First, those who have suffered my amateur ministrations over the years, especially my husband Richard (whose broken tooth I once sanded down with my Dremel), and our sons, Cameron and Ryland. I sometimes think I should have gone to medical school and become a diagnostician. As it is, I like to investigate sickness and do what I can to cure it. My friends and family have been very patient patients over the years, and I thank them for that.

My grandmother, Ann McConnell, who made everything better when I got banged up playing on the family farm. She used things like balsam of Peru, baking soda, vinegar, poultices, and mud for everything from bee sting to bruises. And she relied on scoldings and sweets for almost everything else.

My mother, Mimi McConnell, who bought some land in Maine and built a little camp there so we could retreat from the chaos of our lives and let the mountains remind us of what’s important. That land inspired Echo Mountain. So did she. I thank her for that and for her thoughts about Ellie’s story.

My sister, Suzanne Wolk, and my father, Ronald Wolk, who were among my first and best readers and helped me see how to make this a better book. My uncle, Calvin Richard McConnell, who built his own cabin in a place called Wolf Hollow and helped to inspire Echo Mountain.

As always, the members of my writing group, the Bass River Revisionists, especially Deirdre Callanan, another early reader who never fails to push me into better, stronger work. And Jack Harrison, whose voice I sometimes hear when the work is most difficult.

Beatrice and Frieda Bilezikian and Zoë Reese Gameros, young readers whose insights helped me see Echo Mountain in a new light.

So many colleagues and friends—including Bob Nash, Amy Neill, Meg McNamara, Laura Kelley, and Patty Creighton—who make me feel stronger than I really am. (Amy is also a lovely hag skilled at making potions and tinctures and brews of all kinds. She helped to inspire Cate.)

Lila, Tanner, Rascal, Spike, and all the other dogs who helped me create Captan and Maisie and their pups . . . especially Quiet.

Wendy Newmeyer, co-owner of Maine Balsam Fir Products in West Paris, Maine, whose little shop I visit whenever I go to the Oxford hills to camp. When I asked Wendy about the healing properties of balsam, she took me to a tree at the edge of the woods behind the shop and told me about the many ways to use its wood and sap.

Elaine Wilson Young, who lent me a mountain of very old books on healing, which I shared with Ellie and Cate, and which helped me understand what people in those days knew about illness and medicine. And what they didn’t know.