“I mean, a song, a full song with lots of pieces. Like a symphony, you know?” She stood up. “It’s been forever since I heard one of those. But sometimes I can still feel it—that way you feel when the music breaks apart into all its separate instruments and melodies, the way they move through your ears and settle in your muscles.”

“Breaks apart?”

“Yeah, you know—the piano plays in your ribs, the flute in your stomach…but that’s not the best part. The best part is after each piece digs into a different part of you, and then it’s like they’re carrying magnets in their pockets. Because then all the pieces, they do their damnedest to find each other, to get back together.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and watched the tops of the trees sway. “That’s what great music does.”

“And what’s that, exactly?”

“Forces you to feel every part of yourself—parts you didn’t know existed—because it’s moving every last piece from the inside, just trying pull itself back together through muscle and time and the darkest spaces.”

Now they were both watching the trees.

Rose closed her eyes for a moment. “They do whatever it takes to be back together, no matter how impossible that might be for tiny notes stranded in an unknown body.”

Derrick watched her face, relaxed into the satisfaction of a remembered love. “Sounds like family,” he finally said.

Rose lowered her gaze and smiled at him. “Now you know why I couldn’t wait around for another day. Not for another minute. Why I have to find him no matter what. I need to hear his notes. Just even one more time.”

A pained look flickered across his face, but he didn’t respond.

After some stretching and reshouldering their loads, they made their way to the side of the road. Rose looked back and forth. Both ways looked lonely and hard. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Sir John A. MacDonald. That’s where we go.”

“You sure?” Derrick asked. Truly, it didn’t matter; it really was a bit of a coin toss. “I sure as hell don’t want to have to backtrack to another school if we choose the wrong one.”

“No,” she answered honestly. “But that’s where we’re going.”

They crossed the road and scurried back into the bush, then turned right and followed the long highway from the cover of branches.

“About this family thing…” Derrick loud-whispered over the crunch of their boots on fallen leaves and old wood. “So, would that make French like your brother, then?”

Rose didn’t answer.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

That first day was all about covering ground. They ate dried meat from their stores and kept things at a brisk pace. It was easier not to talk, but they did anyway, sharing stories of the worst things they ever ate (Rose: grilled acorns; Derrick: a moss sandwich), the craziest nights they ever spent (Rose: sleeping in a tree; Derrick: running through a marsh), and the things they missed the most (Derrick: Spam; Rose: well, that one was obvious and started a long bout of silence while Derrick sulked).