They made good time into Seattle, but night was still falling early this time of year, and it was almost full dark when they got there. A quick check at the cabin found it dark and empty, the fireplace cold and the beds untouched. As he shut the cabin door and looked across the small yard at Josh, who waited pale and silent in the lantern light, something cold and disturbing clutched at Jason's stomach, and he could see it reflected in his brother's eyes.

"Well, he must be around here somewhere," he said encouragingly, not certain which of them he was trying to reassure. "He wouldn't just wander off."

"Maybe he's at Lottie's," Josh suggested. The local saloonkeeper had been a friend of their father's, and a sympathetic ear for each of the brothers at one point or another. If something was wrong, perhaps Jeremy had stopped in to talk it over with Lottie.

But a visit to the saloon only revealed an entire roomful of people who hadn't seen Jeremy all day. Now truly worried, Jason began trying to organize a search party while an increasingly frightened Joshua looked on. Several of the men were more than willing to join the hunt, but their state of intoxication made it somewhat doubtful they could find the door, never mind a fourteen-year-old potentially lost in the dark on Bridal Veil Mountain. Aaron Stempel, owner of the local saw mill, provided the voice of reason that effectively ended the enthusiastic support of the effort to find the missing boy.

"Look, Bolt, you probably just missed him somewhere along the way – he's probably back up in that camp of yours, wondering what's happened to the two of you."

"And if he isn't?" Josh said tightly, angry at having their concerns brushed aside.

"If he isn't," Stempel said more quietly, now that Lottie's patrons were beginning to lose interest, "you'll have a much more sober search party in the morning."

Jason realized he'd have to concede defeat here, though it irked him to do so in front of Stempel, who had long been a rival. But if they went into the woods with this group, they'd only end up with more missing people. Nodding distracted acknowledgement to Lottie's heartfelt words of encouragement, he picked up the lantern from the bar and excused himself, striding back out into the dark with Joshua in his wake. Once outside, he stopped, unsure where to search next.

"What do we do now?" Josh asked.

"Where's the last place we know he would have been?" Jason was thinking out loud, working his way through the dilemma before him.

"The school?" Josh said uncertainly.

Jason nodded, decided. "Let's go see the teacher, Miss –"

"Halliday," Josh supplied, beginning to lead the way. "She lives in that house behind the school."

XXXX

As darkness descended on the forest clearing where Jeremy lay, he was aware of two things. He was getting sleepy, and he was getting worried. Surely Jason and Josh had missed him by now. Why hadn't they come? Maybe he was further off the trail than he thought. He wondered how he was going to get himself found, if he was too deep into the woods to hear them call. Last summer, when little Abby Lexington had roamed off during the Fourth of July picnic, search parties had combed the woods for hours, finally finding the little girl sitting on Lottie's back porch, playing with her doll.

That was probably what would happen. Jason would round up some help, and they'd search the woods along the trail. Jeremy wondered which would be worse: being found stuck here, a victim of his own carelessness, by Jason or Josh, or by someone else. He decided it didn't matter. It was getting cooler, now that the sun was down, and the eternal damp of Seattle was beginning to settle around him. He'd be happy to be rescued, no matter who did the rescuing.

But would they be able to look for him in the dark? The Lexington child had disappeared in broad daylight and been found before sunset. Maybe they'd have to wait until daylight to search. Jason and Joshua would look for him no matter what, he knew that; but if they didn't know where to look and no one agreed to help them … he knew he didn't want them to go crashing through the underbrush in the dark and get hurt, looking for him.

He had decided that he hadn't been injured, either in the fall or by the pine trunk across his legs, beyond some bruises. His feet were starting to go to sleep though, and he had to keep wiggling his toes to keep the circulation going. He was never going to live this down. Josh would tease him forever – and heaven forbid the boys at school found out. He'd have to go live on the other side of the mountain, like a hermit. If Jason didn't ground him into his next life for fighting at school.

It wasn't that the Bolt brothers were inclined to shrink from fights; on the contrary, Jason was a firm believer in defending what was yours. But he also believed that his brothers should take every advantage of the opportunity to learn – there hadn't been a school in Seattle when Jason was a boy, and he had done most of his book learning at his mother's side. He didn't want them to do anything that might jeopardize the chance they'd been given.

Jeremy couldn't remember his mother, not really. He remembered how comforting it was to hear her voice, calling to him to wake up and come to breakfast; but he couldn't remember what her voice sounded like. He knew she was beautiful, but he couldn't remember what she looked like. He remembered she could make everything right with the world, with hardly an effort. And he remembered feeling that the world had ended, when she died. Jason and Joshua had worked hard, especially since their father died, to keep the memories alive for Jeremy, but it just didn't seem to be the same.

He angled his head to look up at the few stars he could make out among the tree branches above him. Maybe he'd be spending the night here, and get found in the morning. How cold would it be tonight? Cold enough to freeze? He didn't think so. Cold enough to be uncomfortable, though – maybe even dangerous. What did Jason say about surviving in the cold? Keep moving, and stay awake. Well, he wasn't going to be moving without some help, but maybe he could keep himself awake until morning. He could try that branch as a lever again, in a little while, just to break the monotony. He could do his homework in his head. What about the history lesson? Was it the Constitution?

Drawing breath, he began to recite, "We the p-p-people –" and stopped. No, he didn't want to recite right now. Maybe something else. He could sing without stuttering – he did that all the time. What was that song Josh had been singing as they worked last weekend? Josh was always coming home from somewhere with new songs. Something about ships, and some New England whaling town ….

XXXX

A few minutes after leaving Lottie's, two troubled young loggers were pounding on the front door of the little cottage the people of Seattle supplied for their schoolteacher.

"Miss Halliday?" Josh called. "It's Joshua Bolt! Please open up!"

Jason shot his brother a surprised glance – Josh had finished school before this teacher had come to Seattle, and had never been one of her students – how would she recognize his name? But then he remembered that Miss Halliday had loaned Josh a few books over the long winter, encouraging him, with Jason's somewhat amused blessing, to further his education even after he had finished school, and Josh had eagerly welcomed the opportunity to keep learning new things.

They heard the sound of the latch being lifted, and then the door opened to reveal a small, dark-haired, bespectacled woman with a bewildered look on her face. In the lamplit room behind her, Jason could see a desk covered with papers, obviously waiting to be graded.

"Joshua, whatever is wrong?" the woman asked with some concern, pulling her shawl more closely around her shoulders.

"Miss Halliday, this is my brother, Jason. We're sorry to disturb you, ma'am, but Jeremy didn't make it home after school; at least, he wasn't there an hour ago," Josh explained quickly. "Did he maybe say anything at school about going somewhere else this evening?"

Miss Halliday paled visibly, one hand drifting up to the cameo pin at the high neck of her blouse. "Oh, dear," she murmured. Then remembering herself, she stepped back and opened the door more widely. "Please come in."

Once seated by the fire in her neatly furnished little home, she related to them the incident in the schoolyard earlier in the day. "Honestly, I knew they had been tormenting him about his speech, and I prevented it whenever I could. But I had no idea it had reached the point of fisticuffs until I stepped out to call them in after lunch, and saw Jeremy strike that dreadful Harry Kinkade." At Josh's look of surprise, she explained with some embarrassment, "I know a teacher should like all students equally, but some of them just vex a person beyond all tolerance, and Mr. Kinkade is one of those students."

"Did you happen to notice which way he headed when he left the school?" Jason asked.

Miss Halliday thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, I believe he was headed up the trail that leads to your camp." Looking back and forth between them, she added with dismay, "Gentlemen, I never meant to embarrass him into hiding; I've been teased since childhood about these glasses of mine, and I know that's only a small thing, compared to what Jeremy's been tolerating. But I have to deal decisively with schoolyard fights, to prevent them becoming a regular activity."

"I understand that, ma'am," Jason said, rising and reaching to shake her hand as reassuringly as he could. "You did what you had to do. I'm sure this is just a bit of miscommunication, and he's probably back up at camp doing his homework by now."

Josh had risen as well, now, and Miss Halliday escorted them to the door. "I'm sure that's the case, Mr. Bolt. Do let me know if I can be of any assistance."

Standing in the yard between the house and the school, Josh clutched the collar of his jacket closer around him until Jason handed him the lantern. "Where to now?"

"Let's head back up to camp. Maybe we'll turn something up on the trail." They started toward Bridal Veil Mountain, the lantern light forming a sphere around them that held back the darkness.

"It's getting colder, Jason."

"I know, brother."