Chapter 10

“We can’t tell your mom. She’d never let me hike up that mountain,” Finn said.

Gabi didn’t look happy; maybe lying wasn’t as easy for her either. Mrs. Rand was on the phone in the kitchen, dialing down the list Finn had given her of Dad’s usual research haunts. Gabi and Finn were planted on the giant sectional sofa. She nestled in the crook with her tablet and he sat against the farthest armrest with his knees up to his chest.

“Don’t you mean she’d never let us hike it?” Gabi demanded.

Oh, so that was why she was frowning. “Gabi, I think I should go by myself. You can cover for me.” It made sense. If Doc came looking for him, she could throw him off track, at least for a little while.

“What?! No!” Gabi stood up, letting the tablet fall to the carpet.

“I’ve got to go before Doc ships me off to Albany. It’s got to be tomorrow.”

“There is absolutely no way you get to do this without me,” she said, her hands defiantly on her hips.

Finn bit back the urge to snap that this wasn’t a game. He had an entire mountain to search for one single tree. It could take days.

“Listen, I don’t know why he wants me out of town so fast. All I know is Gran said not to trust anyone—”

“So you’re not going to trust me?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Gabi’s arms dropped to her sides. “Then I’m going with you. Settled.”

“I don’t want you in danger.”

“From who? Doc?” Her eyes went wide.

“No—I don’t know.” Finn wondered if he was being paranoid. How could Doc suddenly be his enemy? It was obvious he loved Gran. And yet . . . “I mean, I do think he’s hiding something.”

“Yeah, like he didn’t actually call your dad.”

“Exactly!”

“That was weird.” Gabi picked up the tablet, placed it back on the sofa and sat down again with a confused look on her face.

“Your mom doesn’t like him,” Finn remarked. “Why?”

Gabi shifted slightly and didn’t look Finn in the eye. “Come on, Finn. He’s one of those locals. Referred to Mom as ‘that city gal’ for two years after we moved in. Mom suspects he’s why she’s never been invited to join any of the town boards. He hasn’t given her any reason to like him.”

“Yeah,” said Finn. “It does take him a long time to accept flatlanders.”

Gabi stared at him open-mouthed for a second before she asked, “Well, how long does it take him to accept Puerto Ricans? Because I think that’s his real problem.”

Now it was Finn’s turn to stare. “Whoa. You think Doc is racist?”

“He sure wasn’t very welcoming to my mom.”

Finn had never considered this possiblity. “I just thought he disliked every flatlander.”

“That’s possible, I suppose. Forget it.”

Finn doubted he would, nor did he think Gabi could. He trusted Doc even less now.

“There’s a bit more to why Mom dislikes him so much, though,” Gabi went on. “She told me not to say anything because we couldn’t be sure. Only Mom certainly seems sure, the way she talked to him this morning.”

Finn was even more shocked. “Gabi, I’ve told you every secret I’ve ever had!”

“I’m sorry! It wasn’t my secret to tell.” She had pulled a loose thread from the sofa cushion and was winding it around her forefinger. She let it go and it unraveled and fell back onto the tablet’s sleeping screen, a blue squiggle on black ice.

“Talk.”

“I saw Doc and your great-aunt Billie together last month in Manchester, when Mom and I stopped by the café across from Northshire. They were arguing in whispers. It looked like the kind of argument you have with a girlfriend, not your girlfriend’s sister.” Gabi scrunched up her nose. “You know, we still need a better term for that.”

Finn felt the anger rise inside of him. Could Doc have cheated on Gran with her own sister? “Are you sure?”

“I mean, maybe it was nothing,” she said. “It felt weird to me, that’s all. Mom said she’s also seen them together a lot when she travels to Rupert for theater supplies. Mom thought it was super creepy of him, but she had no proof. She said she wouldn’t put it past your great-aunt Billie either. Everyone in town says she was always jealous of your gran.”

It was infuriating that everyone knew more about his family than he did. “Yeah, she’s always been that way. Gran told me Aunt Billie was in love with my Grandpa Jack, way back when they were young. But this . . .”

“Maybe she still wants whatever her sister has.”

Finn remembered the notebooks Aunt Billie obsessively kept and wondered if it was possible that she was still the same jealous girl.

“Did they see you?”

“I’m very good at not being seen when I don’t want to be.” Gabi picked up the blue thread again and this time wound it around her pinkie. She looked embarrassed. “Listen, it’s not like I told this story to anyone else. I just told my mom, and she’s not part of the Dorset gossip machine. You know that.”

“It’s just I thought I knew all the gossip about us. I guess I didn’t.”

“Ugh. Why would you want to? It’s better not to listen.”

He wasn’t so sure about that. If he’d known all the rumors, he might’ve at least asked the right questions. “It doesn’t make sense, though. Why would Doc be interested in Aunt Billie? She’s nothing at all like Gran.”

“Who knows? Maybe he just liked the extra attention.”

“Well, I think Doc is hiding something more than just Aunt Billie.” He went back to his prime objective. “And I think you need to stay behind when I go to the mountain. There’s no way of knowing what will happen. And if I’m not back by a certain time, you can send help.”

Gabi leaned toward him, her eyes locked on his. “Don’t you dare try to do this without me. You need me along. You don’t know the first thing about hiking.”

She was right, of course. He never hiked. It was his parents’ thing. He wasn’t exactly an outdoorsy kind of guy, but he wasn’t going to let that stand in his way now.

“How hard can it be? You follow a trail up and then you come back down.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Gabi geared up for one of her lectures. “It’s easy to get lost on those trails. I know what to do. I’ve been up the Equinox a couple of times with Mr. Schuman’s outdoors club. I even have telescoping poles.” She had her arms folded in front of her, her face daring him to ask what telescoping poles were. He had no idea and she knew it. She offered the answer without prompting.

“They’re like professional metal walking sticks. Mom won them at the Founder’s Day picnic. They come in real handy on steep climbs. See? You need me. You know nothing.”

“I know that a broken branch can probably do the same thing and that three hikes with Mr. Schuman does not make you an expert.”

“Stop arguing. We need to find a trail map.”

Hiking with a partner did make more sense. And he had to admit, if only to himself, he’d feel better if she was with him. It was a selfish want. He wasn’t proud of it.

They spent the next twenty minutes online looking for maps or trail guides.

“Dorset Peak must be a boring hike. All I’m finding are a few peakbagger blogs saying it’s nothing special,” Finn said.

“What’s a peakbagger?”

“Oh, so now I get to teach you something about hiking!” He raised an eyebrow at her, but thought better of it when he saw her face. When Gabi got annoyed she was like a puffed-up little sparrow. It was fun to watch her hop around angrily at first, but he’d pay for it later. There was no time for that.

“They’re hikers who want to bag every peak. They’re not in it for the hike itself or the view, they just have a checklist of mountains they want to conquer.”

“You just learned that online, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he admitted, smiling for the first time in ages.

She scooted up closer to him and looked at his screen. “Any maps? Hints about the trail?” she asked.

“Nothing. Can’t we just get on the trail and continue in the direction of up?”

“That’s the fastest way to get lost. Those trails always overlap.”

Finn continued to click and scroll, desperately looking for something resembling a map. If they didn’t have to be so secretive they could just walk over to the Inn and grab one from the front desk, but they couldn’t risk someone noticing them. Then it hit him: they were making this more difficult than it needed to be.

“Hang on! My Dad probably has a guide book in his office!”

That burst of confidence dissipated when he opened the door and saw the state of his father’s usually pristine workplace. It looked like someone had ransacked it, only he knew that someone was Dad. He had been sloppier lately, but Finn had no idea it had gotten this bad.

“How can he find anything in here?” Gabi stepped gingerly over stacks of books, trying not to topple them onto the carpet. At least, Finn thought he remembered a carpet. He pushed some paper aside with his toes. Yep, the maroon oriental rug was still there.

“It’s always been so neat I was afraid to come in here. Things must be a lot worse than I thought.”

Finn waded over to the desk, where printouts of newspaper articles from the 1800s were at least four inches deep across the whole surface. This was typical; that was Dad’s favorite century, and he loved having physical copies of research materials.

Finn turned around to scan the shelves. Their contents weren’t new to him. Mostly old books, a few paperweights and academic awards, a snow globe, and the framed photograph of the quarry. Why his father would keep a picture of that horrible place was beyond him. But now, as he studied it up close, he realized that there were two tiny far-off people in the quarry picture. He never noticed them before. Two small children, sitting on one of the marble slabs with their backs to the camera. A boy and a girl.

Finn picked up the photo and studied it carefully. It was Faith that gave them away. Her massive head of red hair was unmistakable. Her curls were catching the sun and Finn could almost touch the memory of them. He wondered if this was the last picture taken of them together. How could he have never noticed they were in it before? His eyes drifted to the small orange digital numbers on the bottom right. A timestamp made by the camera, dated more than a year after Faith’s death. Dad probably couldn’t bear to develop the film until then.

“What’s that?” Gabi asked from her lookout point near the doorway.

“Just a picture my dad took.” Finn placed the frame back on the shelf and with it, the memory. It would hold till later.

He found what he was looking for on the bottom dust-covered shelf: a trail guide for southern Vermont. “This should have what we need.” He held it up for Gabi to see.

“My mom’s coming! Hide it!”

Mrs. Rand entered and looked around. “I hope your father is more organized in his head than he is in here!”

Finn forced a chuckle. The thick paperback was painfully wedged between his waistband and lower back.

“What are you two looking for?” Mrs. Rand asked.

“Finn thought we might find information about another library his dad might have gone to.”

Mrs. Rand looked instantly hopeful. “Any luck?”

“No,” Finn replied. It wasn’t truly a lie.

“Well then,” Mrs. Rand sighed, “I’m afraid we just have to trust he’ll be home when he said he would. I’m sure he’ll be here tomorrow night. Meanwhile, I’m going into town to talk to Mr. Abernathy. Maybe he can help me find a legal way to delay Dr. Lovell.”

She was doing her best to sound positive but her voice was full of defeat.

°°°

Finn and Gabi made a plan. They’d meet in the hallway at four a.m., leave through the French doors in Dad’s office, walk to Gabi’s house, get the equipment they needed, and pack some food and water from her fridge. Then they would walk in the dark to the main trailhead next to Gran’s house, where they’d wait for the sun to come up. As soon as it was light enough, they could begin the climb.

“What about my mom?” Gabi asked as they sat in Finn’s room. “She’ll freak out when she realizes we’re missing. And reception is terrible on the mountain, so we won’t even be able to text her once we’re up there.”

There was a long silence. They had never been risk takers. Well, maybe Gabi took a few more than he did, but they both tended to be cautious. It was what remainders did. He stole a sidewise glance at her. She was a remainder, too.

Finn and Gabi never spoke about what they had in common, but they both knew how important it was to stay safe. You live an extra careful life, never wanting to make your parents relive the pain. Remainders aren’t whole numbers, but they are better than negatives. You could never become a negative. Another negative would destroy the whole equation.

Gabi shifted her gaze over Finn’s head, looking skeptically at the Periodic Table of Elements he had tacked to the wall. He wondered for a moment if she was also thinking about them in terms of unstable equations. No, of course not. It was his weird Finn way of understanding it. Gabi wasn’t about science. Her explanations were always something mystical, something not grounded in reality at all. Something he wished he could believe in as much as she did. Maybe now he could. Why not? He believed in time travel now. Who knew what he’d believe in tomorrow.

“I’m sure your mom won’t be that worried,” Finn said, though the words rang hollow. He tried not to imagine Dad coming home early after all and finding Finn gone. He didn’t want to think about Dad being all alone. The last few weeks had changed him enough.

“You aren’t supposed to hike without telling someone,” she countered. “What if—something happens—and we need help and no one knows where we’ve gone?”

“Good point,” Finn said. Then he had an idea. “We could time an email to be delivered later. We could set it up tonight and have it send tomorrow around dinnertime. We should be back by then, but if we’re not the email will explain where we’ve gone.”

Gabi nodded, looking reassured. “Yeah, we should be covered that way. If we do get in trouble on the mountain, someone will know where we are.”

“Right,” Finn agreed with false confidence. Inside his head a small doubting voice added, Even if it might be too late.