Her youngest extends a finger
Barely glances off the crown of its head before it takes flight
I scared him,her daughter says
No, honey,she answers
It was just time for him to go
Finn knew where she was before she even opened her eyes. The familiar squawks and whistles and cries took her back to a time when her mother would hoist her on her shoulders so that she could get a closer look at the cockatoos and parakeets perched in the umbrella trees. What was unfamiliar was the damp feeling on her back.
Finn rolled over and found that she had been lying in a puddle, runoff from the sprinkler system that misted the giant fan palms above. How she had ended up passed out on the floor of the zoological gardens’ aviary, she wasn’t sure. The last thing she remembered was standing awkwardly in front of her party guests while Kathy regaled everyone with stories of her youth.
Then it all came rushing back to her: the song, the bird, her mom’s outstretched hand.
Her mom.
Shehadshown up to her party after all, just not in the present. Nora’s memory was at least a decade old, but to Finn, it felt as fresh as just-cut grass. She could still feel the gentle pinch of the bird’s toes on her finger, the way it tickled her palm as it pecked at the mound of seeds. It was the first echo of her mother she’d ever had, the first sign since her disappearance that she had ever existed.
Finn caught the eye of a lovebird nestled among the palm fronds. The little creature was still aside from the visible thumping of its heart in its chest, a lot of effort expended by one organ simply for the act of waiting. Finn had been waiting for her mom for five years. Neither the police nor the internet had yielded any clues as to where she had gone or why she had left. Her echo didn’t answer those questions, either, but it had given her one important thing: hope. If Finn could access her mom’s memories, maybe she could use them to piece together what had happened the day she left. And maybe, if she was lucky, they would lead Finn to her mom.
“Finn!”
She turned to see Zadie approaching, drenched in sweat and squeezing a cramp in her right side. “I ran all the way here,” shesaid, her breathing labored. “Are you okay?” She leaned over and felt her sister’s forehead.
“I’m not sick,” Finn said with dry amusement.
“I know that.” Zadie pulled her hand away quickly and shifted awkwardly. “I tried to stop you—”
“From running out of my own party like a crazy person?”
Zadie nodded. “Hold on. I need to sit for a sec.” She collapsed next to her sister on the concrete and hung her head between her legs.
“Areyouokay?”
“Yep. Never better.” She sucked in a deep breath. “So that must have been a pretty intense one, huh?”
Intensewas not the word Finn would have used.Exhilarating, reaffirming,evencomforting: these were all words that described the experience she’d just had. But as eager as she was to tell her sister about the echo, the secret stuck like flypaper to her tongue. “Yeah. I don’t remember how I got here.”
Zadie raised her head, frowning. “You blacked out?”
“I guess so.” Finn shrugged.
“Does that happen a lot?”
“No. This is the first.”
Zadie looked like she was about to feel Finn’s forehead again, then thought better of it. “Just… be careful, okay?”
“I will.”
Zadie nodded despite looking unconvinced and dropped her head back between her legs.
Just spit it out!Finn wasn’t sure why she was so hesitant to tell her sister about the echo. Zadie’s feelings about their mom were complicated, but complicated feelings or not, she still deserved the truth. “Hey, listen. I kind of have something big to tell you. Like, maybe you should just stay like that to brace yourself.”
Zadie’s head snapped up. “Okay… Now, you’re making me nervous.”
But before Finn could respond, Steve came stomping throughthe palms toward them, even more sweaty and out of breath than her sister had been. “Finn! There you are! What happened?”