Echo Mountain - Lauren Wolk Page 0,3
mother, miss my sister, and be lonely, but I would not be sorry for what set me apart.
I loved the mountain. And I loved what it kindled in me. And that was that.
But it wasn’t easy.
* * *
—
If I needed another reason to love where I was, I got one on a morning in May when the whole world hummed and the air was sweet with the first of the lilac.
I found it in the pocket of my jacket, which I’d hung from a tree branch and forgotten.
My father had made that jacket in his shop before the crash, stitched it with spring flowers, carved the buttons from hardwood, made it with plenty of room for me to grow. And I wore it whenever I could, through work and weather and mess, while Esther and my mother kept theirs packed in brown paper, safe from harm, and scolded me for every new rip and stain.
When I plucked my jacket from the branch and slipped it back on, I found in the pocket a perfectly carved snowdrop sprouted from a bulb, so fine and delicate that I lifted it to my nose, expecting a whiff of meadow.
This time, I didn’t turn to search the woods around me.
This time, I let my eyes look past the carving and into the trees.
And there, just in that thicket there: a face.
Framed by leaves, as if it were part plant itself.
And then gone.
I blinked. Looked harder.
“Hello!” I called, but no one answered.
So I slipped the snowdrop back in my pocket and spent the rest of the day wondering about that face. Those eyes. Watching me.
* * *
—
After that, I looked more closely at the faces of the others on that mountainside, peering at them thoughtfully until more than one said, “Is there something in my teeth?” Or, “My wife has an old pair of glasses that might suit you.”
But none of the faces looked like the one I had seen. They were all too old. And none of them had enough . . . loneliness in them. So I went on as before, working hard, learning so much every day that I thought I might pop like corn in a kettle, and watching the woods to see who might be watching me.
* * *
—
When the first room was done, we moved out of the tent and into the cabin.
I remember: It was June and we were no longer cold except at the very darkest part of night.
For me, that was enough.
But my mother and Esther made my father put a bolt on the cabin door, so they could lock us in each night and sleep, finally, in peace. Dry. Safe. A thick wall between them and the wilderness.
By the time our first mountain winter came, we had a snug, safe home with four good rooms—one for us children, one for our parents, one for our kitchen, and one for everything else. A root cellar for what we’d grown the whole summer long. A place where we could start again. The know-how to make our way in this new world. And, for some of us, the blessing of knowing that we were blessed.
But that was before my father’s accident changed everything.
Chapter Four
“Mr. Peterson shot a doe,” my mother said as we lingered over our tea on the morning when Quiet was born. “Ellie, after breakfast you and Samuel go on up and get our share.”
Once the winter ice had melted, none of the five families who lived on the western slope of Echo Mountain had a way to keep meat fresh, so we’d come to share our kills, eating the best parts in short order and drying the rest for jerky.
Everyone knew that our next kill probably wouldn’t come anytime soon. My mother was a terrible shot, and she didn’t have time to lie in wait for a doe. Esther was gun-shy. Samuel at six was still too young and quite small for his age, besides.
I myself was two opposite things at the same time. One: I was now an excellent woods-girl who could hunt and trap and fish and harvest as if I’d been born to it. Two: I was an echo-girl. When I clubbed a fish to death, my own head ached and shuddered. When I snared a rabbit, I knew what it meant to be trapped. And when I pulled a carrot from the sheath of its earth, I, too, missed the darkness.
There were times when this two-ness made me feel as