Echo Mountain

by Lauren Wolk

‘For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.’”

My father had always told me I had a choice, when faced with a giant task that would do me good: bellyache about how long it would take or be glad it would last.

“The brain’s like the world. Every part of it has a way of doing things. But you won’t know what you know until you know it,”

It would take a lot of work to be a character in both stories without becoming two characters. Or one, split in half.

“I feel like a stranger in this new skin. I left behind too much of who I’ve always been, with not enough new to fill up what’s empty now. Not enough new that suits me.”

“Blame comes from the Greek for ‘curse.’ That’s the root of it. A curse. Against the sacred. Which is what sisters are. Or should be. To each other.” She glared at us both. “Sacred.”

that life is a matter of moments, strung together like rain. To try to touch just one drop at a time, to try to count them or order them or reckon their worth—each by each—was impossible. To stand in the rain was the thing. To be in it.

“Sometimes things seem to happen out of order, or in an order of their own, but they make perfect sense if you don’t worry too much about how they ought to line up.”

“The sun never rises the way it did the day before. Not exactly. And it won’t rise the same way tomorrow. But it’s still the sun,” she said. “And we’d all be just as cold without it.”