The Witch Who Became the Road Home

How it begins

The road winced when Gus Moss stepped on the broken stone.

He stopped immediately.

Behind him, the travelers waited in the mountain wind. Ahead, the pass curved into a bank of cloud that had not been there a minute earlier.

"Sorry," he said.

A voice rose from beneath his boots.

"It's the left shoulder. Go around if you can."

Gus knelt.

The stone held the faint shape of a hand. Farther along, a dark braid ran through the gravel like a root.

He had heard the story in the valley: a witch had become the road when the pass began changing, giving people a way through the mountains when every familiar path betrayed them.

Stories rarely mentioned whether being a road hurt.

"Rhea?" he asked.

The wind paused.

"Someone remembers the name. That's nice."

Gus set down his pack. A child behind him asked why they'd stopped, and an older woman answered that sometimes a path needed waiting for too.

"How long have you been here?"

"Long enough to dislike the question."

The cloud shifted. For a moment, Gus saw the next valley, its roofs bright beside a river. Then the pass folded differently and the view disappeared.

Rhea's voice tightened.

"Keep moving. I can hold it."

Gus looked at the people behind him. Some had walked for days. Some carried tools, seeds, medicines, things that could make a new life possible if they reached a place to use them.

He also looked at the hand in the stone.

"What happens when the last person crosses?"

There was no answer.

He had made a living telling stories about people who kept impossible promises. Kneeling there, he began to suspect he'd been ending those stories too early.

Gus opened his pack.

"We need to discuss what we can carry," he said.