Elsa Crane's Arc

Chapter 59 of 66

Morning came with a thin gray light. Elsa opened the hut door and found one more mother waiting on the step. The woman held a bundle wrapped tight against her chest. She had not been in yesterday's line. "He won't wake for the milk," the mother said. "He won't cry. He won't grip my finger. The midwife says he breathes, but nothing else." Elsa took the bundle onto her lap and folded back the wool. The baby was warm, but only from the mother. His eyes stayed shut. His small hand lay open on the blanket. Elsa laid her palm on his forehead the way she had done four thousand times. Her palm felt nothing back. No stirring. No small heat rising to meet her. She had blessed sick children before. She had blessed dying ones. She had never blessed one who gave her nothing in return. The words she used needed a child on the other end of them. Bodhi stood at her elbow. She looked at him. He looked at the baby. Then he gave her the smile she had spent a season teaching him — small, closed, steady. She gave the same smile back. "Go on," she said. He stepped outside. He did not call. He whistled once, low. The reindeer came around the corner of the hut, its frost-caked antlers catching the pale light. Bodhi stood in front of the animal and did not speak. The reindeer lowered its head. They held there a moment. Then the reindeer turned and walked off toward Clara's cottage at a fast trot. It came back before the mother could ask what was happening. In its teeth it carried a folded green blanket, thick velvet, the edges stitched with strawberries and blackberries. Elsa had seen it once in Clara's cupboard, kept for a child Clara had not yet met. Bodhi took the blanket. He knelt by Elsa's knee. He unfolded it slow and wrapped it around the baby, tucking the corners under the small shoulders. He did not use the caramel bear. He set his own hand on the baby's chest, where the berries lay stitched over the heart. "You are watched," he said. "You are counted. When you cannot cry, someone listens harder. When you cannot wake, the hut waits. We know your name." The baby did not move. But the mother made a sound in her throat and reached for him. Bodhi placed the wrapped child back in her arms and drew the blanket up under the small chin. "Bring him tomorrow," he said. "And the day after. Every day." The mother nodded and walked out cradling the green bundle. Elsa sat very still. She had not known what to do. Bodhi had. He had not learned it from her. He had made it himself, in front of her, with a reindeer and a blanket and words that were his. Four days left. The warmth would hold.