Zork's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Zork had been patching the same stretch of walkway in the Marrow Fen for an hour when he admitted he could not finish until he found the grave. The plank kept sinking. His hands kept stopping. Three years ago he had promised the old man he would be at the bedside. He had not come. The old man died without him, and the woman Zork loved buried her father somewhere in this swamp without telling anyone where. Zork had returned to the fen six months back, fixing every fence and walkway he had let rot. He nailed a small stitched heron beside each repair so she would know, when she passed by, who was doing the work. But none of the small fixes counted until he stood at the father's stone and said the thing he should have said in the sickroom. The problem was simple. He did not know where the old man was laid. Zork rolled up his tools and walked to the bait shack where the fen-keeper kept the burial ledger. The keeper was out. The ledger sat open on the counter. Zork turned the pages until he found the right year and the right name. The entry gave a plot number and a single line: west channel, past the broken weir, low water only. He copied the line onto the back of his hand and left two coins on the counter for the trouble. The walk took the rest of the afternoon. He carried a damp ring of swamp flowers and moss he had woven that morning, before he had known if he would have the nerve to use it. Past the broken weir the path gave out. He waded. The water reached his thighs, then his waist. A tall heron stood on a half-sunk root, its skull pale as bone, its long beak stitched shut. The bird did not move as he passed. At the end of the channel a small stone tomb rose from the water, its wooden frame swollen, its door darkened by mud to the height of a man's chest. Above the door a plain iron cross stood on a brick base, and a bronze plaque named the man Zork had failed. Zork stood in the water and said it. He said he had been a coward. He said he was sorry he had not come. He said her name out loud for the first time in three years, and he promised the dead man he would tell her the same words, to her face, before the week was out. He hung the damp wreath on the iron cross and waded back. The promise to the father was kept. The harder promise, the one to the living woman who did not yet know he was back, was now a debt he had spoken aloud and could no longer set down.