Victor Grimholt's Arc

Chapter 2 of 9

Morning came gray and wet. Victor sat by the basket where he had sat all night. The baby stirred inside the yellow rabbit hood and blinked up at him. He tried to say good morning. He tried to say her name. He had no name to say. A butcher named every cut before he wrapped it. A man who could not name a thing could not keep it. He understood this the way he understood salt. He carried her out past the gate to clear his head. The path took them by the old glass chapel at the edge of the water, its green windows fogged with dew, ivy crawling up the stone. He did not go inside. He stopped on the step and held her up to the colored glass. "Names are hooks," he rasped. "You hang a life on one. Pick wrong, the meat falls in the dirt." She reached for the light on the pane and laughed. He walked home no closer to an answer, and set her in the basket while he split wood he did not need. Livia came at midday, as she had promised. She fed the baby mashed pear from a wooden spoon and watched Victor pace. "You've named a hundred blades," she said. "Name her." He said every name was a lie until it fit. She said then wait for one that fit. She stayed until dusk, sang the tuneless song again, and left a pot of broth on the hearth. "Tomorrow," she said at the door, and was gone. That night the clouds broke. A full moon came through the small window and laid a white square on the floor. Victor lifted the baby from the basket and set her in the square. The light sat on her round cheeks and caught in her dark curls under the yellow hood. She looked up at the moon and did not blink. She did not cry. She reached one small hand toward it, as if the moon were a thing she could pick up and chew. Victor knelt in the cold light and watched her. "Lunella," he said. The word came out of him without permission. He said it again to be sure. She turned her head at the sound. He touched one finger to her palm. She closed her fist around it. "Lunella," he rasped. "That is the hook. Don't fall off." He carried her back to the basket and, for the first time in three days, he slept.