“The wurse. Very old. Very old wurse, Elsa,” he growls in the secret language.
“I can’t take everyone dying all the time,” Elsa weeps.
Wolfheart holds her by both her hands. Gently squeezes her forefingers. He’s trembling as if he’s holding white-hot iron, but he doesn’t let go, as one doesn’t when one realizes there are more important things in life than being afraid of children’s bacteria.
“Very old wurse. Very tired now, Elsa.”
And when Elsa just shakes her head hysterically and yells at him that no one else can die on her now, he lets go of one of her hands and reaches into his trouser pocket, from which he takes a very crumpled piece of paper and puts it in her hand. It’s a drawing. It’s obvious that it’s Granny who drew it, because she drew about as well as she spelled.
“It’s a map,” Elsa sobs as she unfolds it, the way one sobs when the tears have run out but not the crying.
Wolfheart gently rubs his hands together in circles. Elsa brushes her fingers over the ink.
“It’s a map of the seventh kingdom,” she says, more to herself than to him.
She lies down again on the table with the wurse. So close that its pelt pricks her through her sweater. Feels its warm breathing from the cold nose. It’s sleeping. She hopes it’s sleeping. She kisses its nose, so her tears end up in its whiskers. Wolfheart gently clears his throat.
“Was in the letter. Grandmother’s letter,” he says in the secret language and points at the letter. “Mipardonus.” The seventh kingdom. Your grandmother and I . . . we were going to build it.”
Elsa studies the map more carefully. It’s actually of the whole of the Land-of-Almost-Awake, but with completely the wrong proportions, because proportions were never really Granny’s thing.
“This seventh kingdom is exactly where the ruins of Mibatalos lie,” she whispers.
Wolfheart rubs his hands together.
“Can only build Mipardonus on Mibatalos. Your grandmother’s idea.”
“What does Mipardonus mean?” asks Elsa, with her cheek pressed to the wurse’s.
“Means ‘I forgive.’?”
The tears from his cheeks are the size of swallows. His enormous hand descends softly on the wurse’s head. The wurse opens its eyes, but only slightly, and looks at him.
“Very old, Elsa. Very, very tired,” whispers Wolfheart.
Then he tenderly puts his fingers over the wound that Sam’s knife cut through the thick pelt.
It’s hard to let go of someone you love. Especially when you are almost eight.
Elsa crawls close to the wurse and holds it hard, hard, hard. It manages to look at her one last time. She smiles and whispers, “You’re the best first friend I’ve ever had,” and it slowly licks her on the face and smells of sponge cake mix. And she laughs out loud, with her tears raining down.
When the cloud animals land in the Land-of-Almost-Awake, Elsa hugs it as hard as she can, and whispers: “You’ve completed your mission, you don’t have to protect the castle anymore. Protect Granny now. Protect all the fairy tales!” It licks her face one final time.
And then it runs off.
When Elsa turns to Wolfheart, he squints at the sun as you do when you haven’t been to the Land-of-Almost-Awake for an eternity of many fairy tales. Elsa points down at the ruins of Mibatalos.
“We can bring Alf here. He’s good at building things. At least he’s good at making wardrobes. And we’ll also need wardrobes in the seventh kingdom, won’t we? And Granny will be sitting on a bench in Miamas when we’re ready. Just like the granddad in The Brothers Lionheart. There’s a fairy tale with that name, I read it to Granny, so I know she’ll wait on a bench because it’s typical of her to nick something like that from other people’s fairy tales. And she knows The Brothers Lionheart is one of my favorite fairy tales!”