Echo Mountain

Ellie calmly approaches her father and cries. When Esther sees her father’s eyes open, she calls for their mother, who rushes in and cries out, falling to her knees and then embracing Ellie and her father. Ellie notices that her father has “no light in those open eyes” (161) as his family gathers around him. After a moment, Ellie’s father goes back to sleep again. Ellie’s mother tells her to get Maisie and the puppies and bring them to the bedroom. Ellie and Samuel do just that, and Maisie and her pups curl up alongside Ellie’s father, comforting him as he sleeps. This moment of wakening, which Ellie and her family have been waiting for, turns out to be temporary, and Ellie’s father continues to sleep.

Ellie spends the next couple of hours preparing her father’s boots and gloves while also treading back and forth to her father’s room to see if he is awake again. Her mother wants him to rest, which Ellie finds strange, but she trusts her mother’s word this time and avoids trying to wake him. Samuel is drawing a picture of the snake Ellie threw into the room, which Ellie humorously notices is “three times longer than the bed in the picture” (165). Ellie’s mother mentions that it might take a long time for Ellie’s father to heal and that he will need a lot of help from her. She surprises Ellie by noting, “It’s too bad you’re not a boy, Ellie. You have all the makings of a fine doctor” (166). Hearing her mother say this makes Ellie realize that helping her father, as well as Cate, gave her a feeling that made her want to help people even more. She tells her mother that she is going to check on Cate, and although her mother originally objected, she now only questions Ellie’s continually changing mind. This is ironic because Ellie’s mother is always changing her own mind. Before she leaves, Ellie goes to see her father and finds the puppies all lying on him, showcasing the bond that Ellie’s father has with the dogs. Ellie takes the jar of willow bark tea out of the shed and heads up the mountain, prepared to follow the flame once again “which sighed and roared and sighed again like a long piece of music [she] knew by heart but still seemed to be hearing fresh” (169).

Ellie arrives at the mountain peak and is greeted by Captan. She talks to him, asking about Cate and telling him what a wonderful dog he is. Ellie feels that he responds in his own way. She enters the cabin to find Larkin with a black eye and Cate on the mend. Larkin was punished by being made to do chores in the dark and hurt himself when a piece of wood flew back at him while he was chopping. Ellie feels like she is at home with people she has known forever, a stark contrast to how she feels around her mother and sister. She helps to feed Cate some stew and to fix Larkin’s wound. She tells them that her father awoke that morning and describes all her attempts to heal him. Cate replies that what finally stirred him is likely something not found in books or brews.

Cate teaches Ellie how to lance a wound as Larkin’s eye swells. Ellie nervously takes Larkin outside and makes the laceration, becoming drenched in his blood. Cate then instructs her to put a potato on Larkin’s eye to drain the infection. Ellie suddenly finds herself wanting to know not just that potatoes can help with infection, but why. She asks if she can read Cate’s books, and Cate answers that she can if she helps with chores. After hearing her mother say she could be a doctor, Ellie has a newfound confidence and curiosity in medicine. Next, Ellie helps Cate go outside to relieve herself by sitting on a nearby stump. She sees a shed and asks Cate what is in it, to which Cate answers only, “this and that” (180). Back inside, Ellie jokes around with Larkin and Cate, feeling that she is exactly where she belongs.

A few days prior, Ellie overheard her mother and sister chatting aimlessly in the kitchen and realized it had been ages since she had been included in such a conversation. Today, at Cate’s house, she has this type of ordinary conversation with Larkin and Cate. They discuss how to catch a deer with a snare, the various types of game they eat, and the clothing they have made from their skins. The conversation then turns more serious as Larkin reveals that his mother dislikes his visiting Cate because learning how to read might cause Larkin to want to leave the mountain. He then confesses that his father died and, more significantly, that his father was Cate’s son. Ellie realizes that Larkin is Cate’s grandson and suddenly feels it was obvious all along.

Cate begins to cry thinking of her son and the state of Larkin’s relationship with his mother, so Ellie takes care of her. She instructs Larkin to wash Cate’s clothes and prepare a bath for her. When Ellie asks Larkin why he failed to tell her that Cate was his grandmother, Larkin explains that he was cautious due to Ellie being from town and new on the mountain. He feels that people from town see Cate as a witch and avoid their side of the mountain for that reason. Once, a woman from another town family (the Lockharts) came up to see Cate with a pain in her stomach. Cate gave her some greens and told her to make tea and drink it daily. When the Lockhart woman got worse instead of better, Cate was blamed. Ellie has never considered that she might be intruding on other people on the mountain, though she has thought about how “a mountain didn’t seem like something that could be owned” (191). Ellie feels torn between her love of her new life and the fact that Larkin sees others like her as intruders. Ellie knows that Larkin sees her differently, having carved the many gifts for her, but she still feels a new guilt.

Larkin explains that he did not want to reveal himself as he left the carvings because he was unsure about townspeople. He saw Ellie as different and pitied her family when they first came to the mountain and slept in a tent. The lamb carving was originally meant for Samuel, but Larkin was not upset when he saw Ellie take it. He admits to having been watching each time she retrieved a carving and says that every carving afterward was meant for her. Ellie asks if the fun and mystery is ruined “knowing [her] without the trees in between” (194), and Larkin assures her it is not.

Back in the cabin, Ellie has more questions for Larkin. She asks why his mother dislikes Cate and learns that Cate left the mountain, went to college, and became a nurse, marrying a man in the city. When she had her son, Larkin’s father, he grew up to do the same, but he grew tired of city life and moved to the mountain. Ellie then finds out that she and Larkin share a significant commonality: Larkin’s father was a luthier (a crafter of string instruments). Ellie and Larkin ponder the possibility that Larkin’s father made Ellie’s mother’s mandolin. Larkin misses the way his father could play, and Ellie finally understands why Cate has a whole wall full of tools.

Ellie learns that when the stock market crashed, Cate came back to the mountain, leaving her large house and possessions behind. She did so out of necessity, which Larkin’s mother (Cate’s daughter-in-law) saw as offensive because she and her family lived on the mountain by choice. She took Cate in nonetheless, but soon after, Larkin’s father fell ill and died. Larkin’s mother blamed Cate, who was a nurse and but was unable to help, and turned her out. Cate now lives in the cabin alone. Ellie realizes that Larkin was leaving gifts for her just weeks after his own father died, and she feels an affection toward him for his selflessness.

When Ellie tells Cate and Larkin how her father ended up in a coma, Cate warns her that while he may wake up, he might need to learn to walk and talk again. Further, his personality may not be the same. She gives Ellie some advice, telling her to take things one day at a time and go with her father’s direction.

When Ellie returns home, she finds her family crowded around her father. Esther is reading The Velveteen Rabbit aloud as he sleeps. Ellie notes that at first it seems like “a scene from a storybook” (205)—until one realizes that her father is not in a normal kind of sleep. Ellie feels like “a character in [two] stories” (205), unable to tell her mother of the lovely evening she had with Cate and Larkin. She knows she will be “tangled and torn” (205) between these two worlds from now on. As she ponders this duality, Larkin’s mother appears at the edge of the clearing.

Larkin’s mother looks to Ellie like “a broken bowl. Jagged. A woman in pieces” (209). Ellie calls her mother to come outside, and then Larkin’s mother demands that Ellie stay away from Larkin. She says she is disgusted that Ellie asked Larkin to wash Cate’s underwear. Ellie’s mother asserts that she and her family have carved their own space on the mountain and says that Ellie will be allowed to see Cate whenever she likes. Larkin’s mother gradually reveals her true worry when she implies that Ellie and Larkin may fall in love, and that when the economy improves, Ellie may take Larkin away to town with her. Ellie blushes deeply and Larkin has an expression of pure shock. Ellie sees a darkness in Larkin’s mother that refuses to heal. Larkin apologizes for his mother’s actions, but Ellie locks the cabin door tight after he and his mother leave for home.

Ellie explains everything about the past few days at Cate’s cabin to her family. Samuel is most curious about the maggots and whether they are big enough to eat him. Ellie feels “almost as good telling it as [she] had felt living it” (214). Esther starts making excuses for not trusting Ellie, blaming Ellie once again for her father’s accident. Samuel calls Esther a “nasty rat” (214), defending Ellie as he often does. Ellie suddenly realizes that town for Esther is like the mountain for Ellie: her home. She feels sorry for Esther but cannot excuse her rude behavior. Esther complains of the harsh mountain life and worries that her father may never wake again; she soon becomes overwhelmed and leaves to be with him. Ellie announces she will be returning to Cate’s tomorrow to find out about healing medicines, and she notices that her mother makes no threats or objections. She knows that something is different in her mother now.

Ellie’s mother admits to missing town and the people and sense of community there. Ellie compliments her mother’s bravery in standing up to Larkin’s mother, and remarks on how touching it was to hear her mother talk of everything her father has done for them. She praises her mother’s ability to press forward even as her husband sleeps and worries what will become of her if he never wakes. Ellie’s mother admits that she and Esther seem not to be suited for mountain life like Ellie is, and that she is only satisfied, not happy. She sends Ellie out to find Samuel, who was supposed to be gathering potatoes for dinner.

Ellie finds Samuel coming up from the cellar with potatoes in hand and a grin on his face. He is proud of having just touched a gigantic spider. Ellie decides to show him how to use the potatoes to heal their father’s sores, the same way she did with Larkin’s eye. She and Samuel go outside and collect witch hazel. Ellie and Samuel mash the witch hazel into the potato, later taking it to their father. Ellie and her mother help each other apply it. Afterward, Samuel sees Cate’s dog standing at the door with a doll that belongs to Cate in his mouth. This mysterious event ends the chapter on another cliff-hanger.

Ellie’s mother insists on accompanying Ellie to Cate’s cabin, and Ellie can sense that her mother is trying to fill the void that living on the mountain has created in her. Esther is asked to stay and take care of Samuel and her father, and she looks “like a child for the first time in years” (227). Ellie’s mother puts on a pair of her husband’s trousers, and as Esther goes inside, it is clear she feels betrayed by her mother’s sudden adventurousness. As they leave and head up the path, Esther runs up from behind them. She wants to go in her mother’s place, afraid of what will happen if her mother does not return. Ellie describes the situation using a metaphor, saying that her mother has a “thread pulling her back toward a time when she was a girl on an adventure” (229) but that Esther is “much closer to the spool” (229). Ellie was excited to have her mother meet Cate, but she knows it is Esther who needs this experience most, and she accepts her new company happily.