The Covenant of Water

The family spends the night searching for Elsie to no avail. At first light Georgie travels to the Thetanatt house, confirms Elsie isn’t there, and learns that she isn’t at the estate either. After 24 hours, Shamuel returns walking slowly up the drive, holding Elsie’s soap and clothing that he found folded in a clearing near the river. Uplift Master reports the discovery to the police, who say they can only wait for news of a body downstream.

That night Big Ammachi goes alone to the spot, presses her toes into the same soil Elsie must have stood on, and stares at the rising river, imagining Elsie stepping into the current in her weakened state. She then walks to Elsie’s nest and finds a sheet of thick drawing paper under a polished stone, showing a bent-backed mother cradling a child. Big Ammachi recognizes herself in the image and takes it as Elsie’s last request to raise Mariamma. She hides the drawing with the family genealogy and tells no one. Each year on Mariamma’s birthday she studies the drawing by lamplight, convinced that Elsie chose to die in the river.