Echo Mountain - Lauren Wolk Page 0,94

he kept looking at my mother. Not at me. “This has something to do with you, Mother.” I stepped aside.

When she held out her hand, he put his nose in her palm. Licked it. And sang some more of the song he’d apparently been saving for her.

Since I’d met him, he’d made no sound except a pair of howls, a little whining and, from time to time, a growl or two.

And this was no growl. Far from it.

When he turned toward the bedroom where Cate and my father lay sleeping, I waited for my mother to follow. And then I did, too.

* * *

—

The lantern burned so low in the room that it lifted the darkness only a little, like the very first moment of dawn.

I turned up the wick and held the lantern high.

Nothing seemed amiss, but Captan kept singing. And he went not to Cate but to my mother again, singing all the while.

“What’s the matter with him?” my mother whispered. She bent to look him in the eye again. “I don’t know what you want.”

No more lullabies, I had said.

Captan seemed to disagree.

And he clearly meant this one for my mother.

But then he left her and went to my father’s side of the bed, his nose close to my father’s face.

We looked at him.

He looked at my mother.

Looked at her some more, still singing.

And then he turned back to my father.

And he barked.

One loud, shattering bark that nearly stopped my heart.

The first bark I’d ever heard from him.

“What!” Cate cried, startling like a grouse. “What is it, Cap?”

And then he barked again.

“Captan!” I cried.

And he barked again, even more loudly than before.

My mother covered her ears.

“What’s wrong?” Samuel said as he tumbled through the doorway. “Why is that dog barking?”

For a fourth time, Captan barked.

And my father turned his head away.

“Oh, good dog,” I said, rushing to the bed. “Good boy.”

“What’s happening?” Esther cried as she, too, raced into the room, her face wild.

And Cate said, her voice full of wonder, “I don’t believe Captan has barked since my boy died.”

And the fire in my chest flared even more.

I stepped out of the way and pulled my mother close to my father, Samuel pushing up, too, Esther with him.

And Captan barked again.

And my father flinched again.

“Oh, good dog,” I said.

At which Captan began to sing some more of his dog-song, louder than before, looking up at my mother, though I was the one who understood him.

“Oh, you very good boy,” I said. “You are a great and wonderful dog, aren’t you, Captan.”

And he sang some more, his eyes on my mother’s face.

“What does he want?” she said, clearly baffled, her cheeks pink, her hands at her throat.

I went to the corner and picked up the mandolin my mother hadn’t played since my father had gone to sleep.

“Oh, my beautiful, beautiful boy,” Cate said softly.

But I didn’t think she was talking to Captan, though it was clear that she understood him, too.

I held the mandolin out to my mother.

She took it from me.

Cate watched as if she might be watching a rose about to bloom.

We all did.

And my mother looked at my father, listened to the song that Captan was singing, and began to pluck the strings softly, one by one, turning the knobs on the neck of her mandolin, of her Keavy, until the notes rang true. Whatever true is. And Esther went still. Even Samuel went still. And Cate began to smile.

And Captan looked at my father and barked again, a ringing bark that echoed as it rang. And turned to my mother and sang to her some more.

And I watched, and I watched, and I watched as my mother began to play. Something I couldn’t name and hadn’t heard in a long, long time. Something sweet, and sad, and wonderful that made Captan croon and tremble. Made us all smile like children, which some of us were. Which all of us were in that moment.

Even my father, who opened his eyes as if it were Christmas morning, he himself the gift.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t say a word. But this time, when he looked at me, he was there. He was right there, in those eyes, looking out at me as he once had.

And I was right there where he could see me.

Chapter Seventy

None of us got another minute of sleep for the rest of that night.

We stayed in the bedroom and watched as my father slowly surfaced, blinking and sighing, all of us