Elsa Crane's Arc

Chapter 40 of 66

Bodhi came back from the park before noon with snow on his boots and a hard line in his mouth. The reindeer walked at his shoulder. He had been playing tag with the cobbler's twins an hour before. Now he asked Elsa to call the guardians to the hut. Not tomorrow. Now. Elsa sent Wren for Dahlia, Fern for Clara, and Jasper came on his own with wood shavings still on his sleeves. They gathered at the vine table. The reindeer stood behind Bodhi's chair and did not move. Elsa watched the boy set his chalk down flat on the wood, the way a man sets down a tool he means to use. "I saw something at the shop this morning," Bodhi said. "The miller's boy's mother went in for flour. The shopkeeper weighed her sack short. She saw it. He knew she saw it. Then he put his hand on her wrist and told her the scale was right. He held her wrist until she said the scale was right too. She left crying. He smiled at me over the counter." Nobody spoke. Dahlia's fingers curled on the table edge. Clara's face went still. Jasper looked at Elsa. Elsa kept her hands loose in her lap. This was the moment. A name alone, chosen by him, with no wife-beater or stalker set in front of him for practice. If he swung too wide, the village would feel it before spring. "What do you want to do," Elsa said. Not a question. A test. Bodhi put his hand on the reindeer's neck. He closed his eyes the way he had for Dara Colm. When he opened them he looked at Dahlia first. "I won't mark him," he said. "He hurt her, but he hasn't killed anyone. A cross is too big for a thumb on a wrist." He turned to Clara. "You go to her tomorrow with bread. Ask about the baby. Let her tell you the rest herself. If she does, I'll know it's true and not just what I saw." He turned to Jasper. "You stand in the shop three mornings this week. Buy nothing. Just watch him weigh. He'll feel you there." Then to Elsa. "If he does it again to anyone, I'll open the book. Not before." Dahlia let out a breath she had been holding. Clara nodded once. Jasper reached across and squeezed the boy's shoulder with his big hand. Elsa felt the room settle around him instead of around her. He had not marked. He had not looked away. He had made four people move without lifting the pen. "Do it," Elsa said. Bodhi picked up his chalk. The reindeer breathed against his hair. Elsa watched her village bend, small and quiet, toward the boy at the table, and knew she had one less thing to carry into the dark.