Miri Greymantle's Arc

Chapter 5 of 8

The cub woke before dawn. Miri felt it stir against her chest, heard the small huffing sounds it made as it tried to climb over her arm. She sat up and watched it stumble across the platform, testing its weight on unsteady legs. The spirit dog lifted its head from where it rested near the monument's base, blue light brightening. The cub reached the edge of the platform and stopped. It pawed at something caught between the boards—a small carved figure, no bigger than Miri's thumb. She picked it up. A wooden girl with her arms spread wide. The detail was rough but clear enough. A child mid-spin, dress flaring out. Miri turned it over in her palm and felt something crack open inside her chest. She'd had one like this once. Her father had carved it when she was small, before her mother died. She'd kept it in her pocket everywhere, rubbing her thumb over the smooth wood until the features wore down. The day she'd gotten sick—the sickness that would pull her across—she'd been holding it so tight the edges cut into her palm. She remembered lying in bed, fever burning through her, and thinking that if she just held on to that little wooden girl she could stay here. Stay alive. But the sickness didn't care what she held. It took her anyway, and somewhere in the crossing she'd let go. She never saw it again. Never told her father she'd lost it. Never told him how badly she'd wanted to stay, how hard she'd fought before she slipped under. He thought she'd gone quietly, peacefully. He didn't know she'd clawed at the edges of the world trying not to fall through. The cub nudged her hand, sniffing at the carved figure. Miri closed her fingers around it and looked out at the forest. The spirit dog watched her, patient and waiting. Rothe's glow pulsed once from somewhere beyond the monument. She'd crossed over because she'd been sick and small and couldn't hold on. But she'd come back. And now she was here, feeding a cub at dawn, holding a stranger's lost treasure that looked so much like her own. She hadn't crossed willingly—she'd been dragged under despite everything she'd tried. Her father didn't need to know that part. What mattered was what she'd become on the other side. What she could do now. She tucked the carving into her pocket and scratched the cub behind its ears. When her father asked why she'd kept it, she'd tell him the truth about her strength. The rest could stay buried. But the mother bear's spirit appeared at the edge of the clearing, dissolving into wisps of pale light. The cub made a soft sound and stumbled toward it. The spirit didn't move closer, just stood there fading, and Miri understood. The bear had stayed bound to protect what she'd left behind, just like Miri's father had stayed bound to his research to bring her back. Both of them fighting death because they couldn't let go. The spirit flickered once more and vanished completely. The cub stopped at the platform's edge and looked back at Miri. She lifted it into her arms and felt its heartbeat against her chest. Her father would see this cub and think she'd saved something helpless. He wouldn't understand that she'd chosen to keep what the dead had released. That was the difference between them now. He pulled things back from death. She let them pass and carried forward what remained.