When he felt my shadow, he turned toward me, his little tail wagging, his tongue like the tip of a pink ribbon.

“Oh, what a fine present you are,” I said, scooping him up and rubbing his nose with mine. “What a boy. What a good little Quiet you are.”

And I realized, then, that Quiet wasn’t the first person I had saved.

Or the last.

Captan, coming up the path from below, stopped at the sight of us and then came on again, more quickly.

He had taken to spending most of his time near the cabin door, no longer welcome inside, but patient about that.

No more howling. Still, though, the occasional bark and a certain amount of singing, as if he had something to say. To which I always listened.

And I did now, as he came to me and crooned for Quiet.

Some father dogs could be unkind to their pups, but not Captan.

When I put Quiet on the ground, Captan licked him with his big, rough tongue. To clean him, yes, but to kiss him, too.

And I knew again that doing one thing was doing everything.

—

I knew the same thing, all over again, later that day, when we led my father and Cate out to sit in the afternoon sun and take another step toward well.

They had become friends as they’d healed, side by side, and even better friends when they both grew strong enough to do small chores together at the kitchen table, and to help us with our lessons, all the while talking about their lives on Echo Mountain.

“You’re lucky to have a girl like Ellie,” Cate said as I settled them in the chairs we’d brought out to the yard, one facing down-mountain, one facing up, so they faced each other.

“We are,” he said, smiling at me.

And I was lucky, too, when I left them to their conversation and went into the woodshed to lay fresh straw for the puppies, only to find the stool not where I had left it but just there, by the high shelf where I kept my small treasures.

And I was lucky when I stepped up on the stool and found not ten carvings waiting where I’d left them, but eleven now.

A new one, right next to the one that looked like me.

This one was of a boy. Tall. Lean. With hair like a bear’s fur, and a face with so much music in it that I laughed out loud.

And climbed down from the stool.

And went out into the trees to find him.

And did.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to many people who helped with Echo Mountain.