The two characters who are tied most directly to Carl’s emotional self are Ellie (Elie Docter) and Russell (Jordan Nagai). In young Ellie, Carl finds the love of his life and they get married. Indeed, it is the inability of Ellie to have a child and her death that drives home the necessity Carl feels to make her goal — going to Paradise Valley — his goal. Even though Ellie is dead, she remains very much ‘alive’ to Carl throughout the story in part through a number of talismans which take on her ‘spirit’ — the house itself, the Book of Adventure, her photo, the grape soda pin. And when he finally manages to set the house on the exact spot atop Paradise Valley, as envisioned by Ellie, she magically ‘reappears’ to him through a series of touching photos in the Book of Adventure, ending with her handwritten note, thanking him for fulfilling the promise he made to her (“cross your heart”), then setting Carl ‘free’ with the admonition: “Now go have a new adventure.”