Storyteller by Patricia Reilly Giff

“They’d have chopped down the trees to clear the land, built a cabin with some of the wood, one room maybe, with a ladder to the loft.”
    They walk around the back of his house. “I’ve read booksabout this area’s history,” he says. “One had details about the Loyalists setting fire to some of the houses. Zee’s was one of them, burned to the ground. Her mother was killed.”
    He bends over. “Now look at this.” He claws into the earth with his fingers and comes up with a crumbling bit of cement, or mortar, or dried mud.
    “I dug for this all over the property,” he says. “The chimney was covered with dirt and grass as if it had never been there.”
    Elizabeth sinks down and spreads her hands over the earth, patting the bits and pieces. “The chimney,” she whispers. “All these years, and we’re touching a piece of Zee’s chimney?”
    “Maybe.”
    “It kept her warm in the winter,” she says, almost as if she’s dreaming it. “If she walked down to the river, she’d look back and see the smoke. She’d smell the bread baking, or meat cooking.”
    They look at each other, both delighted. “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you.”
    He grins, a different Harry. A Harry she’s going to get to know.
    He leans back on his heels. “There’s a story about people hiding things in caves. Patriots fleeing from the Loyalists. Zee may have done that.” He shrugs. “People searched for years, back and forth over this trail, over that one. It’s ridiculous to even look anymore.”
    He turns to Elizabeth. Deep lines radiate from his faded eyes. “I looked myself when I was young.”
    “Who knows?” she says. “Maybe we’ll find something.”
    He shakes his head. “I don’t think so. But we might find what happened to Zee. That’s really what we want to know, isn’t it?”
    We
.
    “Yes,” she says.
    She and Harry will follow the map. They’ll see exactly where Zee went. She draws three triangles in the air with one finger. She points to the mountains. “The map begins there.”
    “Ah,” he says, staring at them. “And summer’s coming.”
    It’s almost an invitation.
    No, not almost.
    It is an invitation.
    And then she realizes. She won’t be here. She’ll be gone.
    She walks down to the river and scoops up a small stone, thinking Zee might have done something like this.
    She holds it in her hand, feeling its smoothness, picturing the stone breaking off from some ancient mountain and rolling over and over, and now it will stay with her.

zee
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
    Finding a boat was easy. It wasn’t a good boat, to be sure. The sides were filled with small holes, and stagnant water sloshed on the bottom. It would take on water quickly, and I was sure that whoever owned it had abandoned it long before
.
    With my clumsy fingers, it took long minutes to untie the knots in the rope that held it to a willow tree. And how could I use the oars with hands that were stiff and straight?
    But somehow it had to be done, and the trip would not be long. I could see the opposite shore from where I stood. It was a clear day, without wind, and the river was flat. Even if the water in the boat rose to my waist, I could do it. I’d come this far
.
    I made the crossing early in the morning. I went in circles
,
one oar pulling harder than the other; then, as the hand on that oar quickly tired, the other oar pulled the boat in the opposite direction. But at last the boat bumped against the shore, and I was there, north of the river. I gave the boat a gentle shove and watched it rock its way downriver
.
    From behind me came the rattling of wagon wheels; I heard horses’ hooves and the crack of a whip. I turned, ready to run, to hide
.
    A woman urged on the horse, her cap askew, and in back of her were three children. She pulled the wagon up next to me. “What are you doing here alone? Why aren’t you at the fort?” Her eyes were wild, terrified. “Get into the wagon, child. I’ll take you. But hurry. We