Elsa Crane's Arc

Chapter 37 of 66

Elsa came back from Wren's cabin to find the driftwood hut already full. Fern sat at the vine table with the potion bottles pushed aside to make room for the ledger. Clara stood behind her. Dahlia leaned against the wall, hood down for once. Jasper filled the doorway. They had come without being called, which meant the village had already felt Nora's last hour. "He has to try one," Clara said. "A real name. Before Nora's gone. If the first choice he ever makes alone is on the day he inherits, he'll freeze and pick nothing, or pick wrong." Elsa set her gloves on the vine table. "Then we bring him a small one. A dog that bit a child last week. Old, sick, mean. A cross he won't doubt. Dahlia at his elbow. Wren's hand on the pen after." "A rehearsal," Fern said. "A rehearsal." The door opened before Jasper could step aside. Bodhi came in with snow on his parka and chalk on his fingers. Behind him, ducking its antlers under the driftwood arch, walked a reindeer. Frost caked its rack. Its coat steamed in the warm room. It stopped at Bodhi's shoulder and stood the way the moose stood for Elsa, patient, watching the humans without blinking. No one moved. Clara's hand went to her mouth. Dahlia straightened off the wall. "I heard you," Bodhi said. He was looking at Elsa. "Through the door. You were saying it soft." Elsa did not lie. "We were." He put his hand on the reindeer's neck. "You have the wolf. And the moose. He came to the schoolhouse fence this morning and put his head over. I put my hand on him. He stayed." He swallowed. "He picked me. Like yours picked you." The reindeer lowered its head an inch, no more. Bodhi's chalk-stub was tight in his other fist. "I want to do it while she's still here. Nora. I want her to watch. And Dahlia at my elbow, and Wren after. Like you said." Elsa looked at Fern. Fern looked at the reindeer at the boy's shoulder and gave a small nod. Clara said, "He's ready or he isn't. We don't get to wait for surer." Elsa opened the ledger on the vine table. She spoke the dog's name aloud, and the reason, and what a cross would mean, and what a circle would mean. Bodhi listened. Dahlia stood at his elbow. Jasper closed the door behind the reindeer's flank. Bodhi took the pen. His hand shook once, then steadied against the reindeer's warm side. He wrote the name. He drew the cross. He drew the circle around it, the way Elsa had taught him for a clean, chosen death. Dahlia checked the mark and nodded. Wren stepped in from the back room, took the pen from him, and set it down. "Good," Nora said from the cot in the corner, and closed her eyes.