The Town Beyond the Broken Bridge

The woman stayed behind the gate.

That was the first thing Elias noticed after the walkway vanished.

She hadn't vanished with it.

Neither had the cliff beneath her feet, or the iron hinge beside her head. Between them lay the same empty stretch of air.

Elias drew another breath. This one did nothing except hurt.

Across the gap, the woman raised a finger to her lips.

Then she pointed down.

Something tapped beneath the far ledge.

Once.

Twice.

Mara crouched.

A thin black feeler reached around the bottom of the gatepost.

Elias recognised it before the rest of the little creature appeared.

The needle-shaped scout from the hillside. Or another like it.

The woman eased away from the bars.

Nobody moved.

The scout crawled along a crack in the stone. It paused where the walkway had joined the ledge, tapping the bare rock.

Then it folded itself into the crack.

They waited.

Elias wanted someone to tell him how long.

At last, the woman leaned close to the bars.

“Don't bring the boards back yet.”

Her voice carried across the gap without a shout.

“You mean it hears them?” Mara asked.

“The feet on them. The wood settling. Last time, we heard an answer farther down.”

“The big ones?”

The woman nodded.

Elias looked at the empty space.

The walkway had creaked when it formed.

He had barely noticed.

“We brought your medicine,” Mara said. “Are you Sella?”

“Yes.”

“Your messenger reached us.”

Sella closed her eyes for a moment.

When she opened them, she looked at Ivo's bag.

“How soon can you get that across?”

Orin unfastened a coil of rope from beneath his pack.

Elias had taken it for another badly rolled blanket.

Sella disappeared around the bend behind the gate. When she returned, she carried a coil of thin cord with a cloth-wrapped stone tied to one end.

She swung it once and threw.

It struck the rock beside Orin.

He caught the trailing cord before it slipped off the edge.

Mara laid the padded medicine bag on the ground.

“Before we do anything,” Elias whispered, “the woman you saw. Was her name Lena?”

Sella's hands stopped on the cord.

“I never heard her name.”

“She drew a bird. One wing longer.”

“The mark on the old road?”

“Yes.”

Sella looked at him more carefully.

“The woman I remember opened this crossing. I was a child. That's all I can tell you from here.”

“Did she—”

“Elias,” Ivo said.

He hadn't raised his voice.

Across the gap, Sella was watching the medicine bag again.

Elias looked down.

“Right.”

He moved aside so Orin could reach the cord.

They used Sella's cord to pull Orin's heavier rope across. He tied his end around a thick outcrop of rock. Sella tied hers around a stone pillar behind the gate.

Both ends were tied to solid stone, so the rope would stay even when the walkway disappeared.

They leaned their weight against the rope, one side and then the other.

It held.

“For balance,” Orin said. “And something to catch you if the boards go.”

Elias looked at the drop.

“Catch us where?”

“Below the rope. It'll hurt.”

Orin gave the knot another pull.

“Better than the bottom.”

There was comfort in that, though not much.

The medicine would go first.

Sella threw the end of her thin cord back across. Orin tied it to the medicine bag's handle, then wrapped the bag in a thick cloth so its buckles wouldn't strike the boards.

“Only the bag,” Elias said.

“Only the bag,” Mara agreed.

He placed his hand against the white outline of the nearest post.

“I’m trying.”

He held his breath.

The walkway returned with a low wooden creak.

Sella pulled.

The bundle slid along the boards, caught briefly where two boards joined, then reached her feet.

She lifted it onto the permanent stone ledge.

Elias exhaled.

The boards disappeared.

The bag stayed.

Sella put both hands over it.

For a moment she simply knelt there.

They listened for an answer.

Wind moved through the empty space.

A bird landed above the gate, considered them, and flew away.

No clicking.

Ivo watched Elias until his breathing settled.

“Dizzy?”

“No.”

“Tell me if that changes.”

Sella unlatched the gate and wedged it fully open. Then she laid folded cloth sacks across the stone doorway to soften the sound of their boots.

The passage was short. That did not make Elias want to put anyone on it.

They rehearsed the distance on the path behind him.

Eight measured paces. No running. No bags.

Orin counted the seconds. Ivo walked the distance in six.

Mara took seven.

They would cross separately, with a rest between openings. Each would wear a short safety line—a tether—secured around their waist, with its other end looped around the rope across the gap. Orin showed Elias how that loop could slide along the rope without coming free.

Then he made him try it.

His palm ached just watching Orin pull the knots tight.

“What if I stop halfway?”

“We wait,” Mara said.

“What if I can't keep it open?”

“That's why we put the rope there.”

She looked at him.

“You don't owe us a brave answer.”

He watched Sella unpack the bottles on the other side.

She counted them twice.

“I can do the same thing again,” he said. “One person. Then we stop.”

Ivo went first.

He fastened the tether, waited for the boards, and crossed with the deliberate steps of someone carrying a full cup.

Elias kept his eyes on Ivo's boots.

One.

Two.

He lost count.

Ivo stepped onto stone. Sella drew him clear.

Elias let the walkway go.

Across the gap, Ivo raised an open hand.

Safe.

Only then did Elias realise he had been waiting for him to disappear.

They sent the remaining bags over next, pulling them along the boards on the thick cloth.

Orin crossed after another rest.

Mara went third.

She kept one arm tucked against her ribs and steadied herself with the rope. At the far end, Ivo reached toward her.

She took his hand.

No argument.

Now Elias stood alone.

The others looked farther away without anyone beside him.

His satchel waited at Mara's feet.

His phone was inside it, switched off. The last time he'd checked, his father still hadn't replied.

For a moment he wanted the bag back.

He knew how to stand beside a doorway and look.

Walking onto something he had made was different.

“Elias.”

Mara stood just beyond the open gate.

“Look at me when you reach the end.”

“When?”

“When.”

He checked his tether.

The white outlines showed a handrail running between the posts. Once the wood formed, he could keep his hand on that rail as he walked.

He had traced the route with his eyes three times.

He did it once more.

Then he drew a breath.

Wood settled beneath his palm.

He stepped onto the first board.

The rope dipped beside him.

His tether slid.

Elias slid his hand along the rail without lifting it.

The first two steps were easy.

On the third, he saw the valley through a gap between the boards.

He stopped.

The river looked very small.

“Keep looking here,” Mara said softly.

His free hand tightened against his chest.

He moved again.

A board shifted beneath his heel.

Below him came a faint tap.

He almost breathed.

Mara didn't reach for him. She held her hand out, beyond the end of the walkway, where he could see it.

One more step.

His boot struck stone.

Then the other.

He took her hand.

Air rushed out of him.

Behind his heels, the walkway vanished.

The safety rope remained across the gap.

Mara pulled him farther from the edge.

“Sit.”

He sat.

Sella eased the gate shut.

For several seconds, the only sound Elias could hear was his own breathing.

Then a small black shape climbed onto the opposite ledge.

It tapped where the boards had been.

Another answered from somewhere below.

Sella took the tether off him.

“We leave the rope,” she whispered. “Don't shake it.”

Elias didn't argue.

They followed her around the bend, carrying the bags close so nothing knocked against the rock.

The clicking faded behind them.

Rill began with a washing line.

A child's shirt hung beside two enormous pairs of trousers. Beneath them, a woman was trying to persuade a hen out of a basket.

The hen had stronger opinions.

Elias stopped.

He had expected gates. Guards. Perhaps people staring at the person who had brought back their road.

The woman glanced up.

“Did you bring the blue bottles?”

“Yes,” Sella said.

The woman abandoned the argument and ran ahead.

Beyond the washing line, houses crowded a slope above the river. Their roofs were patched with different colours of slate. Narrow steps joined the streets. A little square held a dry fountain and a board covered in handwritten notices.

Far behind the rooftops stood the broken end of Bellweather Bridge.

They had reached its other side.

“Twenty-three?” Ivo asked.

“Twenty-five now.”

“Where?”

“The storehouse. Cooler than the houses.”

“Drinking water?”

“Boiled. We have enough wood until tomorrow.”

He asked three more questions before Elias understood that the conversation had become work.

At the square, a boy carrying a stack of bowls nearly walked into them.

Sella steadied the top one.

“Tavi. Put those inside.”

“Are they the medicine people?”

“Yes.”

“All of them?”

“Even the one sitting down if he does it again.”

Elias straightened.

Tavi studied him without much confidence.

Then he led them through a broad doorway.

The storehouse smelled of warm cloth and boiled water.

Sacks had been pushed against one wall. Blankets covered rows of low wooden beds. Some people slept. Others watched the doorway.

A man near the entrance lifted his head.

“Is the south road open?”

“No,” Mara said. “We came by the ridge.”

He lowered himself again.

“My brother's on the south road.”

Mara crouched beside him.

Elias heard her ask his brother's name.

Ivo had already rolled his sleeves farther up. Sella set the bottles on a cleared table.

Nobody mentioned the white lines.

An older woman offered Elias a basin.

“Hold this.”

He took it.

She placed a wet cloth inside, noticed his bandaged hand, and changed her mind.

“On the bench, then.”

He set it down.

“Sorry.”

“What for?”

He couldn't think of a useful answer.

Across the room, Tavi knelt beside a woman with dark hair stuck to her forehead.

“Mum. They came.”

She opened her eyes.

“The bowls?”

“All here.”

“Not on the floor.”

Tavi quietly moved them onto a crate.

Elias had pictured twenty-three people as a number at the bottom of a letter.

Now there were twenty-five, and one of them cared where her son put the bowls.

He moved his satchel out of the aisle.

“What can I do?”

Ivo looked up.

“Can you read Sella's list?”

“Probably.”

“Good. I can't.”

“My writing is perfectly clear,” Sella said.

“Your bottle labels are clear. Your list appears to have been written during an earthquake.”

“Several people were speaking.”

“That explains the second earthquake.”

She handed Elias a folded sheet.

The list was clear enough once Sella explained the crossed-out names.

People had been moved from their homes to the storehouse. Others were staying with relatives. Beside each name were notes about bedding, water and who could sit with them.

The difficulty wasn't the handwriting.

It was the addresses.

Two different streets were listed as Mill Lane.

One had been renamed after the mill burned down. Half the town still used the old name.

“And this family?” Elias asked.

“Upper steps.”

“Which upper steps?”

Sella stared at him.

“Of course. You don't live here.”

He borrowed a piece of wrapping paper.

Tavi climbed onto the bench beside him.

“Is that a map?”

“It might be, if you help.”

“The fountain goes there.”

Elias drew a small circle.

“The fountain doesn't work.”

“I'll make a note.”

“And that's not a road. That's Mrs Pell's yard.”

“Does she let people through?”

“Not Orin.”

Across the room, Orin looked up.

“One pear,” he said. “Years ago.”

Tavi shook his head as if it were his duty to make sure nobody forgot.

By midday, the wrapping paper held a rough plan of the streets.

Elias marked the storehouse, the working well, the houses with spare bedding, and the easiest route for carrying a full bucket.

He crossed out the steepest steps.

A woman collecting water studied the new route.

“That takes longer.”

“Fewer stairs.”

She considered her two buckets.

“Good.”

She took it.

No white lines appeared.

The paper remained paper.

Elias watched her leave with the small, familiar satisfaction of something repaired.

Then Tavi asked him to draw another copy.

Later, Ivo made Mara sit while he checked the dressing on her left upper arm.

The wound hadn't disappeared because they had reached town.

Neither had the ache in Elias's hand.

Ivo replaced the damp outer wrapping on Elias's right palm and told him to stop testing whether it still hurt.

“It does,” Elias said.

“Excellent. Question settled.”

Across the room, Tavi's mother slept.

“Is she better?” Elias asked.

“She's had what we brought,” Ivo said. “Now we watch. Bring me water before that jug's empty.”

Elias brought water.

On his third trip, he realised he hadn't checked the time since the ledge.

His father was still waiting somewhere he couldn't reach.

Lena was still missing.

He hadn't forgotten either of them.

But the jug was empty again.

He filled it.

Sella found him at the washing trough near the end of the afternoon.

She was carrying two pieces of bread.

He took one.

“I owe you an answer about the woman.”

“You said you didn't know her name.”

“I don't.”

She leaned against the wall.

“I remember watching her from the gate. I remember my father making me stand back. And I remember how angry she was when someone thanked her.”

“Angry?”

“She wanted them to fetch somebody. They kept trying to give her food.”

That sounded possible enough to hurt.

“Did they?”

“I was called inside. I don't know.”

Elias rubbed a crumb between his fingers.

Sella watched him.

“There's an old atlas upstairs. Travellers used to leave notes in it. The keeper put names beside the routes they reported.”

He looked toward the storehouse door.

“Is she in it?”

“I haven't looked through those pages in years. I won't promise.”

“Can I see it?”

“Yes.”

From inside came the scrape of a bench.

Tavi appeared in the doorway carrying one end of a rolled blanket. The other end trailed behind him.

“Mum's cold.”

Elias put the rest of his bread on the wall.

“Show me.”

“The atlas can wait here,” Sella said.

He nodded and lifted the dragging end.

For once, he knew exactly where he was needed.