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Prologue

Ty Collier shivered as he paused in front of the Daily Grind coffee shop to wipe his boots on the mat beside the door. Cold weather was nothing new to him; he had grown up freezing his butt off every winter in Baltimore. But this morning something besides the frigid air raised goose bumps on his skin. It was the task ahead of him. And the silence. Noise had always been a constant in his life, so common he didn’t notice it until it was gone. City traffic, a raucous family. Ty felt lost without it.

He glanced over his shoulder at the sleepy Colorado town. Even in May, Silver Lake lay tucked under a thin blanket of snow like a dozing cat. But silence has a sound all of its own—something hummed beneath the town’s stillness that set his nerves on edge.

Not many cars were out at six thirty a.m. on this Monday morning. Only two were parked in front of the Daily Grind—a black El Camino and a blue delivery van with lettering on the side that read winston carpentry. Recognizing the van as the one he’d seen in the photograph, a mix of trepidation and excitement shuddered through Ty. The man was definitely here. After a month and a half of searching, he’d finally found him.

Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, Ty opened the door. A bell jingled to announce his entrance, and warmth rushed forward to welcome him in. “Good morning!” called a woman behind the counter on the far side of the shop.

“Morning,” Ty replied, scanning the room. A girl about his age sat on a sofa against the back wall, her feet tucked under her as she typed on a laptop. At a corner table near the front window, three old men chuckled over their coffee. They glanced up when Ty entered, then quickly returned to their conversation.

Ty studied the men discreetly. Two of them had gray beards, but without openly staring he couldn’t tell which one was Adam.

As he crossed to the counter, Ty recalled that the lady behind it was named Paula. He’d talked to her over a muffin and hot chocolate yesterday, his first day in town. She’d seemed worried when he told her that he was taking a temporary break from college and was traveling the country, working odd jobs to make money.

“You’re too young!” Paula had exclaimed. “What are you? Nineteen?”

“Eighteen,” Ty said. He’d waited a while before asking in an offhand manner if she knew Adam Winston and if she could give him directions to his shop. Ty was afraid to call the number on the website and ask Adam himself. He didn’t want to take any risks. Who knew if Gail Withers had set off an alarm? He couldn’t be too careful.

Paula told Ty that Adam’s shop was behind his house and gave him directions. She also gave him an unexpected bonus, telling him that Adam came into the Daily Grind on Monday mornings to have coffee with his friends. Which was why Ty woke up before the sun this morning and was out the door of his room two hours before he normally stepped foot into the day. He’d rather talk to Adam without his family around.

Ty slid onto a swiveling stool in front of the counter and ordered a coffee.

“You enjoying your stay in Silver Lake so far?” Paula asked as she filled his mug and handed it to him.

“Yeah, it’s nice. I went hiking yesterday after I left here.”

“Oh yeah? Where abouts?”

“Some trail at the top of the pass. Still quite a bit of snow up there,” Ty said, sipping his coffee. “I’m thinking of climbing the west peak soon. Make it my first fourteener.” That part wasn’t a lie. Colorado was home to more mountain summits with elevations of at least fourteen thousand feet than any other state, and it was his goal to make it to the top of all of them for his brother, just in case Kyle never got the chance himself. It was something Kyle had always wanted to do.

“Not sure the west peak qualifies as a true fourteener, but it’s close,” Paula said. “Start early in the morning. The weather’s dicey this time of year. We might have snow one day and thunderstorms the next. You don’t want to get caught up there when there’s lightning.”

“I’ll remember that. Thanks.” Ty propped his elbows on the counter and leaned in closer as Paula filled a jug with tea. When she glanced up, he indicated the three men by the window and asked, “Is one of them Mr. Winston?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. The gentleman with his back to us. He can tell you more about hiking the west peak. Adam lives right at its base.” Before Ty could say another word, she called out, “Adam! This young man’s looking for you.”

The man turned, and Ty’s heart skipped across his chest like a pebble skimming a pond. Winston looked exactly like the image in the silver frame on Gail Withers’s desk—the photograph she’d tried to hide from him. Curiosity and intelligence blazed in his eyes. Ty had stared at those same dark eyes in half a dozen other photographs of Adam when he was younger; there was no mistaking them.

Taking his coffee with him, Ty started across the room toward the men. “Good morning,” he said, as he paused beside them. Addressing Adam directly, he asked, “Are you Mr. Winston?”

“That’s me.” Adam smiled. “Something I can do for you?”

Ty nodded to a table across the room. “Can we talk?”

Adam shrugged. “Sure.” He followed Ty to the empty table and they sat across from each other. Squinting, Adam scrubbed a hand across his beard and asked, “Have we met?”

Ty placed his coffee on the table and took a breath. “No, but you knew my mom a long time ago. My name is Ty Collier. My mother is Jillian Collier. When you knew her, her last name was Steadman.”

All the color drained from Adam Winston’s face. “What’s this about?”

“I need your help with something. I know about your work.”

“I’m a carpenter—”

“Your formerwork,” Ty interrupted. Winston looked defensive. Nervous. Afraid. “My mother always wondered what happened to you. She loved your daughter very much. When I was growing up, Mom talked about her all the time.” Smiling, Ty added, “I was always a little jealous.”

“Leave my daughter out of this,” Adam hissed, pushing away from the table so abruptly the chair legs scraped against the hardwood floor. “Why would Jillian want to find me after all these years?”

Ty hadn’t expected such an angry reaction. Determined not to lose Adam now that he’d found him, he said, “My mother doesn’t know I’ve been looking for you. She never talked to me about your work until recently when I read several articles you wrote and mentioned them to her.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“My brother needs your help. He’s only thirteen and—” Ty broke off as a wave of emotion swept over him. After taking a moment to compose himself, he said quietly, “I made a promise to my brother, and you’re the only person I know that might be able to help me keep it.” Bracing his forearms on the table, he leaned in, adding, “I had to find you, Mr. Winston.” Adam flinched at the emphasis of his surname, but Ty refused to let him off the hook. “I’ve read everything about you I could get my hands on, and I know what you’re capable of doing.”

“You don’t know anything,” Adam said between clenched teeth.

The man’s stubborn refusal to admit the truth stirred anger in Ty. Struggling to maintain a calm tone, he said, “Let me tell you what I know.”

“I don’t have time for this nonsense,” said Adam.

“Hear me out or convince me I’m wrong. I found Ian Beckett and—”

“You’ve talked to Beckett?” Adam shot up from his chair. Across the room, his friends stopped talking and glanced over. Ty was glad Winston’s back was to them so they couldn’t see his agitated face.

Hoping to appease the men, Ty smiled at Adam and murmured, “Calm down. Listen, I—”

“You and Beckett stay away from my family,” Adam growled, panic simmering in his dark brown eyes. “Do you hear me? Leave us alone.” He turned and walked back to his table of friends. The men exchanged a few words that Ty couldn’t hear, then Winston left the coffee shop.

“Everything okay?” Paula called out from the counter.

“Yeah,” Ty lied. He drained his coffee, then made his way to the door.

“Adam said you’re looking for work,” one of Winston’s friends said as Ty passed their table. “You might try Sal over at the lumberyard north of town.”

“Thanks,” Ty said, then opening the door, he stepped out again into Silver Lake’s startling silence.

 

Chapter One

Lily

I started keeping secrets when I was four years old. Back then, I only had two.

Secret number one was that I sucked my thumb before bedtime while watching the sun melt into the earth outside my window. My parents had warned me that I’d get funny teeth if I didn’t stop. They told me in no uncertain terms to keep my fingers out of my mouth.

The girl came while I stood at the window. That’s what I called Iris before I knew her name—just the girl. She became secret number two. I didn’t have to see her to know she was there; I felther.

Sometimes I thought I did see her, though. Or thought I did. I’d turn around and we’d be standing toe-to-toe. The girl sucked her thumb like me and mimicked my movements. Of course, all that time I was only seeing my shadow, not Iris. Now I know I can only senseher, and hear her thoughts in my head. I hear her music, too; the haunting melodies she hums. And I feel her restlessness.“Happy birthday, Lily,” she whispers to me now, her words sweeping through my mind just before my dog Cookie’s cold nose nudges my arm. I rub my eyes and pull my iPod earbuds out, silencing Paramore, which was playing on low.

My parents and I live in a cabin my dad built in the Rocky Mountains of southern Colorado. My bedroom is in the upstairs loft. As I roll to face the window beside my bed, the first things I see are the two peaks in the distance, their frosty heads twinkling beneath a hazy wash of moonlight. My parents and I call them the twin peaks, and they’re so close together that I used to imagine that they held hands. The west peak changes colors with each season, but the east peak remains black and gray, somber and dark. It’s slightly taller than the west peak and stands a step behind, as if to watch over the smaller one. “Good morning,” I whisper to them both. And to Iris, whose presence fills me.

At the sound of my voice, Cookie snuggles closer. He turned fourteen a couple of months ago and his joints ache when it’s cold outside. He doesn’t want me to get up, because that means he’ll have to get up, too. The stairs are tricky for him these days, so I don’t leave him up here alone.

I hear Mom downstairs in the kitchen making coffee and Dad adding logs to the fire. I’m not ready to go down yet. I’m homeschooled, and I’ve been getting up before the sun every weekday morning since I was six to do my chores and lessons so I could keep my afternoons free for hiking, or for skating in the winter. But I have today off since it’s my seventeenth birthday, and I want to savor the extra time in bed.

I can’t be lazy for too long, though. When I turned twelve, Dad and I began riding four-wheelers up the mountain to watch the sunrise on my birthday, and we’ve done it on my birthday every year since. This morning when we’re up there, I plan to tell him about my college plans. I’m nervous, but if I can convince him that it’s a good idea for me to go to the University of Oklahoma in the fall, maybe he can help me persuade Mom.

I lie very still, listening to the comforting sounds of my parents below, wondering if Iris will go into hiding if I move. That’s become her way over the past few years. Dad always jokes that when I became a teenager, I started needing my “space,” and I guess Iris does, too. She hovers at the edge of my mind in the quiet hours—early in the morning and before I fall asleep at night. But as my day gets started, Iris dives deeper, goes further inward. Sometimes I forget that she’s with me. Sometimes I convince myself that she’s only a dream. Or that I’m crazy. But then for no reason, I become aware of her company once again, or I hear her murmuring in my head and her voice is as real as my mother’s or my father’s or mine. That’s when I remember that she’s been there all along, as constant as my heartbeat.

I was so young when I first became aware of Iris that I didn’t question her existence. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that not everyone has a presence living inside of them. I don’t think too much about it, though. If I’m crazy, I’ve been that way since I was four, and I’ve gotten along okay.

Pulling the quilts snugly around me, I burrow deeper into the bed. If I have something to say to Iris, all I have to do is think it. She can hear my thoughts, just as I hear hers.

Stay close when we ride up to the lookout, I say to her now.I’m going to talk to Dad about college and I need your support.

Her sigh tickles my eardrum as Iris says, I’m always close. I can’t leave you.

It’s the same thing she’s said all my life: She can’t leave me. She’s watching over me, like the east peak watches over the west one. She’s waiting for someone, but she doesn’t know who. She needs to tell me something, but she doesn’t know what.

The way I see it? If anyone’s crazy, it’s Iris, not me. At least in the last few years she’s stopped bringing these things up so much. But sometimes I sense such sorrow in her, like she’s lost or lonely, and that makes me sad because I don’t know ho to help. Like now, for instance, when a shift occurs inside of me, and I feel her retreat to a place I can’t reach.

The scent of coffee swirls in to fill the void Iris leaves as I reach for my phone on the nightstand to text my best friend, Wyatt. Wyatt lives with his grandmother, Addie, two miles up the road. Maybe he’ll come with us this morning to give me moral support. This college thing is too important to mess up. If Dad says no, I’m screwed—doomed to spend the next two years at Silver Lake Community College.

I text: Sunrise @ lookout w/me & Dad. U In? Back b4 u have 2 go 2 school.

I wait, and a few seconds later my phone vibrates with his response: thx 4 scaring me shitless @ freakin qtr to dawn.

I laugh and text: Lazy ass. Will u go?

Happy b.day, but no. Must get beauty rest. 50% of big-rig truck wrecks caused by driver sleep deprivation.

I roll my eyes: Dork. Get up. Going 2 tell dad abt OU. Need backup.

Another few seconds pass. Another vibration. Whoa. Wish I cld. Have 2 go in early 4 make-up test.

I groan. 4 real?

Yep, Wyatt answers. Sorry. You’ll do fine. B strong.

I wish I was as confident. Thx. Go back to sleep.

Plan to. Sleep-starved teens twice as likely to smoke crack. Bring U cupcake after school. w/sprinkles.

Sighing, I punch in:Dbl sprinkles.

So much for moral support. I guess I’m on my own.

Cookie’s tail thumps the mattress as I put aside my phone. I laugh. “Thanks, boy. I appreciate the offer. I didn’t mean to leave you out. You can ride with Dad, okay?”

Mom’s voice drifts from downstairs as I’m getting up. “I dread today, Adam,” she says. “I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but I can’t help it.”

“Shhh,” Dad says. “Lily will hear you.”

“She’s asleep. Besides, she listens to music all night.”

Cookie pants and stirs. I pat his muzzle to quiet him. Slipping from the bed, I walk to the head of the stairs where I can hear my parents more clearly.

“Don’t cry, Myla,” Dad says wearily when Mom makes a sobbing sound.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I can’t stop remembering.”

My muscles tense. Remembering what? Why would my birthday make her cry? Mom is always so emotional. She can obsess over the weirdest things. Once, she burst into tears when I told her I don’t like strawberry ice cream—that I’d rather have vanilla. For a long time after that, I wouldn’t eat ice cream at all because I didn’t want to upset her. Sometimes Mom can be as fragile as glass.

“It’s Lily’s birthday, honey,” Dad says. “Can’t you just relax and enjoy it?”

“She’s seventeen,” says Mom. “How did it happen so fast?”

Dad sighs. “This should be a happy day.”

“Happiness doesn’t last, you know that.” Mom makes a huffing sound. “Everything can change in an instant.”

After a long silence, Dad says, “I’ve been thinking, and I want to tell her.”

“No! Adam, you can’t. It’ll change everything.”

“Lily is almost an adult,” Dad says. “We can’t keep her here for the rest of her life. Wer’e in our sixties—”

“That isn’t old.”

“Maybe not, but we won’t be around forever. Besides, she’ll want to strike out on her own soon, and I’m starting to think that might not be a bad idea.”

“You think she should leave?” Mom asks, radiating alarm. “But she’s so vulnerable.”

“The truth will protect Lily more than we can,” says Dad. “We have to think of what’s best for her.”

“We have. Since the day she was born. We gave up everything.”

Nervous energy bursts inside of me; Iris is suddenly as alert as I am. The tension between my parents sizzles in the air around us. What could they be talking about?I ask her. Iris doesn’t answer, and her silence causes my skin to prickle.

“Nothing we gave up was important,” Dad says, frustration coloring his tone. “I don’t miss any of it.”

“So this life we’re living is really enough for you?”

“Lily’senough,” he answers, bringing tears to my eyes.

“Of course she is,” Mom says more softly. “I’d leave it all again in a second. You know I would.”

Questions collide in my mind. What truth could Dad want to tell me? Why do they think I need protection? What did my parents give up for me?

I start to go down the stairs to ask, but Iris’s urgent whisper stops me. Wait. Listen. I hold back.

“When do you want to tell her?” Mom asks.

“After we get back from our ride this morning. You and I should do it together.”

“Something’s happened, hasn’t it? You’ve been tied up in knots ever since you came home from the coffee shop on Monday.”

“Nothing’s happened. Everything’s fine.” Despite his assurance, Dad’s voice stretches tight. “It’s just time. We have a responsibility to prepare Lily. Just in case.”

“But what if she hates us?”

“Myla . . . don’t you know your own daughter? Lily could never hate us.”

Cookie whines, then barks once, short and sharp, calling me back to bed. Mom and Dad must hear him because they stop talking. Dishes start clinking. The television comes on, the volume low. A weatherman predicts more snow later today.

Iris stirs beneath the surface of my skin. Do you understand any of this?I ask.

There’s something, she says. Like mist . . . too faint to grasp.

Confused by her vague comment, I calm Cookie, then head for the bathroom, still trying to sort out my parents’ conversation. A few minutes later, I emerge again with my face washed and my hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. Cookie inches to the edge of the mattress as I throw on some jeans, a gray sweatshirt, and a pair of wool socks. I help him hop down onto the rug, and he walks stiffly to the head of the stairs and sits, waiting while I lace my boots. “Come on, boy,” I say, and together we take the steps down to the cabin’s first floor.

Our living area and kitchen are one big room, connected to my parents’ bedroom, the guest room, and the downstairs bathroom by a short hallway. Dad sits at the kitchen table and he glances up when he hears me, his brown eyes twinkling beneath his bushy gray brows. “Good morning, Doodlebug. Happy birthday.”

I smile, but I’m too nervous to hold his gaze. His face shows no sign of the strain I sensed when he and Mom were talking. He’s shoving his feet into his boots, yesterday’s newspaper folded beside the placemat in front of him.

“Happy birthday, darling,” says Mom.

“Thanks.” I let Cookie outside, then look across at her. She moves slowly from the table to the sink and back again, her arms crossed tightly. She has on a baggy wool sweater, black sweat pants, and sheepskin slippers. Deep lines I’ve never really noticed etch the skin around her mouth. Mom looks tired and old this morning.

“Are you feeling okay?” I ask her, wondering if her lupus has flared up again. That led to her rheumatoid arthritis, and now the knuckles on her fingers bulge like knots on a branch. During a flare-up the symptoms are worse.

“I’m fine,” she says. “Just a little tired.” Her weak smile suddenly widens into a real one. “And excited,” she says playfully.

“Excited about what?” I follow her gaze to the floor beneath the coffee table, where I see a box wrapped in white paper and topped with a big yellow bow. “What’s that?” I ask, stooping to reach for it.

“Hands off!” says Dad in a teasing tone. “You’ll find out later.”

Grinning, I stand and walk toward them. I kiss the top of Dad’s head, then wrap my arms around Mom. She hugs me a little too tightly as I stare over her shoulder at the framed sketch of a violin that hangs on the wall above the table. Mom did it before her arthritis made sketching and painting too painful. She used to play the violin when she was young, but she stopped before I was born to concentrate on her artwork.

“What’s for breakfast?” I ask, stepping out of her embrace.

Mom tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Blueberry muffins. They’ll be ready when you and Dad get back from your ride. I’ll fry bacon, too, and scramble some eggs.” Turning, she straightens the tablecloth, then rearranges the silverware already laid out for three. Without looking at me she adds, “Take it slow, okay? It’s dark out there, and the higher roads might still be snow packed.”

“I know, Mom. We do this every year, remember?”

The things she said to Dad earlier replay through my mind. What are they going to tell me after we come home that could possibly make me hate them? I want to ask, but something holds me back. Maybe the look of weariness and pain that I saw on Mom’s face when I first came down.

Returning to the living room, I let Cookie inside again, then wrap a scarf around my neck, slip into my coat, and pull on my stocking cap and gloves. From the kitchen, Dad calls out, “Are you ready to go?”

“Yes,” I say, and silently ask Iris, What’s happening?

Not sure, she whispers, sounding as confused as I am. Be careful. She’s right—everything can change in an instant.

A chill skitters through me. What do you mean?

I listen for an answer, but only hear the steady white noise of her silence.

 

2

Cookie rides in a crate on the back of Dad’s four-wheeler. I follow behind, my headlights illuminating them. Every so often, Cookie turns to glance back at me. His ears flap in the wind, and his teeth are bared like he’s grinning.

The lake appears ahead, the water a glossy black ink stain. The sight of it takes me back to the winter I was seven when I first met Wyatt. His mom had just decided she had better things to do than raise a kid and sent him here from Dallas to live with his grandparents. A couple of days after we met, I taught Wyatt to skate on this lake. He’d never ice-skated before, but when I tried to give him a few tips, he cut me off. He knew what to do, he said. He was a Rollerblader and ice-skating couldn’t be much different. He’d show me every trick he knew.

But when Wyatt and I stepped onto the ice, the only trick he did was the splits, and not on purpose. The seat of his pants tore right up the seam, and as he struggled to stand, I caught a glimpse of his Star Wars long underwear. Falling served him right for being such a show-off, so I laughed. But I also offered him a hand. At first he wouldn’t take it, but then he laughed, too, and let me help him up. From that day on, Wyatt and I were best friends.

I wish he could’ve come with us to the lookout point this morning. I’m going to have a lot to tell him when he comes over after school. What’s in the box with the big yellow bow, for one thing. Dad’s reaction to my college news. And my parents’ Big Secret. I shove that last one from my mind, determined to enjoy the ride.

We turn onto the trail that runs along the creek, and aspen trees press in, towering over me, standing guard. I breathe in their spicy scent while listening to the song that Iris hums in my head. It’s a favorite of hers, the tempo urgent and powerful.

The trail climbs, becoming narrower and rougher as it winds through the forest. Patches of snow at the side of the road flash by, icy blue in the moonlight. Ragged swatches of purple sky flicker between the branches above. Ahead, the rock dike that snakes through these mountains rises on the left side of the road, while the right side drops into a deep ravine. Soon my headlights expose a place where the edge arcs out to a rocky ledge wide enough to sit on.

Dad slows and pulls in. I follow, easing up on the gas and stopping beside him. We cut our engines, take off our helmets, and hang them on our handlebars.

“Made it just in time, Doodlebug,” Dad says, nodding toward the pink hem of the eastern horizon.

Cookie whines, and I help him out of his crate. “Stay close, boy,” I say as we follow Dad to the ledge and sit down to watch the sunrise.

“What’s on your mind, Lily?” Dad asks. “You’re so quiet I can hear the wheels turning in your head.”

Wrapping my arms around my knees, I say, “Remember last August when I talked to you and Mom about going to the University of Oklahoma this fall with Wyatt?”

“Of course I remember,” he answers. “I should’ve been more supportive about that. In fact, I’m starting to think that going away to a four-year school might’ve been the best option for you.” Dad frowns. “But now it’s too late, isn’t it? I’m sorry.”

I shake my head. “It’s not too late. That’s what I wanted to tell you. I applied anyway, hoping that if I got accepted, I could persuade you and Mom to let me go.”

His brows lift. “And?”

“I got an acceptance letter last month,” I say.

“You’ve been accepted?” He hugs me. “Congratulations, sweetheart!”

“You’re not upset?”

“Upset? No. I’ll worry about you,” says Dad with a chuckle, sitting back. “I’ll miss you, too. But it’s time for you to go. You should be around people your own age. I know it hasn’t been easy for you, living out here so isolated.”

Something Mom said to him earlier comes back to me: Is this life we’re living really enough for you?Anger rises up in me. Anger at her. Feeling defensive, I say, “I love our cabin. And I love Silver Lake. You know that, Dad. But I feel like I have to go away for a while. I can’t explain it.”

“You don’t have to. You’ve grown up.” Dad loops his arm through mine. “Why OU? I hope you’re not just following Wyatt there. You should go to a school that’s right for you.”

“OU isright for me,” I say. “It’s right for both of us. Wyatt and I want to go to another state—just for a change, you know? But it’s still close enough that we can drive home if we want to.”

“That would be a long drive,” he says.

“It’s only 491.94 miles. We could make it in eight hours.”

“Is that all?” says Dad, sounding amused, his breath a white plume on the cold morning air.

“Not exactly.” I grin. “Eight hours and two minutes.”

“You really have done your research.”

“MapQuest,” I say.

“Just so long as Wyatt didn’t influence you.” He winks.

A laugh bursts out of me. “Dad. You know it’s not like that with Wyatt and me. We’re just friends.”

“So you say. But I wonder if Wyatt feels the same.”

I bump my shoulder against him. “Wyatt’s chasing after a different girl every week. He doesn’t think of me like that.”

“Okay, okay!” Sighing heavily, he mutters, “Oklahoma. I’ve never been. It might be a good place for you . . .” His voice trails, and the humor on his face fades, leaving behind an expression that I can’t identify.

“Mom won’t be as easy to persuade as you were,” I say.

“Don’t worry about your mother. I’ll talk to her.”

Gathering my nerve, I stroke Cookie’s silky ear and say, “I heard the two of you talking this morning. You said something about the truth protecting me and needing to prepare me for something. What did you mean?”

Dad tenses and inhales sharply. “I’m sorry you heard that, but it’s nothing to worry about.”

“But, Mom said the two of you had to give up everything for me.”

“Lily . . .” He hugs me tightly. “Nothing could be more important than you. You can’t even imagine what a miracle you are to us. When you were born . . .” Leaning back, he cups my chin in his gloved hand. “You saved us, Lily.”

“Dad, you’re freaking me out.” I say. “What are you planning to tell me when we get home?”

“We’ll talk about it later, okay? Everything’s fine, and right now, I just want to enjoy the sunrise.” He nods toward the sky. “Look.”

On the horizon, light erupts, setting the east peak’s snowcap on fire. I try to relax as Dad drapes an arm across my shoulder. But for the first time in my life, his nearness isn’t enough to make me feel safe.

 

The trail becomes steeper as I lead the way down the mountain past blue spruce trees, green firs, and towering white aspen, their branches shivering in the wind. Dad follows on his four-wheeler close behind me. The sun is bright enough now that we don’t need our headlights.

As I round a curve, a deer darts across the snowy path a few feet ahead. I don’t have time to react, but out of nowhere the four-wheeler seizes up, as if someone slammed a foot down hard on the brake. My head whips forward, then back again with the sudden jerk, and the ATV skids sideways, blocking the trail. Iris, I think, feeling her terror spike up inside of me. She pressed the brake to keep me from hitting the deer. I’m sure of it, even though she’s never done anything like that before.

The roar of Dad’s engine drowns out every other noise around me, and a warning catches in my throat as I turn to see him come around the curve. Time slows down. My ears ring and my skin prickles as he yanks his handlebars hard to the right to keep from ramming into me. His four-wheeler tilts onto the two right tires, teeters toward the sharp incline that drops into the ravine at the side of the road, then slams into a boulder. Dad hurtles off the seat toward the trees. Behind him, Cookie flies from the crate and lands in a mound of snow as Dad smashes into an aspen tree at the edge of the slope. The four-wheeler rolls on top of him.

“Dad!” I scream, my boots pounding the ground as I run to him, passing Cookie whose yelps prick me like needle-sharp icicles. I round the overturned four-wheeler and find Dad facedown on the ground, the six-hundred-pound vehicle crushing him. As I drop to my knees beside him, he lifts his head enough for me to see a red gash above his temple where he hit the aspen’s trunk. Blood oozes from the wound, soaking a patch of snow beneath his head.

“Lily,” he rasps.

“I’m here, Dad.”

His face twitches as he lowers his cheek to the cold, hard ground.

“Hold on. I’ll get you out,” I say, my body shaking.

“No! Don’t move anything,” he gasps. “My back . . .”

He doesn’t have to finish his sentence. If I try to move the four-wheeler off him, I could hurt him worse. Panicked, I ask, “What should I do?”

“Get Mom. Call for help.”

Cookie’s frantic wails shred the last thin thread of my self-control. Sobbing, I say, “I didn’t bring my phone.”

“My front pocket,” Dad says weakly.

I scoot closer and look for a space to slip my hand beneath him. “I’ll find it. Don’t worry, I—”

“Don’t!” Pain and panic flash across his face when I touch him. “It’s— Can’t reach it,” he says, each word a struggle. “Go . . . get Mom.”

I swipe at the tears on my face. “I can’t leave you and Cookie here.”

“Don’t cry. Cookie and I—we’ll be fine. Please, sweetheart . . . hurry.”

Desperate for another way to help him, I squeeze my eyes shut. The scents of the forest fill my senses—moss and pine and rich, damp earth. I hear the tense hiss of Iris’s essence. The rattle of tree limbs. Then in the distance, the crunch of snow beneath hooves . . . or boots!

Opening my eyes, I scan the forest in every direction, praying it’s a person I hear, not an animal. “Help!” I scream. “Over here! Help us!”

I wait a few seconds for a reply, but know if I stay any longer, I’ll risk Dad’s life. “I’ll be right back. Everything will be okay,” I promise him, desperately hoping that’s true.

A few feet away, Cookie wails and Dad gasps, “Can you . . . bring him . . . ?”

I run to Cookie and kneel down. He doesn’t appear to have any outer wounds, but I have no idea if that’s the case internally. I shouldn’t move him, but he and Dad need each other, and I can’t bring myself to leave him crying in the road. “I’m sorry, boy,” I say, lifting him despite his wails. He seems weightless as I carry him to Dad and place him on the ground.

“Lily . . . ,” Dad says when I start to turn away. His eyes are closed, the lids quivering like moth wings. “If I don’t—”

“No!” I drop to my knees and sweep locks of silver hair off his forehead with trembling fingers. “You’ll be okay,” I whisper.

“Your mother . . . loves you . . . try to understand. She can’t lose you, too.”

“She’s not going to lose either one of us, Dad. You’re going to be okay.”

“Trust Mom,” he says in a strained whisper. “No one else.”

“What?”

“Promise me,” he says.

“I promise, but—oh, Dad,” I sob, lowering my face close to his.

“We thought we did . . . the right thing.” He clutches my wrist. “It was right, wasn’t it? You’re happy? You’re all right?”

Confusion grips me, but before I can answer him or ask any questions, Dad loses consciousness and a voice calls out from the forest on the opposite side of the trail. Turning, I see a hiker emerge from the trees.

Pushing to my feet, I run toward him.

 

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