healing, even fading. Finn doubted there would even be scars, at this rate. Maybe God really
“Sadie, are you feeling better?” he whispered joyously. “You’re a good girl. Sadie’s a
Sadie lay down at his feet, keeping her distance from him. When he reached out to pat her paw, she made a sound low in her throat, somewhere between a whine and a growl. Finn pulled his hand back in shock.
When he did, the Labrador’s tail swished back and forth, as though she were telling him she would lay there beside him, but warning him not to touch her. Sadie had never, ever growled at Finn. Not once.
“What is it, Sadie?” he said, alarmed. “Are you still hurt?”
“Fine, Sadie.” He was somewhat mollified by the tail-wagging, which said to him that whatever else was wrong, she still loved him, and was likely still feeling the pain of her ordeal. He’d see how she was tomorrow- she was going to the vet tomorrow, anyway, to check out the bites. Would his parents ever be surprised at how much better she was looking. Maybe they wouldn’t even need to go to the vet, after all. Miracles were obviously at play, and Finn had a personal investment in them.
He switched off the light and fell back asleep to the comforting sound of Sadie’s soft breathing from the place on the floor from which she never once moved all night.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
On the last morning of his childhood, Finn woke up in his bed exactly as he always had. He yawned and stretched as he always did. He looked at his clock, figured that his parents were still fast asleep, and would be for hours yet. He looked around for Sadie. She had moved from the spot beside his bed and was now sitting on her haunches in the doorway connecting his bedroom and the downstairs hallway.
“Good morning, Sadie,” he whispered. “How’s the good girl? Did you have a good sleep?”
Sadie didn’t come to him as she usually did, but she wagged her tail slowly back and forth.
Finn got out of bed and padded over to where she sat. It was dark outside, but by the light of his bedside lamp, he beheld the miracle fruit of his bargain with God: Sadie’s bites had entirely healed. Her fur was glossy and black, and the patches of hair that had been torn out of her flesh during the fight with whatever animal had done this to her had almost completely grown back. She looked as she had looked three, maybe four years before, when she had been much younger, almost a puppy again.
Indeed, a miracle. He thanked God again, just to make sure He’d heard it the first time and knew how grateful Finn was for this second chance with his beloved Labrador. He couldn’t wait to tell Morgan after school later.
Sadie’s mouth hung slightly open, her brilliant white teeth lying over her bottom lip, pink tongue quivering. She panted gently as though she wanted to go outside.
At her feet was her red ball. She looked down at the ball, then back at Finn. It was their personal signal for playtime, an instance of Sadie training him rather than the other way around.
Finn smiled hugely, feeling as though his heart would burst with the sheer euphoria of having her back, well and healed. “You want to go outside, Sadie?” he said. “You want to go for a walk?”
As he had every day when he took this walk in the late fall, Finn dressed quickly and warmly. At the front door, he put on his coat and boots, tucked the ball into his jacket pocket, and called Sadie. She trotted up the stairs and followed him out the door into the pre-dawn darkness of Parr’s Landing.
He looked up and breathed the cold, clean air deep into his lungs.
For the rest of his life, Finn would remember the particular clarity of that morning sky: Venus still visibly glowing in the western reach above the ridge of cliffs on the far edge of the horizon, past Spirit Rock; the stars, hard like jewels; the variegated shades of dark blue that hinted at the coming sunrise. He would remember how he skipped and ran with a buoyancy so pure that the pavement itself seemed to release him from the constraints of anything as pedestrian-or adult-as gravity, with Sadie trotting ahead, her black body a barrel-shaped shadow bobbing over the pavement on legs that were remarkably delicate and slender for such sturdy work.
Like always, he cut across the streets, through back lots, till the land flattened out and grew more timbered as they approached the road that led to Bradley Lake and the cliffs of Spirit Rock. When the lake was in sight, he turned west and began the upward ascent along a path he could navigate with his eyes closed if he had to.
But he didn’t close his eyes. He kept them open, trained on Sadie who trotted in front of him, not bounding ahead as she usually did, but seeming to savour this new beginning as much as Finn was. He relished the sight of her as though it were their very first walk. Occasionally, she stopped and looked back, as though to reassure herself that Finn was right behind her, as he always had been, and always would be.
Higher and higher they climbed. The land underfoot grew harder as soft earth gave way to pine needle-covered patches of shale and granite shield. In the sky, the dark blue was lightening by degrees. Finn gauged that the sun would begin to rise in approximately five minutes. He could practically set his watch by the colour of the sky.
Sadie stopped abruptly and sat down on the path. She sniffed the air and whined.
“What is it, Sadie?” he said, catching up to her. He reached down to pet her, and she snapped at his hand. He jerked it back. “Sadie, what’s wrong?”
He reached down to pet her again, and this time she snarled with unambiguous menace, showing all her teeth. Finn backed away slowly, thinking about rabies and wondering how quickly a dog could be infected with that virus, and how quickly it would change her.
Once again, as soon as he backed away, she closed her mouth and wagged her tail, whining apologetically, as if to tell him she was sorry. The thought came to him, suddenly and with near-telepathic clarity that, for some reason, Sadie wasn’t afraid of
Then, she turned and bounded off into the forest as if pursued.
“Sadie, no!” Finn shouted, thinking,
He chased her straight up the hill. He’d never known Sadie to run so swiftly and nimbly, even as a puppy. Finn was panting as he tried to keep up with her. He watched her tail disappear around an outcropping of boulders directly above him, slightly to the left of where he was trying to navigate the slippery rock.
Reaching level ground, he looked left and right and called her name. He saw the land around him clearly now. The light was pale blue and pellucid, shot through with gossamer threads of yellow. He looked around again and called out, “Sadie! Come on, girl! It’s OK, don’t be afraid. We’ll go home now!”
Then he remembered her waiting in the doorway of his bedroom with the red ball, begging to play. He felt for the ball in his pocket. It was there. He took it out and held it in his hand.
“Sadie, I have your ball,” Finn called out winningly. “Come and get it. Come on, girl-come and get your red ball!” He bounced it on the ground-Sadie could always identify that sound, no matter where she was in the house.
He heard a soft whimper come from behind the boulders.
The whine came again, and Finn walked around the boulders.
Sadie was cowering in a deep rock shelter behind a copse of low growing white pine, almost hidden from sight. He saw her eyes gleaming in the dimness-more red than amber in the brightening light, he noted, dismissing the
