Echo Mountain - Lauren Wolk Page 0,82

sagging. How lonely Esther seemed. My Quiet, racing after a fawn, his teeth bared. Cate sitting alone in a fog of stink. And Larkin, standing by, appalled, while his father died.

And then Samuel coming out of nowhere, suddenly, the rabbit intent on the trees ahead, Samuel intent on the rabbit, as my father’s ax chocked and chocked against the tree, as the tree began to shake and crack, leaning, leaning, its branches frantic as it began to fall, my father stepping back and back, the tree spinning as I began to run, too slowly, toward my sweet, small brother, the tree thrashing overhead as I reached for him . . .

. . . and I felt, more clearly than ever before, my father’s hand on my back, pushing me hard. Felt him shove me clear as I swept Samuel into my arms and fell with him, the tree’s smallest branches sweeping across us as we fell, my father crashing to the ground behind us, and—

“Ellie, did you hear me?” Esther said, and I came back to myself, to the little cabin, to Esther saying something about going home soon.

“I really was in the way,” I whispered.

I looked up to find Cate’s eyes on me.

“We have to go home now,” I said slowly, standing up, looking around for my things.

Esther said, “I just told you that, Ellie. We need to go.”

“No. Not just us,” I said. “Cate, too.”

Larkin looked at me sharply. “What, sick as she is?”

“And hurt. Yes, I know.” I went to the trunk where Cate kept her leggings. Gathered them up. “Which is why we should do every last thing there is to do. Not just what we know to do. And not just what we think we know.” I thought of my mother on the morning of Quiet’s birth. How she had held Maisie’s head in her lap and stroked her ears through the long labor. How tenderly she had gathered Quiet up and put him into my hands. And I wondered for the first time if that was how I’d known what to call him: how quietly he had filled her hands, not yet breathing.

Which was when Cate said, “It’s a good idea. To take me down the mountain with you.”

“But why?” Larkin said. “If you’re going anywhere, it should be home with me.”

“With Ellie,” she said firmly. “To be of use.”

We both knew there were many ways to be of use.

I could see a fire in her tired eyes, burning stronger at the very thought of it.

And mine, as well, reflected in her eyes.

Chapter Sixty-Two

I made more bandages from Larkin’s sleeves, this time, tied them tight around Cate’s wound, and dressed her in leggings and a tunic. Laced up her boots.

She took nothing else with her except the little doll, which she clutched as if it were part of her.

With Larkin on one side of her and me on the other, we managed the path slowly, carefully, stopping often to rest.

At the roughest spots, we had to ease her down as if she were made of glass, bit by bit, careful of her leg.

She trembled like a dog does when thunder’s near, but she was clear-headed and clear-eyed and . . . excited.

I could feel that. Her eagerness. And my own fire burning hotter with every step we took toward home.

Esther seemed confused about things in general and said nothing at all as she followed us down the mountain, clutching Cate’s biggest book to her chest.

My own pack was filled with other things Cate had told us to bring, like bits cut from the upside-down garden hanging from the roof of her cabin. Things I couldn’t name. Not yet.

There were no bears or fisher cats or other wild creatures on the path this time, though I imagined that there would be some wildness in my mother’s face when we appeared at the cabin door.

I didn’t know where we would put Cate, what we would feed her, but I didn’t much care.

I would happily sleep with the dogs in the woodshed. Give up what jerky or eggs or bread were meant for me and eat, instead, what I could harvest from the forest floor: mushrooms and fiddleheads; lamb’s-quarters and dandelion leaves; chives and acorns; the taproots of wild carrots.

For I knew, with great clarity and certainty, that there was more I could do to help Cate. I just didn’t yet know what that might be.

Nor did I know what next to try for my father.

But