Chapter 17 Emma
Maggie's name flashed on the screen. I almost didn't answer. I'd been avoiding everyone for two weeks, and I was getting really good at it.
"Hey, Maggie, I'm kind of in the middle of—"
"Emma." Her voice stopped me cold. It was stripped of warmth, tight with something that made my stomach drop. "I need you to stay calm."
"What? Why would I need to stay—"
"It's Sarah Brennan."
The world tilted. "What about Sarah?"
"She's missing."
The word didn't make sense. Missing. Like a sock. Like car keys. Not a six-year-old girl. Not Sarah.
"What do you mean by missing?"
"Cole said she was sitting on the porch playing with her puppets like she usually does. And then she just..." Maggie's voice cracked. "She wasn't there anymore. Cole asked me to call you to know if, by any chance, she came to you."
The blood drained from my face. My hands went ice cold.
“No, she’s not here,” I answered, my mind already turning the gears to find a solution.
“That means she’s on the mountain trail,” Maggie stated.
"The mountain," I repeated stupidly.
"Cole's already heading to the trailhead. Search teams are mobilizing."
I was already moving. Grabbing my coat, my keys, knocking over a stack of spelling tests without caring. "I'm on my way."
"Emma—"
I hung up. There wasn't time for whatever she was going to say.
The drive to the trailhead was fifteen minutes. I made it in nine, running two stop signs and nearly sideswiping a mailbox. My brain was a broken record, playing the same horrifying loop: Sarah alone on the mountain. Sarah scared. Sarah hurt. Sarah—
This is my fault.
The thought hit like a physical blow. My hands jerked on the steering wheel.
I pushed her away. I made her feel abandoned. I taught her that people who claim to love you will eventually leave. And now she's run to the only place that might feel like comfort, the mountain her uncle loves, the wilderness that killed my sister.
"Please," I whispered to no one, to God, to the universe. "Please let her be okay."
The trailhead parking lot was chaotic. A cluster of rangers around a map spread across a truck hood. Flashlight beams cut through the gathering dusk.
And Cole.
He stood apart from the others, a statue carved from anguish. His face was gray, his eyes wild. When he saw my car pull in, something flickered across his features: surprise, hope, and desperation.
I was out of the car and running toward him before I'd even turned off the engine.
"Emma." My name came out broken. "She's up there. Alone. She's never… she doesn't know—"
"Where would she go?" I grabbed his arms, forcing him to focus. "Cole. Think. Where would she go?"
"The creek clearing. The one she showed you.
" He dragged a hand through his hair, leaving it standing in wild peaks.
"But if she's not there, there's a higher spot.
A rocky overlook above the creek. She calls it her sunset place.
She could have gone there to—" His voice cracked.
"To see where her mom would have watched sunsets. "
"Then that's where we go."
I turned toward the trailhead. Every instinct I possessed screamed in protest. The mountain loomed against the darkening sky, a black mass of shadow and threat. The wilderness that haunted my nightmares.
"Emma, wait." Cole caught my arm. "You don't have to do this. The rangers—"
"Yes, I do."
"But the trail—"
"Sarah is up there because of me." I met his eyes, and I saw him flinch at whatever he found in mine. "She ran away because I made her believe I didn't love her anymore. So yes, Cole. I do have to do this."
A ranger approached, a young woman with a serious face and a flashlight already in hand. "You know the trail?"
"Like my own heartbeat," Cole said grimly.
"Then let's move. We're losing light."
The first step onto the trail was the hardest thing I'd ever done.
The second step was harder.
The path rose immediately, switchbacking through dense pine forest. The air was cold, sharp with the scent of evergreen and damp earth. My breath came in short bursts, not from exertion yet, but from the creeping, familiar dread.
"Stay with me," Cole said quietly, falling into step beside me. "Watch this root. Step here."
I focused on his voice, on the mechanics. Left foot. Right foot. Breathe in. Breathe out. Don't think about the shadows. Don't think about Lily.
"Sarah!" Cole's voice rang out, echoing through the silent trees. "SARAH!"
Nothing. Just the whisper of wind in the branches.
"How far is the creek clearing you think she went to?" the ranger asked.
"About two miles. The overlook is another quarter mile past that, up a steeper game trail."
Two miles. Plus another quarter. In gathering darkness. On a mountain that wanted me dead.
Not about you, I reminded myself savagely. This is not about you and your trauma. A six-year-old is out here alone because you were too scared to love her properly.
Congratulations, Emma. Your fear almost killed a child. New personal low. Really impressive.
We climbed for twenty minutes. The trail narrowed, hugging the hillside, a steep drop-off opening to our left. I made the mistake of looking down. The ravine yawned below, shadowed and bottomless, and suddenly I wasn't on this trail anymore.
I was standing on a different path, a year ago, listening to a ranger explain that my sister had fallen.
That they'd found her at the bottom of a ravine just like this one.
That she'd been alone because I hadn't gone with her, because I'd said no, because I'd let her walk into the wilderness by herself—
"Emma."
Cole's voice, cutting through the static.
"Emma, look at me. Not down. Look at me."
I couldn't move. My feet were frozen to the narrow path, my vision tunneling, my lungs refusing to work.
His hand found mine—large, warm, calloused, real. He squeezed hard enough to hurt.
"Breathe," he commanded. "In. Out. You're here. You're safe. Sarah needs you."
Sarah needs you.
Three words.
I dragged my eyes up from the void and found his face. Those blue eyes, full of fear but also of fierce, unwavering focus. On me. On getting to Sarah.
"She needs you," he repeated. "And you can do this. You are doing this."
I forced air into my lungs. It burned, but it came. I nodded once, jerkily.
"Okay," I whispered. "Okay. Keep going."
We kept going.
The ranger called into her radio. No sign of the girl at the lower trailheads. No response to the searchers' calls. The news hit Cole like physical blows; I watched his stride lengthen with desperate urgency.
"Sarah!" he called again, his voice fraying at the edges. "SARAH, CAN YOU HEAR ME?"
Silence. The mountain absorbed his voice and gave nothing back.
We reached the creek clearing after forty-five minutes of hard climbing. It was beautiful—a small bowl of moss and ferns, the creek chuckling over smooth stones, the last light of day painting everything in shades of gold and shadow.
It was also empty.
"She's not here," Cole said, the words hollow. "Oh God, she's not here."
"The overlook," I said. "You said there's an overlook above this."
"Quarter mile up. The trail's rough, more of a game path—"
"Then let's go."
We scrambled up the steep, barely-there trail, branches scratching at our arms, loose rocks sliding under our feet. My lungs burned. My legs screamed. I didn't care. Sarah was up here somewhere, alone and scared, and I would climb until my heart gave out if that's what it took.
Cole called her name every thirty seconds. His voice was hoarse now, cracking. Each unanswered cry carved new lines of terror into his face.
I was starting to pray, incoherently and desperately, to any deity that listened, when Cole suddenly stopped.
"Wait." He held up a hand, his head tilted. "Did you hear that?"
I froze, straining to listen. Wind in the trees. My own ragged breathing. Nothing else.
"I don't—"
"Shh." He closed his eyes, concentrating with an intensity that shut out the world.
And then I heard it.
Faint. So faint I thought I was imagining it. A small voice, carrying on the breeze. Singing. A tuneless, warbling melody that rose and fell with the wind.
"That's her," Cole breathed, and his face transformed, terror giving way to something like wild, desperate hope. "That song—I taught her to sing it if she ever got lost. So I could find her. So I'd know it was her."
He didn't wait for the ranger. He took off up the trail, scrambling over rocks and roots with a speed born of pure adrenaline. I followed, lungs screaming, legs burning, heart pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.
The game trail opened onto a rocky outcrop, a flat shelf of stone jutting out from the hillside. The view was staggering, endless peaks rolling toward the horizon, painted in the dying colors of sunset, the first stars pricking through the darkening sky.
And there, huddled on the far edge of the rock, her pink jacket bright against the gray stone, was Sarah.
She was small and alone and singing to herself, her arms wrapped around her knees, tears tracking clean lines through the dirt on her cheeks.
"Sarah!" Cole's voice cracked on her name.
She turned. Her face crumpled the moment she saw him and me running up.
"Uncle C!" She was on her feet and running, stumbling across the uneven rock. "Emma!"
Cole caught her in three strides, sweeping her up, crushing her against his chest. His shoulders shook. His voice broke on words that weren't quite words, just sounds of relief and terror and overwhelming love.
"I'm sorry!" Sarah sobbed into his neck, her small arms wrapped tight around him. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I just wanted… I wanted to see the sunset from up high, like you said Mommy liked to. I was gonna come back—"
"You're safe," Cole managed, his voice wrecked. "You're safe, you're safe, you're okay—"
"I wasn't scared at first but then it got dark and I couldn't remember which way—"
"It's okay. I've got you. You're okay."
I stood frozen a few feet away, tears streaming down my face, my chest cracking open with relief and guilt in equal measure. She was okay. She was alive. She was here.
And she was here because I had failed her.
Cole set her down, his hands moving over her, checking for injuries, touching her face, her arms, her shoulders, reassuring himself that she was real and whole. She was shivering, her cheeks red from the cold, but otherwise unharmed.
Then Sarah's eyes found mine.
For a moment, neither of us moved. She stared at me with an expression I couldn't read—hope and hurt and confusion all tangled together.
"You came," she whispered. "I thought... I thought you didn't like me anymore."
The words shattered what was left of my composure. I dropped to my knees on the cold stone, not caring about the pain, and opened my arms.
"Oh, Sarah."
She hesitated for one heartbeat. Two. Then she ran to me, throwing herself into my embrace with a force that nearly knocked me backward. I caught her, pulled her close, and buried my face in her hair. She smelled like pine and sweat and little-girl fear, and I held her like I would never let go.
"I love you," I choked out, the words tearing free from somewhere deep and raw. "I love you so much. I'm so sorry. I was scared and stupid and I hurt you and I'm so, so sorry—"
"I thought you didn't want to be my family anymore," she said, her voice muffled against my shoulder.
"I never stopped wanting that. I was just... I was scared."
She pulled back just enough to look at my face, her expression solemn. "Scared of the mountain?"
The question stole my breath. This child. This beautiful, perceptive, brave child.
"Yes," I admitted. "I was scared the mountain would take you. Or Cole. And I thought if I pushed you away first, it wouldn't hurt as much when something bad happened."
"That's dumb," Sarah said.
A wet laugh escaped me. "It really is."
Cole knelt beside us, and suddenly we were all three tangled together on that rocky outcrop. Our arms around each other, tears mixing, the last light of sunset painting us gold and rose and shadow.
"I'm sorry I ran away," Sarah said in a small voice.
"Don't ever do that again," Cole said, his voice rough. "You scared us half to death."
"I just wanted to see what Mommy would have seen. The pretty sunset from up high."
I lifted my head and looked at the view spread before us. The mountains rolled toward the horizon in waves of purple and blue. The sky was a canvas of fire and gold, fading to deep violet at the edges. The first stars were emerging, tiny points of light in the vast darkness.
It was breathtaking. It was humbling. It was exactly what Lily had loved.
"This is what she saw," I whispered. "My sister. This is why she kept coming back."
"It's beautiful," Sarah said simply.
"It is." And for the first time, I meant it without terror, without grief overshadowing everything. "It really is."
Cole's arm tightened around us both. "We should head down. The ranger's probably having a heart attack."
"One more minute," I said. "Please."
We sat there in the gathering darkness, the three of us, watching the last of the light fade. Sarah was warm against my side, Cole solid at my back. The mountain spread out below us, no longer a threat but a testament to something bigger than my fear.
Lily had died on a mountain. That was true, and it would always be true.
But Lily had also lived on mountains, she had laughed and explored and found joy in these wild, dangerous, beautiful places.
Her death wasn't the mountain's fault any more than it was mine.
It was just life, random and cruel and unstoppable.
And if life was going to take the people I loved eventually, then I had a choice. I could hide from love, build walls, and protect myself into a lonely, hollow existence. Or I could love fiercely, openly, vulnerably, and accept that the pain of loss was the price of admission.
Standing here, holding Sarah, feeling Cole's steady presence behind me, the choice seemed obvious.
The descent was slow and careful, flashlight beams cutting through the darkness. Cole held Sarah's hand on one side; I walked close on the other. The ranger radioed ahead that we'd found her, and I heard the cheers echo faintly from the base.
Halfway down, Sarah reached for my hand too. Her small fingers laced through mine, cold and trusting.
"Emma?"
"Yeah, sweetheart?"
"Are you gonna stay? For real this time?"
I squeezed her hand, blinking back fresh tears. "Yes. For real. I'm done running away."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
She was quiet for a moment. Then: "Good. Because I missed you a lot."
"I missed you too. More than you know."
Cole glanced over at me in the darkness. I couldn't see his expression, but I felt his hand brush against my back—a brief, warm touch that said everything words couldn't.