She found me at the tributary.
Not a coincidence — nothing Maren did was coincidental. She had the particular navigational instinct of a woman who had been paying close attention to the people around her for a very long time, and she knew where I went when I needed the specific quality of moving water and no expectation.
She sat beside me on the bank without ceremony.
No folder.
No walking stick, which she'd left somewhere — I noticed its absence the way you notice when something usually present isn't. She looked smaller without it. Not diminished — smaller in the way people look when they set down the thing that helps them stand up straight and you see the version of them that exists without it.
She looked at the water.
"You've been to the ridge," she said.
"Yes."
"It's a good pla
