She would wait to tell her sister about the pregnancy until they got home, she decided. Finn already had enough on her mind as it is.

It was almost nine. Finn was usually up before her, but the door to the bedroom was still closed. Zadie padded across the hardwood floor and carefully opened the door so it wouldn’t squeak. “Finn?” she whispered as she entered. But not only was the bed empty, it was still fully made up as if Finn hadn’t slept there at all.

“Oh no,” she muttered, then ran back into the living room. “Joel! Joel, wake up!”

Joel lifted his head, groggily. “Huh? What’s up?”

“Finn’s gone,” she said breathlessly, while cramming her feet into her sneakers.

More alert now, Joel sat up, his hair squished to one side. “She’s what?”

“She’s not in there and the bed’s made.”

“Maybe she made it?”

“Finn never makes the bed.” She grabbed Joel’s shoes and tossed them to him. “Will you help me look for her?”

“Yeah,” he said, rolling off the couch. “Yeah, of course.”

Within seconds, they were out the door and jogging down the stairs to Myron’s workshop. Finn was not in the barn, so they continued outside. The morning was brisk for summer and scented with pine. The mist that had hovered over the treetops the day before had dissipated and had been replaced with a lemon slice of sun. Zadie shaded her eyes with her hand and looked around. “You check the house,” she instructed Joel. “I’ll look out here.”

“No problem,” Joel said and ran toward the Van Houtens’ porch.

Zadie began circling the barn. I shouldn’t have left her alone, she thought. She hadn’t meant to. The couch was just so comfortable and Joel—

No. This isn’t Joel’s fault, she rebuked herself. Finn was her responsibility. If anything happened to her, she was to blame.

Once she had circumnavigated the barn, she checked the goat pen and the detached garage. With no Finn in sight, all that was left was the forest. Zadie froze, staring into the deep green shadows shaped like trees. This wasn’t the woods behind their old house, nor was it the sparse landscape of the desert, where you could see fifty miles in every direction. This was real wilderness, forest so dense that millions of people believed that it could hide an eight-foot-tall primate for generations. If she went in there alone, she’d likely never find her way out.

Where was Joel? She’d assumed he would come back outside and fill her in once he’d finished searching the house. He’d probably gotten distracted and forgotten why he was there. I guess I’ll have to do it myself, she thought.