When Tasha finishes her story, Heather doesn’t know what to say. She can tell that Estajfan and Petrolio don’t know what to say either. Aura might know, but it’s hard to look at her. There’s too much in her face.
Finally, Annie clears her throat. “You knew,” she says to Tasha, incredulous. “You’ve been lying to us this whole time. You knew about the mountain. You knew about—them.”
“I didn’t think it was real, Annie—I thought they were only stories.”
“Stories are never only stories,” Heather says. “Remember?”
Tasha shakes her head. “My mother told me stories about the mountain when I was small—she made them up, Heather, to try to help me sleep. Not because she thought that they were real.” And then she is telling them all about her family’s stories, fables passed down from mother to daughter, all the way back to twin sisters, and an aunt who was beloved. The doctor and her sister. The nieces, rapt in bed and listening to the words.
Estajfan says, “We never met the doctor. Our father never said anything—are you sure this is true?”
Tasha throws out her hands. “I don’t know if any of it is true. But I thought you weren’t real, and here you are.”
Heather moves to stand beside Estajfan. “How does it end? The story with the doctor.”
Tasha glances at Annie, and Annie looks away. “I have no idea,” she says. “One year she went up the mountain and that was the last anyone ever saw of her.”
Aura reaches for Tasha’s hand. “I can tell you.” In her voice is Tasha’s sadness, magnified over and over. And beneath that, the resignation, the deep fear of facing that thing one hates the most.
Grief is inevitable. That doesn’t make it any easier.
“Aura,” Estajfan says. “What happened?”
“I need to take you up the mountain,” Aura says to Tasha. “You deserve to see it—I will show you where she is.”