“It’s true, though. We did leave. Anyway,” Miriam said, her voice cracking, “it’s beautiful up here.”

“It’s a little overdressed,” Noelle conceded. “It reminds me of Cass. I think that’s why she loved it here, because the mountains are as Extra as she was.”

It felt so unbelievably good to share a happy memory of Cass with someone who had also loved her. Part of the irresistible draw she felt to Noelle was this, that Noelle loved everyone Miriam loved. She loved Carrigan’s as much as Miriam did. Being with her was like finding someone who spoke a language she thought she’d made up.

“It makes me want to drive out into it and get lost for a day, hiking and napping and reading,” Miriam admitted. “I’ve been a lot of beautiful places over the past ten years. Driven the Pacific Coast Highway, camped in Yosemite, spent a day just watching the sun move the shadows over the Grand Canyon. I’ve walked along pony trails on Chincoteague Island, and stood in lighthouses over the surf in Maine. But somehow I’ve never been here when it looked like this.”

Noelle looked surprised by the regret in Miriam’s voice, her expression piercing Miriam. She didn’t know why she wanted Noelle to understand her so badly. It was a foreign impulse for someone who usually hid her real feelings even from herself.

“It’s my favorite place I’ve ever been,” Noelle said after a long pause, sitting back on her haunches and resting her arms on her thighs. “The place I love most and feel most at home.”

“Mine too,” Miriam said. This time, Noelle’s face showed stark disbelief. She understood—how could she say that, and mean it, after being gone for a decade?

She tried to explain. “Have you ever loved anything so much that it made you too raw? Loved it so much you needed to cocoon yourself from it, because the loving left you unable to breathe?”

Noelle shook her head as she looked up, shading her eyes against the sun. “I’m a big fan of experiencing my emotions, personally. I’m not always great at it, but it usually works out better when I try.” Miriam would have expected condescension, but Noelle seemed to be genuinely trying to answer her.

“Lucky you,” Miriam whispered. That impulse to make Noelle understand her drove her to continue. “I’ve kind of been in a self-imposed fugue state, like I pulled up the castle drawbridge, locked all the doors, and hunkered down. And it was hard to maintain, at first, before I was practiced at living in isolation. Anything could have breached my walls, and I couldn’t let them be breached.”

“And Cass would have breached them?” Noelle guessed.