“Which is her name.”

“Whose name?”

“Larkin’s mother. That’s her name. Keavy.”

My mother peered into the mandolin. Looked back at me, her eyes wide.

I said, “His father was a luthier.” The new word tasted heavy and good on my tongue. “He made mandolins. He made that one.”

“He was a luthier,” she said softly. “He made my Keavy.”

She seemed confused, and I thought I knew why.

I said, “It’s hard to imagine him naming his mandolins for someone so mean.”

She nodded. “It is.”

“Larkin says she wasn’t mean before his father died. Maybe she’ll wake up soon and come back to what she used to be.”

My mother looked me in the eye. “Or what she’ll be next.”

Chapter Fifty-Two

It was odd being in the cabin without Esther.

I could breathe more easily. But the cabin also felt emptier.

I fell asleep almost as soon as I lay down, the day catching up with me. And the day before that. And the one before that.

As I slept, I dreamed a different version of the memory that had so often kept me awake.

As always, I was with my father, clearing trees by the frozen garden.

As always, Samuel came running after the rabbit, my father and Esther and my mother all busy with their work.

But in this dream, I didn’t see my little brother in time.

In this dream, I rushed toward him too late. And then I tripped and fell as he ran, the tree sweeping through the air, spinning on its stump.

This time, my father saw only me, sprawled in the dirt.

And Samuel, this time, was the one felled by the tree.

In my dream, I saw him dying. I saw his small body go still. I saw his head loose on its neck, tipping toward its rest.

I saw Esther’s face. The panic in it. And I knew what she was feeling. That there had to be a way to stop everything and wind it back. Wind it back to before she had strayed too far into the trees in search of kindling while Samuel went on his silly way, chasing a rabbit toward an end to everything, toward a stillness that would never warm, never wake, never change no matter how much we hoped and prayed it would.

I woke before the dream had a chance to show me my mother’s face. Or my father’s. Or my own.

I woke to tears and a terrible need to know that Samuel was all right.

“What are you doing, Ellie?” he mumbled as I climbed into his bed and took him in my arms. He was warm and soft. Nothing but warm and soft, which was everything. “Your feet are cold and your face is wet. I’m sleeping, Ellie.”

So I hushed him and told him it wasn’t morning yet. To go back to sleep.