“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to be nosy.”
“Weren’t you?”
Finn considered this. “Yeah, I guess I was.”
Rowan’s hard façade crumbled. “Promise you won’t tell anyone. Especially not my dad.”
“Tell him what?”
“Just don’t tell him you saw me out here.”
Finn knew she should walk away and leave Rowan to what was probably just an eccentric hobby, but her curiosity, as usual, got the better of her. “What are all these holes for?”
Rowan frowned. “I’m looking for something.”
“Buried treasure?” Finn softened the joke with a smile, but the girl didn’t smile back.
“I can’t tell you what it is.”
“Are you sure? Maybe I can help.” Finn took a step forward.
“Watch your—!” Rowan shouted just as Finn’s foot slipped inside one of the holes.
She was standing on the earth.
Then she was part of it.
Her toes spreading down and out like roots.
Her legs, back, chest were solid, steady.
Her arms quivered and shook and held back the rain.
Her head… well, she no longer needed one.
Her thoughts, senses, feelings now lived in all of her, from root to leaf.
Am I a tree?her subconscious asked her conscious.
No,her conscious answered.That’s impossible.
But was it? She angled her leaves toward the sunlight, took a long pull of groundwater.
If I’m not a tree, then what am I?
Finn opened her eyes to find Rowan lightly shaking her. “Finn?”
“Yep. I’m here,” she said, woozy, and sat cross-legged on the ground. She was relieved to see that she still had legs and toes and that her skin was smooth, not made of scratchy bark.
“Whatwasthat?” Rowan backed away, warily.
She’d already confessed her ability to Myron. What did it matter if his daughter knew, too? “It was an echo.”Was it?It felt like one, but trees didn’t have memories, as far as she knew.
“What’s an echo?”
“It’s like a sixth sense. I can feel memories that aren’t mine.”
Rowan had the look of someone trying to do math in their head. “Whose memories?”