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  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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  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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  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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  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.

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  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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  my stomach like a case of the shivers. I crested the rise

  and floored it, barreling past the cabin as fast as my legs