Echo Mountain

Ellie fashions bandages out of Larkin’s sleeves and ties them around Cate’s leg. Cate takes only her doll, and Larkin and Ellie slowly assist her down the hill. Cate is excited and clear-headed for the first time since Ellie has known her. As they make their way down the mountain, Ellie feels as though helping Cate may somehow help her father, and her persistence shines through as she resolves to do whatever it takes to help them both. Ellie comes to her anagnorisis (the moment when the main character recognizes a crucial truth about herself or her situation) when she realizes that “life is a matter of moments, strung together like rain” (296) and that she must fully immerse herself in the chaos of nature and life to find the answer to helping Cate and her father. She knows that there must be some reason why she can feel the pain of the bees or hear the scream of a tree as it falls, and she vows to find out what that reason is.

At the cabin, Cate is introduced to Samuel, and Ellie’s mother is frazzled and confused. Ellie can tell that her mother sees Cate as a “gray, hunched woman in a tunic” (299), while Ellie knows that Cate’s appearance is drastically different from who she is inside. Cate thanks Ellie’s mother for letting her in, for the food, and for allowing her daughters to help. Ellie compares Cate’s arrival at her home to someone who “threaded her way from a stray seed in the floorboards to sprout branches and leaves above the table and through the window into the sunlight” (300). When Ellie realizes that Cate is Mrs. Cleary from town, she starts to cry. Cate explains that she is there to help Ellie (by helping her father), saying that Ellie is a “hag” just like she is.

Cate asks to see Ellie’s father, and the family joins her. She picks up the mandolin, looking at it lovingly and remembering her son. She asks if Ellie’s mother will play it, but Ellie’s mother denies. Cate thanks Larkin for taking care of her, giving him her precious doll, and everyone in the room senses that she is saying goodbye. She begins to cry as she utters an old Gaelic blessing that translates as “Good health to you and every blessing” (303). She repeats these words over and over as Ellie’s mother shuffles everyone out of the room. Cate insists that Ellie stay behind with her.

Cate and Ellie stare at each other in silence until Captan’s howling from outside breaks it. Cate reveals that her dog’s name means “song” in Gaelic. She tells Ellie the story of Florence Nightingale, a famous nurse who, before she became a nurse, helped a dog named Cap whose owner planned to hang him. The owner believed the dog’s leg was broken, but Florence discovered it was only a bruise. Captan bursts in at that moment, and Ellie’s mother explains that he refused to stay outside any longer. Ellie calls for Quiet to come in and introduces him to Captan. Ellie assures Cate that her leg will heal as Cate laments not having met Ellie sooner. Cate looks at Ellie and, regarding Ellie’s father, says, “You know what to do, don’t you” (310).

Ellie and Cate discuss the possibility of calling a doctor and what they could trade as payment. They decide there is nothing worth trading, and Ellie helps Cate into her father’s bed to check her wound. She sees that the honey is still inside, but the wound is infected and needs further treatment. Ellie decides she is going to make glue out of deer hide to create a dam; she goes out to ask her mother for a pot. Ellie makes the glue as Samuel asks questions about the process; he offers to help her, and she agrees.

Ellie and Samuel cook the deer hide into glue for several hours, and when Ellie goes back to see her father and Cate, she finds Esther there reading a Winnie the Pooh book as the two of them sleep. Ellie remembers Esther reading that story to her when she was small; she wonders if Cate is “meeting Pooh and Piglet for the very first time” (318), as the book came out long after Cate’s children were grown. Ellie’s mother insists that everyone pause to eat supper, but Ellie does not want to eat. Her mother becomes frustrated, voicing her confusion and worry about Ellie treating Cate despite being 12 and having no medical degree. She insists that a doctor will be sent for in the morning, and Samuel follows Ellie as she heads outside. Ellie realizes that if Quiet is given up, she will need Samuel even more, as he follows her loyally “like a puppy would” (321).

Ellie suggests thanking the bees for helping Cate, and Cate replies that she should not only thank bees, but also “the trees and the flowers and every other kind of doctor to be had” (323). Ellie starts unwrapping Cate’s wound and making a ring of glue around it. She intends to create a dam, so that the vinegar she pours into the wound will not melt the honey. Ellie’s mother comes in with tea and then brings the vinegar. She asks about sending for a doctor, to which Cate replies that they already have one (Ellie). Ellie feels the flame inside her burning and shining through her eyes, and Ellie’s mother suddenly apologizes to Ellie for being so difficult and misunderstanding Ellie’s intentions these past few months. Ellie forgives her, understanding it was grief and fear that made her mother act that way. After her mother leaves the room, Ellie searches for the words to explain how she feels: “It seems to me that what I do for one thing is what I do for everything” (328). In this, Ellie reveals her hope that by healing Cate, she will somehow heal her father and her family too. Cate’s wound thus serves as a metaphor for the decay of Ellie’s father and family, and her attempts to heal the wound are an attempt to heal all things in her life.

Ellie’s idea is working, and the vinegar stays where it should. Her mother asks that Ellie get herself something to eat while she stays with Cate, whom she refers to as Mrs. Cleary. Cate remembers her husband and who she used to be as Ellie’s mother notes, “We’re all more than one thing” (330). Ellie finds Samuel in the kitchen and eats their trout with him before returning to Cate with some broth. As Cate watches Ellie and her mother interact, she observes the duality of their relationship and says, “You’re exactly like her and entirely different” (331). Ellie admits she feels more different than the same but wonders how her mother was at her age. Ellie bids Cate and her father goodnight.

Ellie awakes to hear her mother calling. She rushes to her and finds that Captan is trying to tell her mother something. He refuses to leave Ellie’s mother alone. They follow Captan into Ellie’s father’s room as Captan whines a new song. Ellie looks at Captan and sees herself in him, calling him “a dog split in two” (335). Captan continues to sing and then starts barking loudly, something he never does. He sings louder, looking only at Ellie’s mother and then back at her father again. Ellie’s father turns his head a couple of times in response to the barks, and Ellie finally understands what Captan is trying to say. She picks up the mandolin and hands it to her mother. As her mother plays “something sweet, and sad, and wonderful” (338), Ellie’s father awakes and looks at her, this time with full awareness in his eyes.

The family stays awake all night, watching over their father and “caught between hope that he was finally awake for good and fear that he would slip away from [them] once more” (339). Before the dawn, Ellie’s father finally speaks, asking what happened. Esther answers that Ellie was in the way of a tree and he saved her. Their father seems to understand that it was not really Ellie, but he silently accepts this answer and pats Samuel’s head. He turns to see Cate, who tells him she is Mrs. Cleary from town, and Ellie’s mother explains that she has been helping him heal.

In the following days, Ellie’s father continues to waken and heal, and Cate’s leg heals too. Ellie continues tending to it until the day it is no longer necessary. Ellie’s father is impressed by her knowledge and attentiveness. Esther also helps Cate and her father, and on the third day, Larkin finally reappears with a doctor from town. The doctor cleans Cate’s wound one last time and stitches it up. He comments on Ellie’s skill at keeping Cate alive, remarking that she would “make a fine nurse someday” (343). Ellie wonders if she may be a nurse like Cate, or a doctor, or something else entirely.

The doctor examines Ellie’s father next, finds that he is in generally fine condition, and warns that he may experience some weakness, confusion, or dizziness in the future. He will need to work to build his muscle strength again and keep his sores clean so that they heal. Ellie’s father can read and speak well, and his memory is intact aside from the day of the accident. The doctor reveals that he needs no payment; he made a deal with Larkin, who plans to build the doctor his first mandolin. Meanwhile, the doctor professes that he still needs to learn how to play. Ellie realizes that she judged the doctor too harshly the first time he came to visit and resolves to withhold judgment in the future.

Ellie no longer blames herself for the accident, and four days after her father wakes, she and Larkin return to Cate’s cabin to prepare it for her. Once they arrive, Ellie asks where the broom is, and Larkin takes her out to the shed. Ellie sees that the shed is filled with wood ready to be turned into mandolins. Larkin promises to make a mandolin for Ellie, and she asks him to teach her to carve. Ellie can feel the tools coming back to life as they await being used once again.

Ellie finds that “the mother [she] had missed” is back again when her mother tells her she can keep Quiet, and possibly the other dogs too if her father recovers quickly enough. Ellie goes into her father’s room, and he confesses to her that he remembers the accident well. Ellie wishes that he could have seen everything she accomplished over the past few weeks, and he assures her that he can see it in looking at her now. Ellie goes out to see Quiet and finds him with Captan. She shares a moment of bonding with them. Cate and Ellie’s father have also bonded, and one afternoon they are finally ready to come outside and “take another step toward well” (355). Ellie hears them talking about how lucky they are to have her, and then she goes out to look at her wood carvings. She finds a new addition, a carving of Larkin next to the one of her, and she goes out to find him in the trees.