Finn stirred. She was listening.
“Mom, I know it’s you. Look, I know things didn’t end great between us.” She crept closer. “Some of that is on me.”
Finn’s head turned slightly.
Zadie continued, “I was angry. But I’m not anymore. I want us to work this out, but I need you to come to me.”
Slowly Finn began to turn, like a music box ballerina on her last pirouette. When she finally faced her sister, Zadie’s breath caught in her throat. The light behind Finn’s eyes reminded her of their mother. The similarity was striking enough that it was a few moments before Zadie could find her voice again. “Something was wrong, wasn’t it?”
Finn gave no indication of having heard her, but the eyes glinted in confirmation. Zadie hazarded another step in her direction.
“You needed help. I wanted you to talk to me, but you wouldn’t. I think you were trying not to scare us. You were trying to protect us from something you couldn’t explain.” Zadie realized she was crying. Finn’s eyes were wet, too, but whether it was from tears or rain, she couldn’t tell.
A few more steps. She was within arm’s reach now.
“I let you down,” Zadie said, her voice cracking. “I’m so sorry.”
Something in Finn’s face changed then. Nora’s light made its way from just her eyes to her brow and lips. She was now looking at Zadie the way their mother would when she thought her daughters weren’t looking. It was a look that said:You don’t know how wonderful you are, but I do.
Zadie had missed that look. It took everything she had in that moment to not start sobbing. She took a moment to compose herself, then continued, “But now I need you to help me. I need Finn back so I can get her to safety. Can you do that for me?”
Finn’s gaze drifted down to Zadie’s outstretched hand as rainwater pooled in her palm. Then, as if in slow motion, Finn extended hers, too. Zadie threaded her fingers through hers and guided her sister—her mom—gently away from the waterfall’s edge.
Once they were a safe distance from the cliff, Joel hurried forward just in time to catch Finn as her legs gave out. He lifted her in his arms and carried her to a mossy hillock on the edge of the floodplain. As soon as he laid her down, it became obvious to everyone why she had collapsed. The soles of her bare feet were bloody. Several of her toes were bruised and swollen, and one was missing a nail. Zadie gasped loudly enough for Joel to hear. He turned to Myron and asked, “Do you have a first-aid kit?” but Myron was already ahead of him. He pulled a red plastic box out of his pack and handed it to Joel.
“It’s okay, Joel. I can do it,” Zadie said, her squeamishness apparent.
“I got it. I trained as an EMT.”
“Youdid?”
“I mean, I just completed the training. I ended up bailing on it for a job at a haunted house.”
Zadie was simultaneously impressed by his expertise and unsurprised by his lack of commitment to it. “What are you doing now?” Her hands were shaking.
“Cleaning the wounds so they don’t get infected. Will you hand me the alcohol?” Zadie passed him a bottle with a small red plus sign on it, and he rinsed the soles of Finn’s feet with it. She groaned but didn’t say a word. When the wounds were clean and free of debris, he applied antibacterial ointment and wrapped her feet in gauze. “We’ll need to carry her.” Then, to Myron, “How far’s the hike back?”
“Three miles, give or take. Do you want me to take the first shift?”
“No, you navigate. I’ll carry.” Joel turned back to Finn. “I’m going to lift you, okay?”
Finn’s gaze rolled slowly skyward, as if her reply were trapped in the clouds.
“Has she ever done this before?” It took a moment for Zadie to register that Joel had asked her a question. She was too busy searching her sister’s face for signs of their mother. But it appeared she was gone. “No. She usually snaps out of it by now.”
Joel didn’t need to hear any more. He scooped Finn up in his arms like a rag doll, her mummified feet dangling at his side.
We did it. We found her,Zadie thought. But as they hiked back down the mountain, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Finn was still somewhere out there wandering the forest, leaving muddy footprints in her wake. It took an hour and a half to reach the Van Houtens’ home, and in all that time, Finn’s eyes—Nora’s eyes—never left the sky.
TWENTY-THREEWAVES OF SMOKE
Finn came to in a dark room. The first thing she felt was a throbbing sensation in her feet. Unable to wiggle her toes, she sat up in bed and looked down at the bandages that bound them together. She had no memory of hurting her feet. In fact, she had no memory at all of the past twelve hours. The last thing she remembered was sitting on Amy’s tree and looking into the mossy branches of the maple.
She’d spent every moment between then and now lost in her mother’s memories. Even now, as she looked down at the body that was ostensibly her own, something didn’t feel right. She felt like she was Nora assuming her daughter’s body, thatthiswas the echo, not the other way around. All of a sudden, the room felt stifling. She needed fresh air.
Zadie lay next to her on the bed, softly snoring. Finn moved slowly, so as not to wake her, and tenderly placed her weight on her feet. She sucked in a quick breath as all the nerves in her feet fired at once. When the worst of the pain had passed, she limped out of the bedroom and down the stairs to the workshop.
There was a light on downstairs. As soon as Finn saw Myron bent over his workbench, she froze for fear that one more step would lead her into another of his heartbreaking memories. He looked up, glasses precariously clinging to the end of his nose. “Hey, there. How are you feeling?”