The Hand on the Register

By morning, the gap had closed to the width of two fingers.

Rachel was still there. I could see the pale line of her cheek through the seam and the dark blur of her hair beyond it. She had wrapped a strip of cloth around the hand she kept reaching through. The stone had scraped her knuckles raw the night before, though she hadn’t said so.

I had slept in short stretches, with my shoulder against the inner face of the ring. Every time I woke, the stones gave off the same low vibration. Four pulses. A pause. Three. Another pause. I felt it in my jaw more clearly than I heard it.

Tadhg came to the edge of the Shepherd’s Bed carrying his ledger. He stopped outside the shadow. A sheet had been folded inside the cover and weighted with a stone. He slid it along the ground until it reached the gap.

Rachel pulled it over to me.

The paper held a new entry in a typeface I recognized from the route’s other dockets.

WEST PARISH. EAMON LEDDIN. RECEIVING: REGISTER CLOSING. 17:00.

I read it twice. The last time, I traced the words with a fingertip, as if they were raised on the page.

“Where is he now?” Rachel asked Tadhg.

“West Parish,” he said. “He keeps the books there.”

“He knows the route has named him.”

“He was warned.” Tadhg adjusted the ledger under his arm. His voice carried the calm of a man checking a delivery time. “The register is closed by hand at the end of the day. He will have to handle the book.”

Rachel looked through the gap at me. Her eyes moved from my face to the paper, then back. “Can he leave it open?”

“He can try.” Tadhg turned away. He had given us the fact he came to give. The rest belonged to the route.

I watched his shoes retreat across the grass. My hands were shaking, but I kept them flat on the paper. At least the type was clear. A location, a task, a time. Something with edges.

Rachel pressed her bandaged hand against the stone. “We’ll get you out.”

“You already found the gap.”

“I found a gap a hand fits through.” She slid her fingers inside. “Give me yours.”

I did. Her thumb settled against my palm. I knew the pressure of it now, though I couldn’t connect that knowledge to a memory. The distinction sat between us, thin and hard as the stone.

She pulled. The ring didn’t give. The gap pinched shut around her wrist. She jerked back with a sharp breath, and the cloth at her knuckles came away dark.