I barked back.
And then it was me and the teens barking at each other across the street, until the red-faced man, Dave, came out of the pub on main street.
“Leave it off,” he said. “You know that one’s not right.”
It was said in the same tone as, Don’t kick that panel, it’s loose.
Sometime later, I caught the boy sitting sullenly outside The Curtyard. I’d heard from Fergus that Dave, his dad, was often in there longer than he should be and the boy would have to come and collect money to buy his tea. The boy saw me looking and crossed his arms and looked at the wall nonchalantly. I wasn’t heading into the pub that night, so I didn’t need to pass by. But I felt… different for the kid.
I howled for him. Long and sombre.
He blinked at me. Frowned. Looked away. Looked at me again. Then stood up and howled, too.
We howled together until someone inside the pub yelled for someone to see to their dog. I walked off just as his dad appeared to give him some cash.
Now we just howl whenever we see each other. I’m not sure if it counts as an understanding, but it’s something.
As my legs got better, I started working a few different jobs around town. I’ve taken some cleaning shifts at The Curtyard. I help out at the hardware and supplies store. Fergus’s collection of cacti and succulents have grown. I got him an aloe vera for his birthday. I told him he can use the gel in it as a topical skin treatment, but he didn’t care. He just likes its shape. Eventually Rowan let me set up social media pages for the store. I give updates on the store’s channels about stock levels, new products and changes to opening times, but that’s about it. I write the posts as myself, even sign my name at the bottom so folks know. I offered to show Rowan how to do all this himself, but he was happy for me to take it on. For his birthday, I built him a basic website with a map, opening times and a description of what we sold. I don’t know if it’s improved sales yet, but it feels tidy and I like that.
On weekends, I help Rowan at the forestry. The quiet up there has yet to get old. It’s my favourite place in the world.
I only spoke to Roger once after everything that happened. I’d looked for him and Callie-Ann, wanting to let them know I’d survived my journey into the dark, but I hadn’t been able to find them. Until one day in late autumn, on my way into Carlinsrest, I saw him standing in the middle of Bodach’s Brig, plucking acorns out of a plastic bag and throwing them into the river. Keen not to miss him, I rushed over. Then I noticed he was alone. No sleeping wife in her wheelchair. No dog.
“Is she ok?” I blurted out as I got closer to him. “Callie-Ann. Is she alright?”
He blinked up at me for a moment then asked, “Who?”
“Your wife.”
“Oh!” He rapped his knuckles against his head. “She’s fine. Just at her labours. Always busy this time of year.” He dumped the rest of the acorns over the side of the bridge. “And you! You’ve returned from Neverland in one piece. The pirates didn’t give you too much trouble, did they?”
I shook my head. “No. Not too much.”
“And you’re still who you say you are?” He leaned close, his gaze flicking between my eyes as if looking for something. A flurry of leaves passed by on the cold wind that came down from the north. His eyebrows raised.
“Oh, I see,” he said. “You’ve decided to share. How lucky. Dolly never got that option.”
It made about as much sense as anything Roger said, so I just nodded and smiled.
“Very good of you to fix it without dying, too! Village has had enough to deal with, what with all that flower nonsense.”
“Wait, I have to know. What was with all the flowers anyway?”
He shrugged “Don’t ask me. It’s your shadow.”
Then he strode past me and out into the countryside.
A few days later, I spied them, Roger and Callie-Ann, on my drive into the village—windscreen now mercifully fixed. They were up on the hills that hung over the river, peaks now wreathed in a heavy mist. Callie-Ann was up out of her chair and trudging slowly but steadily toward the crest of the hill, beating the ground with her curious walking stick. Roger followed behind, his wiry hair looking even more like antlers, his clothes tattered and flapping like a bushel of leaves.
After New Years Eve at The Curtyard, I crashed at Rowan and Fergus’ place and in my post-party lightly-buzzed state, I decided to finally check in on my old agency. I’d been avoiding it, as if the sight of the company logo alone might trigger me back to my old ways. But lying there on Rowan’s old sofa, looking up at the dark outlines of Fergus’ cacti guarding the window sill… I don’t know. I felt ready. I looked the agency up online and was surprised to find the office had relocated. For some crazy reason I’d forgotten that things other than myself could change. I’d assumed the agency would still be in the same building, in the same part of town. That that era of my life would be there forever, ready and waiting to drag me back. But it was gone. I considered looking up the new location but decided against it. That wasn’t for me. Not anymore.
Instead, I looked through past photos. The old office didn’t look like how I remembered it. The people not as unfriendly. The last picture in that office was a group shot with everyone huddled around the director, all big grins from some client win. The director had a new haircut and her fingernails were painted teal. All eight of them.
I searched her smiling face for signs of trauma. Resiliency. Bitterness. Vengeful rage. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. I don’t think I ever really could. In the blue light of my phone, in the quiet of the new year, I thought again about Rowan’s words up in the hills.
A splinter of glass. A timebomb.
But a timebomb with a mind of her own. A will of her own.
