Elspeth Moonwhisper's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Elspeth put the pot back beside the hearth. The borrowed body still held. She looked at Elara across the table and said the thing she had not said in eleven years. "I made a promise to a woman about her child. I broke it. That is what holds me." Elara folded the blank paper and set it down. "Then tell me the child's name." Elspeth opened her mouth. Nothing came. She reached for the face and found fog. Eleven years had eaten the shape of the child clean out of her. "I can't," Elspeth said. "I can't see them. I can't say a name." Her hands began to shake on the table. "If I don't know who they are, I can't find them. If I can't find them, I stay like this." Elara studied her. "You remember the mother?" "Yes." "Then we start with what your body remembers, not your head. Come outside." Elara led her through the cottage garden. The ghost girl in the white dress trailed behind, quiet, one hand knotted in the hem of her skirt. Past the vegetable rows, a wooden bench sat under a low tree, its back carved with leaves and a small witch face. "Sit," Elara said. "Close your eyes. The potion will let you feel the wood. Sometimes the hands remember what the mind forgot." Elspeth sat. She pressed her palms flat against the seat. She thought of the mother's kitchen. A wet cloth. A basket. A weight in her arms she had refused to carry when the time came. The wood was warm. Nothing else came. "I'm empty," she said. "There is nothing there." A soft light moved above the garden. An owl drifted down through the branches, feathers pale green, edges glowing. It landed on the bench beside her. The ghost girl stepped closer. She did not speak. She lifted one small hand and pointed at Elspeth's sleeve, where the folded paper was tucked. Then the girl pointed at herself. Elspeth stared at her. "You," she said. The girl shook her head. She pointed again, slower, at her own chest, then at the ground beyond the fence. "Another one," Elara said quietly. "Like her. A child who is still waiting." The owl turned its head and looked north, past the garden wall. Elspeth stood. She did not have the name. She did not have the face. But she had a direction, and she had a witness who could see what she could not. "I'll follow the bird," she said. "And I'll take her with me, if she'll come." The ghost girl nodded once. Elara touched Elspeth's sleeve. "The potion won't last past morning. Whatever you find, find it fast." Elspeth stepped through the garden gate. The owl lifted from the bench and flew ahead, low over the dark field, waiting for her to keep up.