Myron pushed back the hood of his jacket and crouched down to look at one of the holes. The rain had started to turn them into puddles. He flicked the muddy water, and as he did, his fingers brushed up against something hard.

“Do you recognize this?” Myron held up something for Zadie to see. It was the painted rock her sister had been carrying everywhere.

“Yeah,” she said, taking it from him. “She must have dropped it.”

Something else caught Myron’s eye. He stood and walked to the edge of the clearing. “I see a couple of prints here. Looks like she wandered into the woods. Why do you think she’d do that?”

The question was directed at Zadie. If she told Myron that she was almost certain that an echo was the cause of Finn’s disappearance, that would mean admitting to both him and Joel that her sister had run off before. Thankfully, it was Joel who responded first. “Do you think it has to do with her … thing?”

“Her echoes? I guess it’s possible.” Zadie could feel her heart pounding through her jacket. Rain droplets began collecting in the folds, creating rivulets down her sleeves that looked like lightning bolts. “We have to find her.”

Myron stood up abruptly. “My satellite GPS is in my car. Let’s head back to the house and grab it along with anything else we might need. I doubt she got far, but we should be prepared in case.”

Zadie felt both fear and relief simultaneously. Fear that her sister was possibly lost, and relief that someone else was taking charge of the situation. Joel placed a reassuring hand on her back. “We’ll find her, okay?” Myron looked less certain but nodded in agreement.

When they arrived back at the house, Rowan was waiting for them on the front porch. She jumped off the swing as soon as she saw them approaching. “You didn’t find her?”

Myron shook his head and opened the door to his truck. “She wandered off the trail. We’re going to search the woods.”

“I’m coming,” she said without hesitation.

He didn’t hesitate, either. “No, you’re not.”

“Please? This is my fault. I’m the reason she went up there in the first place.”

He leaned into the cab of the truck and opened the glove compartment. “You need to stay here and watch your sisters.”

“They don’t need me to—”

Myron turned and said directly, “I’m not asking.”

Rowan gave her dad a hard stare, then marched back into the house, slamming the door behind her.

Myron rejoined Zadie and Joel, GPS in hand. “Let’s get moving. She can’t have wandered far. We just have to put ourselves in her shoes.”