Node - Chapters 1 - 3

1
Fourteen years before
A girl wandered through the forests, basket slung over a spindly arm. The scent of pine hung thick in the cool air. Pinecones crackled under her polished boots. She wrapped her black coat closer to her, burying her chin and lips in the soft, close fabric.
She plucked berries off of low-growing bushes and stashed them away. Her basket grew in weight, crammed with round bunches of berries like strands and strands of beads. A gust whipped her hair into her small face; she cleared it away and coughed.
The sound of rushing water came closer as she picked. She saw the treetops thinning above, the darkness sliding away. Cold sunlight came down in beams like blades, sharp and nearly blinding.
She stopped.
She stared.
A thin river lay beyond, its waters greenish and scattered with rocks. And on the little peninsula beyond was a floating, shifting obelisk, black as ink and shining with stars of another sky. It levitated on a pedestal of deep gray stone, waiting, watching.
Around the obelisk stood human forms, dressed in dark-colored robes so thick as to cover every trace of identity. Their faces were obscured by folds of tough fabric, their hands gloved, their feet covered in hulking boots.
Around them were other members of the group, dressed in robes and boots. These were outfitted with swords and chest plates and a threatening, inhuman stillness.
All so still, all so silent. The forms around the obelisks had hung dark gray banners covered in runes, not even moving in the wind. They seemed to be looking down, channeling some kind of energy, saying not a word.
Even the trees seemed to stop moving, keeping the ritual silence.
That was until they saw Posket.
A figure on the edges of the obelisk, sword in hand and armor-plated, spotted her in the woods. She didn’t know it at first. She kept watching, kept staring, her basket placed next to her in the dirt.
Then they moved toward her, and in seconds the rest of the robed figures followed.
They ran towards her, swords bared, faceless and terrifying. They stepped through the river, a chorus of splashes. Instantly Posket turned and ran, leaving her basket behind. Her footsteps were messy, as she bolted through trees and cut corners like a train off its rails. The robed figures followed behind in perfect step, advancing rapidly, almost silently. But Posket could feel them behind her. Looming, a dark cloud behind her.
Her heart was rushing, harder, harder. Her eyes blurred until she knew not what was ahead. The trees became an infinite stretch of green, brown, green. She had to keep running, keep going. As long as she felt them behind her, as long as she felt them keeping up her pace, an inch away.
She saw a flutter of black on her side, but kept going, her legs numb and breath like sulphur in her lungs.
And she ran on and on, dodging the trees and bushes, the cold turning her face frozen and her hands to spheres of ice.
And somehow, she felt the figures stop and lessen, felt them go away.
And as soon as she did she felt a sudden blow, a quick and shocking smack to the forehead as she ran directly into a fir tree.

2
Later Posket would find out that the flutter of black was her hair. One of their swords had nicked off a chunk of it. She never did get it fixed. Now that her hair was longer, a mess of blackish-brown tangles and wisps, it was still as blunt and striking as ever.
She forgot what had happened after hitting the tree. But she knew that no one had found her. She remembered the next day, waking up tired and shaking and sick. Her mother chided her for staying out so late, for losing the basket. She’d tied a little pink ribbon around the sliced lock of hair, warning her not to cut anything more. Posket had cried a bit, but only because of the pain. Her head was in a vice grip, throbbing and unbearable. But about the obelisk, and the figures in robes, she did not cry. She nearly forgot them until one day.

Posket was taking a route through the forest she’d never traveled before, to see if she couldn’t find another, more powerful node. All throughout the Great Conifer Belt of the continent she’d woven through these paths, in search of the best metal traders or jewel miners or quarriers, of the greatest gardeners and apothecaries and beekeepers. She’d visited their small shops or plantations in the middle of nowhere, surrounded only by the thick sea of trees. But the one thing she could not buy, that she could not outsource to others, was pure, raw magic.
Nodes, of course. Concentrated areas of energy, bright and powerful, like stars of the land. The ones in the forest were mostly imbued with the essence of earth and wood. With the naked eye they were practically invisible, only seeming to be brief smudges in the world, little thumbprints. But as Posket held her golden lens to one eye, she saw them as shimmering balls of light, some far-off in the distance, already tapped by her wand.
As she stumbled through this path, she heard trickles of water ahead, small drops and drips of it. Beyond the trees was a minor stream, gray and hindered by boulders, soon to dry up.
And she stopped.
She stared.
By her side she saw a strange tangle of branches. They were not branches at all. They were woven and braided, covered in ivy and soaked in dirt. They were a basket. Tiny berry plants sprung up beside it, dotted with red and blue like seed beads, ripening for the season.
She felt it now. She felt what she’d been keeping down, what had faded in so many years.
She felt the tears and the pain and the fear, bounding, surging fear like hot magma poured over a glacier. She felt the dirt on her shoes again, the colors blurring, her heart thudding-
She felt the impact of hitting the tree.
That, for her, was what seeing the Obelisk felt like.
It was just as dark as ever. Just as floating, penetrating, deep deep dark of another world. It kept watch on its black pedestal, the robed figures it once was surrounded by now forever dissipated.
Posket fought the urge to run. She stood her ground. She raised her lens.
Above the obelisk was a hulking node, outlined in black and a dark purple in the middle. The color of poison, the color of darkness. The color of emptiness. She needed to tap the node for her magic. She needed its power now, or she’d be wandering through the forest another three days looking for one like it.
She stepped forward. She waded through the silty, plashy stream, soaking her feet to the socks. She stood in front of the obelisk, her heart starting to pound through her chest, her hands going white at the fingertips.
She raised a wand and a jar, and with a careful grace, she tugged at the node, pulling at its essence. She coaxed the thing into the jar, until the last fibers of its essence were pressed in and she sealed it away with a warded lid.
She began to back away when she nearly tripped and fell backwards on something soft. Turning around, she saw it was grayish, with the faintest shine to it. She knelt down, looking it over.
It was a book. It was rotted, yellowed, battered and weathered to a lump of fiber, but it was a book. She could just make out its cover, labeled Cult of Godstars. She froze.
Could it be?
A left-behind relic of all those years ago?
She shuddered to think that, digging deep in some stretch of the forest, she could find a few strands of her hair, a few child-sized footprints of her own, buried by pine needles.
Without thinking, she tucked the book under her arm, and ran back across the stream, into the woods. She went back through the path, back through the bands of trees, taking out her hand-drawn map and retracing her steps to where she’d come from.
She left the obelisk far, far behind, but it still hung behind her, a lead weight looming over her back.
She shifted her fingers over the pink ribbon around her hair.

3
When she’d walked back a few miles she came to a small station, consisting of little more than a wooden shack and a few sheds of rusting machinery. The day had grown rainy, so she’d pulled her hood over her face, and was shuddering from a wet cold, soaking her shoulders and chest to the bone. She rapped on the shack’s door, and it soon swung open.
A young man stood there, a fine stubble growing on his chin and soft clothes wrapped over his body. He recognized Posket and ushered her inside, shutting the door behind them.
“Th-thanks, Ryouko,” Posket mumbled, shivering. She slung her leather backpack off her shoulders and laid it on the floor. “I was wondering if I c-could take one of y-your zeppelins b-b-back to Sulphide, to g-get home, like I did the last t-time.” She tried in vain to keep her teeth from chattering as she spoke, and clutched her coat close to her.
“Of course! It’s no problem, Miss Posket. But you’ll have to wait a while. This rain’s a fretful thing and, besides, you don’t look well. You haven’t been walking in it, have you?”
“I have, a-a-actually-y.”
“That’s no good! Wait here while I get you some tea. And no refusing, okay? You’ll be freezing to death in due time.”
Later, Ryouko brought some tea and they waited for the rain to subside. In the damp, clear evening Posket paid with a few copper coins and took one of Ryouko’s little zeppelins, climbing to a high platform above the trees and sailing off, its great wings to either side of her. When it landed she dragged it to a little shed where Ryouko would pick the thing up on his next trip over there. She took a day to rest in the tiny town of Sulphide, and then wandered down a winding path to get home.
And all through the journey she kept the book in her coat pocket, feeling it like a brick, like a presence. She’d never even peeked inside to see if it were legible. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t left it to rot away and crumble. But it was here with her, and as she unbuttoned her coat and stripped off her soggy socks and boots she saw it slide out and hit her hardwood floors.
For now, she decided to ignore the thing. She stocked it on a high shelf, where it was indistinguishable from all the others, and went on with her normal proceedings. Gradually she’d forget it. She’d forget this all happened, she’d forget the obelisk and the basket and why she still wore a pink ribbon in her hair.

Posket had no means for luxurious living, nor did she have the penury or desperation for poor living. She had a modest house of dark wood, a small garden, a pond to herself, and her silence. It had been built by a neighbor - considering that, in these vast, forests, her nearest neighbors were a half-mile away - and held up against the seasons well. From the outside it was a normal fixture, with a few windows and a little balcony and a door carved with quaint leaves and songbirds. From the inside, it told a different story.
Hardly ever were the bright gas lamps turned on. The house was in a near-perpetual darkness, vacant and chilly in every room. Potted plants were watered from leaks in the roof and grew so long their leaves spilled over the floor. Vines wriggled through loose windowpanes and hugged dressers and chair legs. She cut them away sometimes, absentmindedly, when her mind was overwhelmed and her hands shaking from the newest magical discovery. They still came back through the same windowpanes and roof leaks and would never leave, not as long as Posket was Posket and magic was itself.
The only lighting she had was candles - a surfeit, entire colonies of candles littering every surface. The tables were caked up with wax and blackened wicks. In a fit of research, Posket had ripped the gas bulbs off a chandelier and crowded it with candles. The very air smelled of tallow and ash, no matter where you were. And now, as Posket was coming home, about to collapse from lack of energy, she lazily grasped a box of matches and struck one. She lit a few candles in a comfortable sitting room before falling back onto a soft red sofa, crumbling under her own exhaustion and falling asleep.