Elsa Crane's Arc

Chapter 38 of 66

Nora's eyes stayed closed after she praised Bodhi's mark. Her breath went shallow. Clara moved to the cot and touched her wrist, then looked back at Elsa and shook her head once. Hours, not days. Maybe less. Elsa knelt by the cot. The ledger sat open on the vine table behind her, Bodhi's fresh cross-and-circle still wet. "Nora. The handing-over. What words did the last keeper say to you?" Nora's mouth moved. No sound came. She turned her head a fraction toward the ledger, then toward Bodhi. Her hand lifted an inch off the blanket and fell. "She never told me," Dahlia said from the wall. "She taught me the marks. Not that." Fern opened the teal journal and paged fast. "Nothing here. Elsa, you never wrote it." "I never knew it." Elsa's throat closed. She had built the whole succession and left the hinge out. If Nora died silent, the ledger would be paper. Bodhi could mark it. The marks might mean nothing. Bodhi came to the cot. The reindeer followed and stood at the foot of it, antlers brushing the driftwood beam. Bodhi took Nora's hand and put it flat on the ledger, then put his own hand over hers. "Tell me the words," he said. "Any words. I'll take them." Nora's eyes opened halfway. She looked at him, not at Elsa. Her lips shaped something. Elsa leaned close and heard only air. "Louder, Nora," Clara whispered. "For the boy." Nora drew one breath. She said, "My hand. Your hand. The book is yours to feed and starve." Her voice was thread-thin but clear. "Answer when it asks." Bodhi's face did not move. "My hand. Your hand. The book is mine to feed and starve. I'll answer when it asks." Nora's fingers curled under his once. The reindeer lowered its head and set its muzzle against the blanket at her hip. Nora breathed out. She did not breathe in again. No one spoke. Dahlia crossed to the ledger. She watched the page where Bodhi had marked the dog. A second mark appeared beside Nora's own name in the ledger, drawn by no hand Elsa could see. A small circle. Clean. Chosen. "It took him," Dahlia said. "It heard him." Wren stepped forward and picked up the shovel leaning by the door. She looked at Elsa and waited. "Go," Elsa said. "Dig her a clean one. Bodhi chooses where." Bodhi lifted his hand from Nora's. Chalk dust smeared the back of it. He looked at Elsa, and for the first time she saw the ledger's weight settle behind his eyes, not borrowed from her. "Under the blackberry arch," he said. "She liked the shade." He walked out with Wren and the reindeer. Elsa stayed by the cot. The book was his now. What it would ask him first, she did not know.