Elsa Crane's Arc

Chapter 45 of 66

Clara returned at dusk and reported Charlie and Lynn were settled. Then she set both hands flat on Elsa's table. "The elders met without you. They're talking about your seat. When you're gone, they mean to fill it fast. The name they keep circling is one that hates the boy." Elsa did not ask which name. She knew. A cousin of the missing man's sister, loud at the well, already whispering that Bodhi's crown smelled of fresh dirt. Bodhi held the ledger. Bodhi held the wolf and the reindeer. But he did not hold her chair at the meeting hall, and a chair filled by an enemy would undo the rest inside a season. Five days left. She had built regents, teachers, keepers. She had not named who would sit in her own place and speak for the boy when he was still too young to speak for himself. She pulled on her wool robes and walked to the library. The crystal-hung door opened before she knocked. Nancy Whitmore stood in the warm glow of the shelves, a stack of children's readers against her hip. The old librarian had taken the post to keep her hands busy after her husband died. She greeted every child by name and every stranger like a grandchild. Elsa had watched her hand cookies to Bodhi across the counter for a year without ever asking anything of him. "Elsa." Nancy set the books down. Her emerald eyes went straight to Elsa's face and stayed there. "You look like a woman with five days." "You've heard." "I hear everything in this room. Sit." Elsa sat. "The elders want my chair. They want someone who will move against Bodhi the day I'm buried." "I know who they want." Nancy folded her hands. "He came in yesterday and asked what books the boy borrows." "I need someone in that seat who loves him. Not tolerates. Loves." Nancy was quiet a long moment. She looked at the shelves, then at the door where children scuffed their boots each afternoon. "I have no children of my own left," Nancy said. "The boy sat on that stool by the window every Thursday last winter. He asked me once if his mother would have liked stories. I told him yes." She met Elsa's eyes. "Put me in the chair, Elsa. I'll take it." "They'll fight it. They wanted a man." "Let them fight a grandmother who's read to half their children." Nancy almost smiled. "They'll lose." Elsa took the teal journal from her satchel and wrote Nancy's name beside the seat. Nancy signed beneath it in a steady hand. Elsa walked home lighter by one weight. Four days left. The chair was filled. At her door, Clara waited with a folded paper. "The elders sent this an hour ago. They've called the vote for tomorrow at noon. They didn't tell you because they meant to name him before you could answer." Elsa took the paper. Her successor was chosen. The village did not yet know.