“I could just tell,” he said.

I waited some more.

“And you were all so . . . poor,” he said, which really meant something, coming from a boy whose clothes were a matter of patches held together by burrs. “Sad,” he said, which was the truth of it. “You were hard to watch when you first got here.”

It had been hard to be those people, so I knew it must have been hard to watch us, too.

“That little lamb you sent on Capricorn’s collar . . .”

“I meant it for the boy,” he said. “That little boy.”

“Samuel.” It hurt to know that it had not been meant for me after all.

“If the wind was right, I could hear him crying from a long way off.” He shook his head. “At first I thought he was a lamb.”

“There are sheep on this mountain?”

“No,” he said. “That’s why I went looking.”

I thought back to that muddy day as I had stood outside the tent, skinny and cold. “Were you watching when I found it?”

He nodded. “I was.”

His smile told me what I needed to know.

“And the others?” I said. “The dog? The chickadee?”

“They were for you, Ellie. All of them.”

Which was when I smiled, too. “I saw you, you know. One time. In a thicket of bushes.”

“I remember. You looked my way. But I didn’t know you saw me.”

“I did,” I said. “But just your face.” I looked into that face. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t show yourself.”

At which he ducked his head. “I’ve been sad for a long time.” He glanced at me and away again. “Making those little carvings. Leaving them for you.” He sighed. “Made me happy.”

I waited. I thought I understood. “So is it all right?” I said. “Or is it ruined now? Knowing me without the trees in between.”

He looked up at me, startled. “It’s not ruined.”

—

When we went back into the cabin, Cate was as she’d been, her face turned to the wall.

“I should have known she was your grandmother,” I said softly. “You’re so much the same.”

He liked that, I could tell.

I had already pried a lot out of him, and I didn’t want to push too hard, but there was a lot here that I still didn’t understand. “You said your mother’s afraid you’ll leave here, if you learn too much, if Cate teaches you too much.”

He nodded.

“But you actually get in trouble because you come up here? You have to sneak around, to see your own grandmother?” I said. “It sounds like your mother—” I stopped.

Larkin sighed. “She doesn’t like Cate.”

“But why not? Cate’s . . . wonderful.”