like a person carrying too much heavy stuff all at once.
“What do you do when you sit here? Think?”
“Not really,” he said.
“Just sit?”
“Pretty much.”
It didn’t sound like a good sign. It sounded like some-
thing I should save him from. If I was a good friend.
Which I hoped I was.
“Let’s go somewhere,” I said.
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere. Let’s go do something.”
A pause. As I sat it out, I already knew the answer.
And why the answer was what it was.
“Nah. I should stay here.”
Connor was afraid to leave his parents alone any more
than absolutely necessary. It was something we had never
talked about out loud. I doubt it was an actual, logical
reason. I don’t think he believed any specific real-world
thing would happen while he was gone. It was more of
a feeling. Like there was so much unhappiness in that
house, and it hurt to look at it, but he didn’t quite dare
look away. Like he had to be right here worrying about it
to hold the whole situation together. I’m not sure I would
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Catherine Ryan Hyde
have been able to put it into words at the time, and if I
had, it wouldn’t have been those words. But I knew it.
“You can go, though,” he added. “I understand.”
So I did. I left him and saved myself. I feel bad about
that, but I did.
* * *
When Connor’s house didn’t work—and it generally
didn’t—I would go out alone into the woods behind my
house. Well, behind everybody’s house. This whole little
town of Ashby is backed up by undeveloped forest land.
It’s dense and hilly up there, and the ground is uneven. It
wasn’t someplace where anyone was interested in build-
ing a house.
Well … with one notable exception. But I hadn’t
met her yet.
There wasn’t much of anything like a trail, I guess
because nobody but me was interested in walking back
there. But the place was overrun with deer, and they beat
down little paths back and forth to the river. Wherever
they lived, they still had to drink. So I walked where
they walked.
The trees mostly formed a canopy over my head, so
whatever sunlight came through was dappled. I liked that.
I was really into the dapples. On a windy day, the light
came through as moving dapples. If it was really windy, I could hear trees creak, and sometimes one would break
with a noise like the crack of a rifle, then tumble down.
On quiet days I walked as softly as possible to sneak up on
the deer. Not because I wanted to hurt one. I just liked
being able to get that close. When they finally heard me,
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they would take off crashing through the brush, sounding
like they were fleeing on pogo sticks.
It was a quiet day that day—my tipping day. No wind.
Hardly any birds. The leaves on the trees didn’t so much
as shudder.
The only sound I could hear was the sound I was
making by crunching old pine needles and small branches
under my feet. So I stopped. And I just listened to all
that silence.
It was like Connor’s house, except this silence couldn’t
hurt anybody.
I hadn’t realized until that moment why I walked back
here. But it was painfully obvious once I stopped to listen.
* * *
I got lost that day for the first time.
It made me think of my mom, who had told me over
and over that I was never to go out into those woods.
It was a warning that had started when I was barely in
kindergarten.
“You’ll get lost,” she’d say. “Maybe nobody will ever
hear from you again.”
It had sounded pretty silly. At the time.
Eventually I crossed the paved River Road and hit
the river, which helped me get my bearings.
At first I just stood there and watched it flow. It was
wide and muddy, with a current I could see. Not beauti-
ful or inviting in any way. The banks were perpetually
slippery. Now and then, when the rainy season got out of
hand, it had been known to overflow and flood the town.
It hadn’t recently—not in more than fourteen years—so
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Catherine Ryan Hyde
I’d never seen that with my own eyes. Still, I knew it had.
There was an unmistakable sense that it cared nothing
for people at best, and sided against us at worst. I guess
all of nature is like that.
I turned back into the woods, more sure now that I
knew how to get home. But it was past lunchtime, and I
was starving, so I took a shortcut that I knew might only
get me into more trouble.
If I hadn’t, none of the rest of this would have happened.
I was crossing the metal bar that supported the
middle of the teeter-totter, figuratively speaking. The
tipping place would be right in front of me, and at any
minute I would put my weight on it. Only this time I
didn’t know.
I looked up and saw the cabin.
It startled me, because I thought it was a given that
there was nothing and no one back there. I just stood a
moment, staring at it. Then I moved a little closer. Quietly, like I was trying not to tip off a deer.
It was a genuine log cabin, made with rough-hewn
logs, cut unevenly at the ends. No big power tools had
been involved in its building—that much was obvious. It
was unpainted. But it was good work, too. Everything fit
together just right. It had what looked like a good, solid
roof of blue metal shingles. A plain pipe chimney rose
out of it, probably to accommodate a woodstove inside.
I moved around the cabin to try to get a better look
at the front.
There was a pickup truck parked near it. Which seemed
odd, since there wasn’t exactly what you might call a
road. But I did see a strip of tire tracks that had worn
down the forest floor into what I supposed could double
as one. In a pinch.
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There was a porch made of wood boards, well crafted
and neat. No stairs up to it. You just stepped up once to
get onto the porch and one more time at the threshold
of the door.
Beside the porch was a small outbuilding that I couldn’t
quite figure out. It was whitewashed, and too small to
be any kind of decent shed. If you stepped into it, you
wouldn’t even be able to straighten up. It was too small.
I moved a little farther toward the front of the place,
still working hard to be silent, and looked at the entrance
to the tiny outbuilding. And it struck me, in that moment,
what it was. It hit my belly like a fast softball made of ice.
The entryway was just an open arch.
It wasn’t a small shed. It was a massive doghouse.
I shivered slightly, and I remember thinking, I never
want to meet the dog
who lives in that thing.
I turned to get myself out of there. But in my hurry I
forgot to be perfectly quiet. I stepped on a small branch
and snapped it.
Just as I was thinking, Please let the dog be inside the cabin, I saw him. And then, a second later, it wasn’t a him.
It was a them. Two dogs came spilling out. Pouring out like water. In my shock over the size of them, and even
as my blood felt like it was turning to ice, I still observed that about them. They seemed to flow like some kind of
thick, smooth liquid. Like the current of that muddy river.
They were huge. Easily a hundred pounds each. Their
coats were short and flat, a color like silver. Or maybe
more of a gunmetal gray. They stood high on their paws,
as though their paw pads were thick and lifted them up—
like those wedge inserts men put in their shoes to appear
taller. They looked exactly alike—carbon copies of each
other—except that one stood a couple of inches higher
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Catherine Ryan Hyde
at the shoulder. I would have found them beautiful if I
hadn’t been busy fearing for my very existence.
They stopped flowing halfway between the doghouse
and me.
They dropped their heads at almost exactly the same
time. Synchronized menacing. I could see the outlines of
their shoulder blades. Their eyes were a spooky light blue.
For a moment—and I could not have told you how
long a moment—we just stood frozen, staring at each other.
I had a flash of a memory.
When I was very little, maybe five, my dad and I were
walking along our street at dusk and saw two neighbor-
hood dogs circling to fight. They looked into each other’s
eyes and never broke off that direct gaze. My father told
me that the first dog who looked away would be attacked
by the other. It was a sign of submission to look away.
Plus it gave the enemy an opening.
For another eternity that might have been only a
second, I held their terrifying gazes.
Then I turned and ran like my life depended on it.
Because I figured it probably did. It was the wrong move
and I knew it, but I couldn’t stop myself. It had been ut-
terly instinctive.
Now my gut was filled with the sickening realization
that I could not possibly outrun them. They would catch
me, and … I had no firm idea, and I couldn’t bring myself
to imagine. But of course I did know the kinds of things
dogs tended to do.
I put on a burst of speed.
I could hear them right behind me. Not even a full
step behind me. Once, I saw one of the heads in my
peripheral vision as a dog drew even with me. Why he
hadn’t taken the opportunity to bite, I didn’t know. I
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didn’t know anything in that moment. The panic had
flipped a switch in my brain to off.
I just kept running.
My only hope was that they would be satisfied when
I got far enough away from their property, and would
turn for home.
Still I heard their paws crashing in the brush just a
step behind me, no matter how far and fast I ran. My
chest began to catch fire. I developed a stitch in my side,
but I didn’t dare stop running.
I have no idea how long I ran that way. At least half a
mile. It might even have been more. Time played tricks
on my brain.
Then the whole thing came to a crashing halt.
I caught the toe of my sneaker on a root.
I flew forward, still trying to rebalance myself. But the
root was still holding my toe back behind me, so there
was no way to recover. I slammed onto my belly on a
bed of old leaves and pine needles, scratching the heels
of my hands as I tried to brace my fall.
It was over. I felt lifted outside my body by the fear.
Disconnected from myself. I honestly thought it might
be the end for me. I covered my head with my arms and
waited for them to do their worst.
And waited.
And waited.
Finally I peered out from under my arms. I had to
know.
I saw one dog clearly. His mouth was open, long
tongue curled out and dripping. It bounced as he panted.
It looked almost as though he was smiling.
I sat up and looked at both dogs, one after the other.
Each returned a faint tail wag.
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Catherine Ryan Hyde
“What the hell?” I asked out loud.
I dropped onto my back. Stared up through the trees
for a moment at a perfect cloudless blue sky, absorbing
the new reality that I was not about to die.
Then I sat up and looked at the dogs again.
The larger one made a move that I could only interpret
as an invitation. He bounded two steps, bouncing much
higher than necessary, then stopped and looked over his
shoulder at me with that same lolling-tongued grin.
The message was strikingly clear: I’ll run more if you will.
I took a few minutes, just sitting on the ground like
that, to get over feeling incredibly stupid. To adjust my
reality completely from my assumption that they were
dangerous dogs to the simple truth that they had never
meant any harm to anyone—that being huge didn’t au-
tomatically make them killers.
I got to my feet and ran again, back toward their
home. But it was different this time. It was exhilarating.
I paced myself, but I was still fast. Frankly, I was
amazed how fast. I honestly hadn’t known I could run
like that. Now suddenly I couldn’t imagine how the tal-
ent could have escaped me, lived so dormant in me for
so long. I’d also had no idea how much of the turmoil
inside me running could solve.
I put on bursts of speed, then smoothed out, then put
on the gas again. I placed my feet as if I were running
through a giant game of chess, always strategizing three
or four moves ahead. The dogs ran one behind me, one
in front where I could see him. Now and then he turned
his head and glanced over his shoulder at me, his light
blue eyes gleaming. He was having so much fun that he
had to check and make sure I was, too.
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And, oh, I was having fun!
I felt free for the first time in as long as I could remem-
ber. Everything that had weighed me down every day of
my life seemed to have been put behind me. I had left it
all in the dirt. I was too fast for my troubles. The crap of my life was eating my dust for the first time ever. I felt
light, as though running could turn into flying. Then I
felt as though I was flying, despite the fact that my feet never stopped hitting down.
When the cabin came into view again, I forced myself
to halt. I leaned forward onto my own knees and panted.
I felt as though somebody had hosed out the inside of me,
leaving everything empty and clean.
The dogs went home. Reluctantly.
So did I. Also reluctantly.
It might sound tri
te to say I knew something import-
ant had changed in that moment. Also, it’s not entirely
true. I knew something felt changed. What I did not yet know is that I had placed the first domino in a stack of
events that would literally alter the world as I’d known it.
* * *
That night before bed I wrote a letter back to Roy.
I told him the truth. That the army censors had gone
so hard at his letter that I still had no idea what it was he’d seen. And that if he tried to tell me again, they’d likely
do the same again. But that he’d come home, given time,
and that we’d go off somewhere private and I could hear
about it straight from the horse’s mouth.
As I wrote those words, “You’ll come home…,” I
knew I was reaching. Sure, Roy might come home. He
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Catherine Ryan Hyde
also might not. I was stating something as a given, even
as I knew in my heart it was anything but.
I wondered if he’d have the same thought as he read it.
Probably. If anybody could grasp the big picture of
the danger Roy was in, it was Roy.
20
CHAPTER TWO
Also a Day of Big Changes
It was about two weeks later when things began to shift
further.
It was the second-to-last day of school. I was about
to get my life back for the summer. And the last day was
a half day anyway, so I was nearly free.
I got up an hour early, as I’d done every weekday
since I met the dogs, so I’d have time to run with them
before school.
I had a pattern, which I followed to the letter that
morning. I’d set off at a light jog down my street. Pick
up a faint deer trail into the woods. It took me up to the
cabin from a different direction, so that when I finally
saw it, I’d be coming over a rise. Just as I crested it, I
would see the back of the cabin, and that’s when I would
step on the gas.
I kept to a slow pace on the street, to save my energy
for the big sprint. But I was already starting to feel it—that tingly, delicious sense of anticipation you get when your
brain and your gut know you’re about to do something
good. Something that can actually change the crappy
way you feel.
When I finally saw the rise in front of me, I could
barely contain myself. The feeling ricocheted around in
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Catherine Ryan Hyde
my stomach like a case of the shivers. I crested the rise
and floored it, barreling past the cabin as fast as my legs