Mika Voss's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

By the second morning after the restart, the pup turned her head from the fish. Mika set the shallow wooden bowl on the dock, ice crusting its rim, fresh mash inside. The pup sniffed once and looked away. Mika's chest tightened. A weaning pup could not skip meals long. She dragged the tally board from the stone hut where she had been sleeping near the fire. She notched every refusal. Time of day. Tide. Wind. Which call she had used before offering food. By dusk the bone counters showed a pattern she did not want to see — the pup refused every time Mika gave the new call before the bowl. Mika sat back on her heels. She had bound the new sound to recall, then used it at feeding too. The pup was waiting to be called out to water, not fed. The food sat wrong inside the meaning. She carried the bowl down to the waterline. She did not call. She just set it where the wet stones met the dry and waited. The pup humped forward on her own, dipped her snout, and ate. Mika marked the board with a shaking hand. The method held — but now every feeding had to happen at the sea's edge, and the line between call and shore was thinner than she had planned.