Rainer told her what happened, how he followed Abigail, then fell into the mine. How he followed the sound of her laughter until he heard Finley’s voice.
It surprised her; Finley wouldn’t have thought of Abigail as her ally. Abigail was always running her own agenda, like with the wedding rings, willing to use Finley and consider her collateral damage. Abigail liked drama and trouble, not rescue.
“Let’s get you some medical attention, son,” said Jones, returning to them. He took Rainer’s other arm, and the two of them helped him out down the long tunnel and out of the mine. Even as they left, Finley felt an energetic tug at her back.
*
Eloise Montgomery had seen a good many things. Too many, she thought, as she pulled her car to the side of the road and donned her red wool hat, pulled on her gloves. She couldn’t bear the cold anymore; it tightened her joints and seemed to burrow under her skin, causing her very bones to shiver inside her flesh.
The full rainbow of human suffering had revealed itself to her and she’d been asked to bear witness to all the violence men and women could do, all the havoc they could wreak through their neglect or ignorance or evil intentions. And the truth was, the honest truth was that she was tired.
She is ready, said the voice that wasn’t a voice.
It grieved her that Finley might be asked to live the kind of life Eloise had lived. But it was beyond her control. Eloise was old enough to know that. Only the young think they have something to say about how their lives turn out. We don’t choose; we are chosen.
Before she left the house, she’d phoned Ray, just to say that she was sorry, that she loved him in the way that she could. He didn’t answer, which wasn’t like him, and his voicemail picked up instead. But, actually, she supposed it was a good thing. They fought the last time they’d spoken.
“You’re not coming,” he’d said. “Are you?”
“Not yet.”
He’d been quiet, his disappointment filling the line between him. Then, “You’re not coming at all, are you?”
She didn’t answer at first. She’d been promising for so long to come out to San Francisco, to spend a weekend at least just having fun. You know, dinner and a show, a cable car ride, a walk along the beach. Like normal people.
It sounded nice, but Eloise had given up trying to be like normal people long ago. The fact that he didn’t realize she couldn’t just switch off what she was troubled her. He was trying to move away from “the work,” as they called it. He didn’t seem to understand that she didn’t have that choice.
“Finley needs me right now,” she said weakly. “Maybe when she’s more settled.”
“It’s time to put yourself first, El,” he said. Didn’t he really mean that it was time she put him first? His voice was flat, distant on the line. “Finley’s a grown woman.”
Of course, there were other reasons she couldn’t come to San Francisco. She just didn’t want to get into it.
“If I could have loved anyone else again,” she said to his voicemail. “It would have been you.”
She stepped out of the car and into the weather. She’d worn her boots and warmest coat, and still the cold snaked up her sleeves and down her collar. She headed into the trees to a place she’d visited many times—in visions, to find Finley, to help a lost boy, and once to find a burning girl. She thought that the place had everything it needed. But she realized now that she’d been wrong.
In fact, now that she understood what was really needed, she felt like an old fool. She should have known long ago. It was obvious.
She’d heard the activity on her police scanner at home that the car belonging to the missing man had been found. She knew that he’d be found dead, but that because of the beacon in his car Eliza Fitzpatrick would be found alive. She’d return to her mother and go on to live a happy life. In fact, the horrors she’d endured would cause her to honor her gifts and know her own strengths in a way she never would have otherwise. Was it a fair trade? No. But nothing about this life had ever been fair.
You can make a trade, the voice said.
She also knew that Finley was in trouble, that she had a choice to make. The girl had been flirting with it for a while. Would she let the darkness take her? Or would she claw her way back to the light? -Eloise wasn’t worried. She knew Finley in a way she knew few others, even her own daughter Amanda. She knew Finley because she was so much like Eloise. Finley felt the tug of destruction, but she always came back from the edge. The girl knew that people loved her and needed her. That knowledge was the cord that pulled her back.