back to me for a long moment.
Then she said the same thing Samuel had said not so many days before. “You’re twelve, Ellie. What do you know about it?”
I spent some time thinking about what she meant by it while she stood warming her hands over the kettle.
Then I said, “I know what it’s like to try to change something sad and awful.”
She turned from the stove and looked at me.
“I suppose you do,” she said, too much weariness in her voice. “But I won’t leave your father to go up that mountain with you.”
Which was all right, really. Going back to Cate’s alone was something I could do, so I would do it. But I would miss the chance to unspool the thread that kept my mother bound to where she was.
And then she said the thing that made me sorry for pushing so hard: “I already have enough sad and awful as it is.”
“I’ll go with you, Ellie,” Samuel said from the doorway.
And I loved him even more.
“You’ll do no such thing,” my mother said. “You, at least, will do your lessons and your chores today. That’s what you’ll do. You”—she looked back at me—“you do whatever you want. But send your sister down here again. Miss Cate isn’t the only one who needs some help.”
“I’ll feed Maisie,” Samuel said, still watching us. “And I’ll look after the puppies.”
I handed him the skillet. “She’ll be glad to see you. And tell Quiet I’ll be back soon.”
Before I left, I went to see my father.
My mother had turned him onto his side and propped him there to take the weight off his back for a while.
I knelt next to the bed and looked straight into his slack face.
The pillow by his mouth was wet with his drool.
“You woke up once,” I said. “You need to wake up again.” I kissed his forehead. It should have been warmer. “When I come back, we’re going to start all over again. Not just me. You, too.”
But if he heard me, he showed no sign of it.
Chapter Fifty-Three
I got dressed. Ate my porridge in a few big bites. Packed a fresh jar for gathering honey. Made sure I had my work gloves. My flint. My knife.
My mother watched me. “Does she have any food up there?”
“Some. I don’t know. But I saw grain. Some dried apples. And there’s the bread and jerky I took up yesterday, if they haven’t eaten it all. She must have more, stored somewhere.”
I thought of the shed behind the cabin and what might be in it. Larkin bringing her what he could. That garden, and what might have grown there. The snares she set.
“Even so, put the last of that porridge in a crock.”
There. That was what I needed. To hear her say such things.
I packed everything in my pack and hung it from my shoulder.
I looked at Samuel, who had come back in from the woodshed and was humming and swinging his feet as he finished his breakfast.
“Keep Daddy company while I’m gone.”
“I will,” he said solemnly.
“And don’t forget to check on the puppies, too, and give Maisie plenty of water.”
He shook his head. “I won’t.”
“And don’t go wandering off anywhere.”
“Ellie, stop being so bossy,” he said, glaring at me. “You sound like Esther.”
Which set me back a step or two.
“I have to go now,” I said slowly, my mind already on its way. I started to say Be good but stopped myself and said, “Goodbye,” instead.
“I’m going to bring Frank in to visit with Daddy.” Samuel scraped the last bit of porridge up and into his mouth.
“Who’s Frank?”
“The puppy with the white paw,” Samuel said.
I opened my mouth to ask why he had chosen Frank, but instead I said, “It’s not a good idea to name puppies we have to give up.”
At which he gave me his usual scowl. “You got to name Quiet.”
I nodded. “Yes, I did. That’s how I know.”
And my mother turned to look at me before I went out the door.
* * *
—
I had intended to stay away from Quiet, since spending time with him would just make it harder to let him go, but I stopped in the woodshed before heading up the mountain again.
“Hey, little one,” I said as I picked him up and held his nose against mine.
Maisie had licked the skillet clean and was grooming her paws, the other puppies staggering around the nest in search of her. She looked at them fondly but stayed right where she