket into a bag. Their parents stood near the window, quiet, ready to go. Maya did not look up. "The god is chained," she said. "There's nothing left to do here." Zane stopped in the doorway. "You're leaving." "I have a life," Maya said. "So do they." She zipped the bag shut. "We came for the curse. It's done." He understood. She had come because she needed him. Now the need was gone. His whole life, people left. He had told himself Maya was different. But she was reaching for the door like all the others. "Stay a while," Zane said. It came out too fast. "One day. Let me show you the pond out back." Maya's mouth tightened. "Zane." "Just look at it." He held the door. "Then go if you want." Maya sighed and followed him out. Their parents came too. Zane led them to the broad pond behind the cottage. The water lay still. Orange and red fish moved slow beneath the surface. A white rabbit sat at the bank's edge, ears up, watching them. "I built this alone," Zane said. "I dug it and stocked it and I still ate every meal by myself." He crouched by the water. "I don't want to do that anymore." Maya said nothing. The rabbit did not run. "You almost died," Zane said. "I gave things up to keep you. I don't even remember all of them now." His voice cracked. "But I remember you. That's what I want to keep." Maya's flat face broke a little. She sat down on the bank beside him. "You never asked us to stay before," she said. "Not once." "I'm asking now." Their mother knelt on Zane's other side. "We thought you liked being alone," she said. "You never told us different." "I was wrong," Zane said. "I'm telling you now." Maya looked at the fish, then at her brother. She reached into her bag and set it down in the grass. "One season," she said. "We stay through spring. We fix up the second room." She glanced at their parents. "All of us." Their father nodded once. "We can do that." Zane let out a breath he had held for years. The rabbit hopped closer and nosed the grass by Maya's shoe. She almost smiled. They stayed. But the cottage had one bed and two rooms, and four people could not sleep in it. By nightfall, Zane faced a new problem. He had wanted them close. Now he had to make room.