stared at the last line until the words blurred.
Then she folded the notebook shut.
She ate half a granola bar, drank one careful swallow of water, and stepped back into the trees.
The old ranger trace was not on public maps anymore.
It had been closed after the 1974 landslide, when the mountain gave way and buried a fire lookout road under tons of stone.
At least, that was the story taught in school.
Lily’s mother had worked at the county archives before she married Buck.
She had loved
