Story so far
Elise grows up among the few survivors in Silo 17, attached to Solo and carrying a book assembled from favorite illustrated and instructional pages. As a small child missing a tooth, she counts steps to track the receding floodwater. She is more inclined than Rickson to trust newcomers and prefers catching fish to eating them. The arrival of help and the move to another silo unsettle her; she wants to stay near Solo and return home. Hannah calls her Lily, but she prefers Elise.
Her attachment to a puppy draws her into the crowded bazaar, where she finds it at a dog-meat stall. With Shaw and Solo involved in her escape, she gets away carrying Puppy and privately resolves to keep him. Hunger and uncertainty later make her vulnerable to another stranger. At seven, she is pressured by Father Remmy and Mr. Rash to disclose where the books are and sign a paper. Her captors replace her coveralls with a scratchy sewn blanket. Seeing a woman cut with a knife recalls what was done to her own and Hannah’s mothers and makes her fear the same treatment. She escapes after Solo forces Mr. Rash to release her.
Elise helps cut the server wires during preparations to leave, supports Juliette’s proposed destination, and takes her dog outside inside her suit. Her map and knowledge of the sun help the survivors find north, and she proposes walking to the sea. Her reading, taught by Hannah, has already improved her fishing; she later learns to hunt, clean, and cook deer from books. Juliette’s father says she had a twin sister. Under the stars, she proposes naming a puppy-shaped group Puppy and invites Juliette to name another.
After six years of bow practice, Elise has grown nearly as strong as Juliette and is the village’s only person known to have caught a rabbit barehanded. While hunting she kills a buck through the heart and follows Juliette’s teaching to stay alert after a kill. She initially wonders whether movement in the woods is Rickson, then meets April and Remy and judges them no immediate threat. Favoring a second village but wishing to remain near familiar woods, she takes the newcomers to Juliette on the beach.
When April draws a gun, Elise tries to shield Juliette. After the shot, she sends an arrow into April’s throat to prevent another. She first wounds Remy in the side, hoping to spare him, but shoots him through the heart when he again reaches for the gun. Elise holds Juliette’s hand and reassures her.
Appearance
Elise has grown nearly as strong as Juliette and can now draw the bow she once could not manage.
Role
A skilled village hunter and Silo 17 survivor who protects Juliette during the beach confrontation.
Relationships
Juliette — Juliette teaches Elise vigilance while hunting; Elise tries to shield her, stops her attackers, and comforts her after the shooting.
Rickson — Elise grew up alongside Rickson but has questioned his warnings about strangers.
April — Elise welcomes April, then shoots her to prevent her from firing at Juliette again.
Remy — Elise first hopes to spare Remy but shoots him through the heart when he reaches for the gun again.
Sources — 104 recorded facts, by chapter
Chapter 74
- Elise is the younger girl sheltering beside the teenage mother.
- Elise tells Juliette that she has a loose tooth.
Chapter 84
- Elise counts thirty-two steps while checking the falling water level.
- Elise has lost a tooth that has not yet been replaced.
- Elise joyfully tells Solo that the water is receding.
- Elise hugs Solo around his waist.
Chapter 198
- Elise finds Jimmy in the grow pits and insists it is time to leave.
- Elise is the youngest of the group and settles more arguments than she starts.
- Elise carries her memory book in a shoulder satchel.
- Elise packs food, water, clothes, batteries, a doll, and a hairbrush for the move.
- Elise monitored the retreating water by counting steps.
- Elise wishes Rickson would see the good in people as she does.
- Elise has a missing tooth.
Chapter 199
- Elise admits that she enjoys catching fish more than eating them.
- Elise repeatedly drops caught fish back into the water.
Chapter 203
- Juliette imagines Elise running from the office the children made their home and clinging to her leg.
Chapter 206
- Elise has told Juliette over the radio that she is making a book from her favorite pages.
Chapter 211
- Elise clings to Jimmy while they wait for the digger to break through.
- Elise tightens her hold on Jimmy when Courtnee greets her.
Chapter 214
- Elise clings to Jimmy as miners, mechanics, and dogs enter her silo.
- Elise carries a heavy book in a bag around her neck during the journey.
Chapter 215
- Elise dislikes being assigned a room apart from Jimmy.
- Elise volunteers to be examined after Jimmy.
- Elise wants to return to the home she has left.
- Elise mistakes the puppy for a cat.
- Elise follows the puppies’ sounds into a room and picks one up.
- Elise protests when the puppy is taken from her and shut in a crate.
Chapter 216
- Elise says Hannah calls her Lily, but she prefers Elise.
- Elise steps into the hallway during the radio conversation and asks to return to Rickson because she is hungry.
- Elise carries her memory book in her arms as she leaves, while her shoulder bag kicks, squirms, and makes noises.
Chapter 220
- Elise is missing after the confrontation, and someone reportedly saw her heading upward.
Chapter 221
- Elise follows reports of a man with a dog ten levels upward to level one-hundred while searching for her missing puppy.
- Elise becomes lost and frightened in the crowded bazaar.
- Elise identifies a pig using the pictures in her book.
- Elise recalls Rickson and the twins sending her into the dark to fetch food when she was barely old enough to walk.
- Elise tells Shaw she comes from Silo 17.
- Elise explains that her silo lies west of the current one.
- Elise finds her puppy in a pen at a dog-meat stall.
- Elise recovers her bag, book, and loose pages after the stallholder falls.
- Elise tells Solo that Shaw is her friend and asks him to put Shaw down.
- Elise asks to go home after escaping the stallholders.
Chapter 222
- Elise leaves the bazaar carrying Puppy while Solo carries her bag and book.
- Elise notices Shaw following them but chooses not to tell Solo.
- Elise insists Puppy came from Mechanical and pleads not to return him to the bazaar.
- Elise learns from Juliette and Solo that Marcus fell and died.
- Elise cannot understand how Marcus went over rails so high.
- Elise privately resolves to keep Puppy regardless of what she tells Juliette.
Chapter 235
- Elise has no pill in her flesh and is uncertain whether one will grow there.
- Elise does not want babies; she wants Puppy to stay with her.
- Elise begins to question Rickson’s warnings about strangers after seeing newcomers in her home.
- Elise sometimes wants to eat as much as possible when she sees the twins eating, fearing the food will run out.
- Elise tells the bearded man that she does not go to church.
- Hunger leads Elise to follow the bearded stranger into the dark hall.
Chapter 242
- Jimmy describes Elise as seven years old and missing a tooth.
- Elise habitually wanders off by herself.
- Terry suggests Elise may be with the chanters at a chapel if she is not at the farms.
Chapter 243
- Elise says she is seven years old.
- Elise initially mistakes the word Pact for a pack of animals.
- Elise wants Solo to help her find Puppy.
- Elise recoils when Mr. Rash touches her cheek.
- Elise believes in God after being taught by Hannah and Rickson.
- Elise has taken illustrated and instructional pages from many books.
- Instructional pages taught Elise a better way to fish.
- Elise tells Father Remmy that the books are on level thirty-four after he tightens his grip on her hands.
- Elise can read better than Miles because Hannah has taught her.
- Elise signs the paper because she hopes complying will let her leave.
- Mr. Rash physically guides Elise’s wrist toward the signature line.
- Elise prints her name while distressed and hoping the onlookers will go away.
Chapter 247
- Elise’s captors replace her coveralls with a scratchy blanket sewn up the front because they object to the color of her clothes.
- Elise is assigned a room as her new home but wants to return to her home beyond the Wilds.
- Elise longs to return to Puppy, Hannah, and Solo.
- Elise watches a woman being cut with a knife and recognizes the procedure as something done to her own mother and Hannah’s mother.
- Elise fears that she will eventually be subjected to the same cutting procedure.
- Elise escapes down the hall after Solo makes Mr. Rash release her.
Chapter 251
- Elise helps clear the server room by climbing onto a server and cutting its wires.
Chapter 252
- Elise marks the proposed destination with her finger while Juliette demonstrates the diggers’ routes.
- Elise takes Juliette’s hand as others express support for leaving.
Chapter 253
- Elise had a twin sister, according to Juliette’s father.
Chapter 255
- Elise runs ahead through the grass until her air hose restrains her.
- Elise carries her dog against her chest inside her suit.
- Elise releases her dog into the grass and then picks him up again.
Chapter 256
- Elise’s book contains entries for only a few of the seeds found in the tower.
- Elise uses a map and the sun to show the survivors which way is north.
- Elise claims to know how to catch wild fish.
- Elise proposes that the survivors walk to the sea.
Chapter 257
- Elise says she knows the stars and that some have names.
- Elise proposes naming a puppy-shaped group of stars Puppy.
- Elise invites Juliette to name a man-shaped group of stars.
Chapter 262
- Elise has six years of practice with a bow.
- Elise has grown nearly as strong as Juliette.
- Elise is the village’s only person known to have caught a rabbit with bare hands.
- Elise kills a buck with an arrow through the heart.
- Elise follows Juliette’s teaching that hunters must remain alert even after making a kill.
- Elise initially mistakes the strangers’ movement in the woods for a possible approach by Rickson.
- Elise introduces herself to April and Remy after deciding they pose no immediate threat.
- Elise learned to hunt, clean, and cook deer from books.
- Elise is from Silo 17.
- Elise favors creating another village but wants to remain near the woods she knows.
- Elise takes April and Remy to meet Juliette at the beach.
- Elise tries to shield Juliette when April draws her gun.
- Elise shoots April in the throat to prevent another gunshot.
- Elise first wounds Remy in the side while hoping to spare his life.
- Elise shoots Remy through the heart when he again reaches for the gun.
- Elise holds Juliette’s hand and reassures her after the shooting.