Echo Mountain - Lauren Wolk Page 0,70

tree.

In my dream, I saw him dying. I saw his small body go still. I saw his head loose on its neck, tipping toward its rest.

I saw Esther’s face. The panic in it. And I knew what she was feeling. That there had to be a way to stop everything and wind it back. Wind it back to before she had strayed too far into the trees in search of kindling while Samuel went on his silly way, chasing a rabbit toward an end to everything, toward a stillness that would never warm, never wake, never change no matter how much we hoped and prayed it would.

I woke before the dream had a chance to show me my mother’s face. Or my father’s. Or my own.

I woke to tears and a terrible need to know that Samuel was all right.

“What are you doing, Ellie?” he mumbled as I climbed into his bed and took him in my arms. He was warm and soft. Nothing but warm and soft, which was everything. “Your feet are cold and your face is wet. I’m sleeping, Ellie.”

So I hushed him and told him it wasn’t morning yet. To go back to sleep.

Which he did.

It took me much longer to follow him, though I was as tired as I’d ever been.

* * *

—

I woke the next morning to the sound of Samuel in the kitchen, asking why I was in his bed and what was wrong with my own bed and where was Esther.

“I don’t know why Ellie is in your bed,” my mother said. “We’ll ask her when she wakes up. And Esther is up on the top of the mountain with Miss Cate, helping to look after her for a bit. Now, sit down and eat your porridge.”

“Porridge? I’d rather eat a giant spider.”

“I traded Mrs. Lockhart a pair of slippers for some maple syrup to sweeten it up,” my mother said, “but if you’d rather eat a spider, you can do that.”

It sounded like a good morning. Better than most since my father’s accident. And I wanted to lie still and listen to it unfold before anything else came along to drag me away.

But then I remembered my father, who needed waking, too.

And Cate’s leg. And Esther, waiting.

“I think I’ll keep this bed for my own,” I called out, eager to be roused by my small, rumpled brother before I set out once again to make myself useful.

“That’s my bed!” Samuel cried, racing in to wrestle me out onto the floor. He shoved his legs under the covers and pulled them up to his chin.

“Then that’s my maple syrup,” I said, heading for the kitchen while he scrambled to beat me to the table.

“What’s for Maisie?” I said as I pulled on my boots.

“I’m stewing up the last of the venison, but I saved some for her.”

I dragged my jacket on over my nightdress. “Will you come with me this time?”

“To see Maisie?” She handed me an old, battered skillet that had lost its handle. “I added some gravy. But it’s time for her to be hunting again. Put her out after she eats. The puppies will be fine without her for a while.”

I stared at her. “Is that your way of telling me I’ll be fine on my own, too?”

She stared back at me. “Oh. You meant go with you up-mountain?”

“It won’t take long. It’s not so far.”

She turned back to the stove. “No, Ellie. Your father needs me here.”

“But you were ready to go last night when Captan came down with that doll.”

“I know. But your father could wake up again while we’re gone and I can’t very well leave Samuel alone with him. Besides, she has family of her own.”

“She has one boy only.”

“And you’re one girl, doing more for her than anyone. And now Esther, too. And you want me to get involved as well?”

“What about Larkin’s mother?”

She threw a log in the stove and latched the door. “What about her?”

“She’s Keavy,” I said.

“Which is just a name, Ellie. She’s not actually a mandolin.” She began to pump water into the kettle. “I’ve never seen a person with less music in her.”

Which I understood. Which was true. For now, that was true. But I thought my mother was being hard-hearted.

Especially when, just the night before, she had seemed newly soft.

“Since Daddy got hurt, you haven’t played once or sung really at all,” I said carefully.

My mother put the kettle on the stove, too hard, and stood with her