Misa Moon's Arc

Chapter 10 of 10

By morning the storm had thinned. Most travelers drifted back inside for bread and warmth. But one bed near the back wall stayed occupied. A woman had come in two nights ago with the trappers. She had not eaten. She had not spoken. She lay turned to the wall with a folded coat clutched against her chest. Eira knelt beside the bed with tea. She spoke softly and got no answer. She left the cup on the floor. When she came back an hour later, the cup was cold and full. "Her husband died on the road," Eira told Misa in the kitchen. "The trappers found her sitting beside him in the snow. She won't tell me his name." Eira's hands stayed steady around her own cup, but her mouth pulled tight. "I can treat frostbite. I can't treat this. She has to let me in." Misa went to the bed and sat on the floor beside it. She tried a question. She tried silence. She tried her own name. The woman did not move. The raven tattoo on Misa's shoulder shifted down her arm. Wrong approach. Misa already knew. She walked out to the covered bridge and stood under the lanterns. Grief was a room she could not enter. But she had spent ten chapters learning she did not have to enter every room alone. She found Mabel first. "The woman in the back bed. She lost someone on the road. I don't know his name. Neither does she, out loud. But she was with the trappers three days. They ate at your table. They must have said something." Mabel set down her book. "He liked the honey bread. He asked twice." "Wrap a loaf. Bring it to the bridge at dusk. Don't say anything. Just put it down." Misa went to Astra next, at the shrine with her telescope. "Did he ask you about a star?" Astra's face changed. "He asked which one a sailor follows home. I showed him. I wrote it on a slip of paper for him." "Copy it again. Bring the paper at dusk." She found Rowan tuning his lute by the hearth. He had played two nights ago while the trappers ate. "He hummed along to one song," Rowan said before Misa finished asking. "An old one. I remember which." "Play it once. Quietly. On the bridge at dusk." Eira brought a pressed sprig of rosemary from her cottage. Hades set an empty cedar chest at the foot of the bed without being asked. At dusk they came in one at a time. Bread. A star on paper. A silver lantern. Rosemary. A folded blanket. A few notes of a song. Each person placed their item in the chest and left without speaking. Misa knelt by the bed. "He wasn't only yours," she said. "Open it when you can." Near dawn, Misa heard the lid lift. Then, for the first time, a name spoken out loud.