Echo Mountain

by Lauren Wolk

Then, from the near distance, came a long, lingering howl. It was as mournful and wild as any coyote I’d ever heard, but I recognized the voice. And I imagined little Quiet

“Ah,” she said. “I was wondering when you’d ask that. It means ‘song.’ In the old language of my family, it means song.” An apt name for the dog of a luthier with Gaelic blood in his veins.

“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.”

I was jealous at the thought that Cate might be meeting Pooh and Piglet for the very first time—like tasting a first strawberry or hearing a first loon—since the book was only a little older than Samuel and meant for children

I could smell it, too, sharp as broken glass.

“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.”