As Zadie disappeared through the automatic sliding doors of the gas station, Finn half sat on the hood of the car and craned her face toward the light like a flower. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been awake from sunset to sunrise. It was dizzying, as if she could actually feel the rotation of the earth beneath her feet. She should have been tired, but all she felt was this propulsive energy coursing through her the way she did before a big track meet. It wasn’t just the possibility of finding her mom that excited her. It was the journey ahead. It was waking up every morning to a new sky, exploring new places. She had been on vacations before, but never anything she would consider an adventure.Thiswas an adventure.
It would likely only be a matter of minutes before Steve and Kathy woke up and found her missing. She winced, imagining Steve knocking on her bedroom door and saying something like “Finn, I made pancakes! Better hurry before Milly decides to jump up onto the table again.” When she didn’t answer, he would let himself in and find her bed messy as usual, but unoccupied. Thirty more seconds would pass before he found her note, thirty seconds that would feel like an eternity to him, each millisecond unfurling in slow motion like a new leaf. Finn could picture his face in those moments, as confusion quickly metamorphosed into panic.
Suddenly she wasn’t so sure that she’d done the right thing. She could have waited until morning, told her foster parents to their faces, not skip out of town in the middle of the night.Don’t worry. I didn’t run away!she’d written in her note. Finn just now realized how flippant those words were, as if she’d anticipated Steve’s pain and had crudely placed an exclamation point beside it.
She unlocked her phone and opened the text app.SORRY ABOUT THE NOTE,she typed.I’LL CALL YOU WHEN WE ARRIVE.It was a soft lie. She and Zadie would arrive, just not at the destination she had given Kathy “in case of emergencies.” She would call them from her fictional room overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, and they would believe her because she had never given them a reason not to trust her word.I’ll just tell them I have my toes in the sand,she decided as shegazed out at the burnished landscape. For all she knew, she could be looking at the same sand that—hundreds of miles southeast—was tangled with seaweed and gull feathers. Maybe, the beach was simply one edge of the desert, and she was standing on the other end.
To assuage her guilt, Finn reminded herself why she was there.Mom is missing, and I can find her. It was then that the weight of the commitment she’d made truly hit her. Their success—or failure—hinged on her. She would have to harness her ability in a way she never had before, not simply waiting for memories to come to her, but seeking them out. She would have to learn to hunt with a spear, not a trap.
Finn inhaled until her lungs trembled with fullness, closed her eyes, and cast her mind out like a net. She could feel memories all around her, floating like pollen; memories about flat tires and jumped batteries, counting change on a car hood, and collect calls that said “come home” on the other end of the line. They were all stories about people on a journey, just like hers.
Then she sensed one memory that seemed to have a stronger presence than the others. She could feel it, like a vibration in her chest.Mom, is that you?Finn’s question hung in the air, unanswered. She tethered her mind to the memory, just as she had done all those times at the Fro-Yodel, and tried to reel it in. After several seconds of intense concentration, she could feel the memory start to yield to her. A moment later, it docked.
Finn’s ears filled with a dull roar.It sounds mechanical,she thought.Like an engine.She concentrated harder. The sound sharpened.
No. Not an engine. Water. A waterfall.She heard thousands of gallons of water succumb to gravity; the thunder of erosion. Finn flinched as she imagined her mom being pulled along by the current, then tumbling into the billowing white cloud over the rocks. She shook her head, trying to focus on the only thing she knew was real: the roar of the water.
Then the sound changed once again. It was not a continuous flow of water, she realized. It was a short, loud burst followed by a gentle trickle and a long hiss.
“Ahhh… that’s the good stuff.” Zadie appeared beside her, holding a cardboard coffee cup. “Actually it’s not that good, but at least it’s caffeinated.” She paused, trying to read her sister’s expression. “You okay?”
Finn burst out laughing.
“Wow, okay. What did I miss?”
“I finally got one.”
“An echo?”
Finn was laughing so hard that she was gasping for air, but she managed to squeak out ayes.
Zadie squinted, confused. “Must have been funny.”
“For a second, I thought—I thought Mom haddrowned!”
“That’s not funny at all.”
“No, it’s not.” A breath. “Then I realized the sound I was hearing was a—a toilet flushing!”
Zadie starting laughing, too—probably just because her sister was—and soon both of them were doubled over, clutching stitches in their sides. By the time their laughs had turned to sighs, Zadie said, “Well, we’re off to a great start.”
Finn let out one last chuckle. “Yeah, we’re killing it.”
“I’m kinda hungry. How about you?”
“I could eat.”
Zadie nodded at a diner across the street that looked like an old saloon. A yellow A-frame sign outside the door read:
EARLY BIRD PANCAKE SPECIAL
50¢ EACH
5 A.M. TO 7 A.M.
“Did you know that armadillos carry leprosy?” Finn said, petting the scaly shell of the taxidermy animal displayed on the hostess stand of the restaurant.
“Then why are you touching it?” Zadie backed up a step.