Legend of the Ghost Dog (11 page)

His ears were flattened, and his teeth bared in a snarl. He was low on his haunches, as if about to spring in attack. He did not mean well.

The dog ghost had come for us.

“Quin … do you …”

“I see him,” Quin called out. She was just two feet away, but with gusts of wind rattling the shingles of the cabin, her voice seemed tiny and distant.

I sat up, trying to clear my head, and only then realized that we were covered by a blanket of snow. Henry was curled in a tiny circle, my arm around him on one side, and Jack's on the other.

“Shadow, go home,” I said stupidly. “Go home.”

But Shadow didn't listen. Instead, he took a step forward, and as I watched in horror, he bit my brother on the arm.

“Let him go, let him go!” I yelled.

“Stop it,” Jack said, sounding confused.

I tried to get up now, to push myself between Shadow and Jack, but my legs were weak and my muscles aching. My knees seemed to be locked in place.

“Let him go!” I yelled again.

“Tee, stop it,” Jack said. “He wants me to go with him. He wants us all to.”

“Jack, no,” I began, but Jack was already struggling to his feet. As soon as he got up, Shadow released his arm, and now I could see that he had only taken the sleeve of Jack's coat between his teeth.

“He wants us to go with him,” Jack repeated.

I opened my mouth to say no again.

But really, what were our choices? We were not going to make it through the night here in the old cabin — not without help. If we followed Shadow outside we might freeze to death. But if we stayed here, we definitely would. Stay or go?

Quin answered my unasked question by struggling to her feet. She reached down and pulled on my arm. My legs felt like rubber, but I stood up, shakily.

“I think Jack's right,” she said. “I think we should go with Shadow.”

I would have given anything in the world at that moment to just say that I was too tired — to simply close my eyes and sink back into that blanket of snow. But ultimately Jack was going to do whatever I did. If I refused to follow Shadow, he would refuse too. And we would die here.

I forced myself to stay on my feet, though I felt as if my frozen soles were being stabbed by a thousand tiny needles.

“If we're going to go, then let's go now,” I said.

I pulled on Henry's leash. My beagle opened one eye, then both. After a moment, he too reluctantly got to his feet.

Shadow turned and walked in silence to the door of the cabin, pausing once to glance at us before walking through. The four of us followed him outside.

The wind was terrible. It hurt my ears, my nose, my skin. The blowing snow stung like a slap. I saw a low, dark shape in front of me and realized Shadow had stopped. At that same moment, I saw there was something else there, another form hazily visible in the blowing snow. For a brief moment the wind died down and I caught a clearer look.

Several feet ahead of Shadow was the figure of a person, so wrapped up in layers I could not see if it was a man or a woman.

The figure was gesturing, and the meaning was crystal clear.

Follow me, quickly.

A strange, almost hysterical voice inside my head said,
It's the witch!

The figure gestured again.

Jack, who I had by the arm, pulled forward.

Again, I was left with the logic that to go forward might be the end of us, but staying put would definitely be. So I began painfully to put one foot in front of the other.

It took every ounce of strength I had. There was no energy left over for questions or to try to shout loud enough to make myself heard to the person in front of us. They kept walking without looking back at us, and I was terrified that if we fell behind and lost sight of them, we would never find them again.

I have no idea how long we walked. It felt like more than an hour, but none of my senses were working right anymore. The only things I registered were being tired and being cold. The three of us kept stumbling forward behind our mysterious guides like a zombie with three heads. In some places drifts of snow made deep pockets, and Henry would sink into them up to his neck before climbing out. I knew he was getting tired too, and at this point I simply did not have the strength to carry him.

Without warning, Shadow veered away and I instantly lost sight of him in the blowing snow. Panicked, I looked at the person in front of us, who had stopped and was reaching for something. It was only when I saw a yellow rectangle of light that I realized we were standing at the front door of a house.

With what literally might have been the last few steps I had the energy to take, I moved through the doorway, pushing Jack in first, then turning to make sure that Quin was coming in too. Then I stepped in, pulling my exhausted beagle with me. When the door was pulled closed behind us, the sound of the wind was muffled, and I heard ringing in my ears. I noticed only a few details of the house at first. The room was dry, light, and warm. There was a fire burning in a fireplace. And the walls — they were covered in photographs, all of the same thing. Everywhere I looked, I saw them.

The faces of dogs.

No one spoke for a long time. I got my gloves off and fumbled with my zipper, then tried to help Jack with his. My fingers were numb with cold, but I was desperate to get my snow-covered layers off so that I could warm myself by the fire. Henry had instantly collapsed in front of it and was now in a deep sleep, bathed in orange light.

“Jack, your boots,” I said. “Are you okay? Here, I'll hold while you pull.”

It wasn't until I had both of our boots and fleeces off, and Quin was down to her jeans and sweater, that I realized the person we had followed had pulled off layers of jackets, scarves, and hats as well.

She was a tiny, birdlike woman with iron gray hair and a face creased with age and a lifetime spent out of doors. She nodded toward the fire, placing a kettle to boil on a stove in the corner of the room. The three of us crowded around the fire. Jack held his hands as close as he could to the flames.

“Don't put your hands so close to the fire,” Quin warned my brother. “You'll get chilblains.”

“What are chillbuns?” Jack mumbled through lips numb with cold.

“When you warm your fingers and toes up too fast after being out in a storm,” Quin said. “You get little red blisters, and they really hurt. You don't want 'em.”

I watched the old woman taking cups down from a shelf. I didn't know which question to ask her first — where are we? How did you find us? Where is Shadow?

“Thank you,” Quin said. Then to emphasize it, she smiled at the woman and nodded.

The woman gave a small nod in return, then opened a tin and began measuring tea leaves into a strainer.

“My fingers hurt already,” Jack moaned. “And my toes. Does that mean I have chillbuns now?”

Quin took Jack's hands in hers.

“No. The hurting's actually a good sign,” Quin told him. “I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but it is. See
how your fingertips are turning bright red? That means they're still healthy. No frostbite. The pain means they're coming back to life.”

Jack made a small whimpering sound as she rubbed his fingers briskly between her own, but he didn't snatch his hands away.

“You're going to be okay, kiddo,” I said. “We're safe now.”

My little brother stared at the old woman, his eyes round.

“Is that the witch?” he asked quietly.

“Jack, don't be rude,” I said, though I was wondering the exact same thing. Surely it couldn't be a coincidence that people thought there was a witch living in the woods when here was an old woman, living in the middle of nowhere, miles and miles from another human being.

Luckily, the woman didn't seem to have heard Jack's question. In fact, there was nothing so far to suggest that she could hear at all. She was old, but not that old — she'd just walked us through a blizzard, after all. If I had to guess, I'd put her age around sixty-five or so. She might just be deaf. She did turn back toward the stove when the kettle began to whistle, but maybe she just saw the steam coming out of the spout.

“How did she find us?” I whispered to Quin. “Nobody knew where we were.”

Quin shrugged, moving away from the fireplace to scrutinize more of the photos adorning the walls.

What I really wanted to know was why the woman was out in the storm in the first place. Surely grannies didn't just head out for a stroll in the snow, even in Alaska? And what about the dog ghost?

“Tee,” Quin said. “Come look at these.”

Quin was standing to one side of the fireplace, examining a circle of five oval-shaped photographs hanging on the wall.

“Oh, gosh,” I said. “They're gorgeous.”

Each photograph was of a different dog. All five of them wore similar harnesses, suggesting they were from the same team. They all looked like huskies or maybe malamutes. Though each was similar in build, something in the way the photographs had been taken brought out the individual in each animal. Just looking at them gave me a feel for their personalities — the darkest one powerful and aloof, the one with the white face affectionate and playful.

“So beautiful,” Quin said quietly, reaching out to touch a photo of a snow white dog with mismatched eyes.

I heard the sound of ceramic gently knocking wood, and turned to see the woman pouring mugs of steaming tea. I walked to the small table where she had placed them, taking the first and handing it to Jack. I briefly caught the woman's eye when I picked up the other two.

“Thank you,” I said.

Her eyes darted from me to Quin, and back to me again, but she still said nothing.

Though the numbing sensation of cold was now fading, I was still far from warm, and the tea smelled creamy and sweet, and the idea of drinking something hot was irresistible. I carried the mugs to Quin, and handed her one. The two of us sipped at the same time, not caring if we burnt our tongues. I watched the woman while trying to look like I wasn't. She had pulled a thick, heavy blanket out of a wooden trunk near the door. Wordlessly, she carried it to the fireplace and spread it on the floor. Jack, who had been standing there clutching his mug like it was a life preserver, put his tea down and immediately curled up on the blanket.

“Looks like it's still bad out there,” I said to Quin, nodding toward the window.

She nodded. “Jack's got the right idea. We might as well get comfortable, 'cause we're not getting out of here anytime soon.”

The idea of lying on the blanket by the warmth of the fire was very tempting. But I felt uneasy, almost afraid to let my guard down, as if we'd wandered into some kind of Hansel-and-Gretel scenario. I was probably delusional from being cold and tired, but I could not get the idea out of my head that this woman was indeed the witch. On a simple chest of drawers in the corner sat a single photograph. The others on the wall were all clustered together in plain wooden frames, but this one was in a lovely silver frame. Another detail set this picture apart — it was the only photograph in the room with a person in it: a little girl, her arms wrapped around the neck of a dog. I walked over to get a better look. Was I dreaming, or hallucinating from the cold? I closed my eyes, then opened them again.

“It's him,” I whispered, picking up the photograph. “Quin, look, it's Shadow!”

Before Quin could respond, the woman crossed the room with remarkable speed. She snatched the picture from my hands, and I stepped back quickly. Her blue eyes blazed.

“I'm sorry,” I stammered. “I didn't mean … I was only —”

“Did you see him?” she asked.

My mouth moved but I couldn't make any sound come out. The intensity of the woman's look, the fire in her eyes,
and the unexpected arrival of her voice addled me. I felt as if the room were spinning, as if I might fall.

The old woman grabbed my arm, not to steady me but to get an answer out of me.

“For the love of Pete, move your lips. Tell me what you saw.”

Her grip on my arm loosened, and her eyes grew shiny with tears.

“Tell me what you saw, child,” she repeated more quietly. “Did you see my dog? Did you see my Caspian?”

“I … Caspian?” I asked.

The woman nodded. I tried to catch Quin's eye, but I couldn't see around the woman, whose fierce gaze frightened me, though I somehow knew she meant me no harm. Everything about this was strange — dreamlike — a woman living alone out here in a cottage filled with pictures of dogs. My fear suddenly left me. In my core, I felt that we were meant to be here — that the mystery of the dog ghost was on the brink of being solved.

“Yes,” I told her. “I saw him. We thought he was … His name is Caspian?”

She nodded, her eyes half-closed.

“And was he … well, was he your dog, ma'am?” I pressed gently.

She nodded. “Yes, he was mine. We had a great many dogs, but that one was special. Caspian was my heart dog.”

Quin had moved into view from behind the woman. Her eyes met mine.

“And my name is Dodie, not ma'am,” she added.

“I'm Tee, and this is my friend Quin,” I told her. “And that's my little brother, Jack.”

Jack was curled up like a puppy on the blanket by the fire, both hands resting under his cheek, fast asleep, Henry snoring beside him.

“And the beagle?” she asked.

“He's mine,” I said. “His name is Henry.”

I knew I didn't need to ask this woman if it was okay that I'd brought a dog inside. She was looking at Henry, with eyes that suddenly sparked with interest.

“Henry,” she repeated. “Good name for a beagle. We'll rustle him up some grub when he wakes up.”

“Thank you,” I told Dodie. “For everything, I mean. You might have saved our lives. How did you know we were out there — how did you find us?”

“Wasn't me that found you,” Dodie said. “Caspian did that.”

Her eyes filled with tears again, and she pressed her lips together, returned the picture to its spot on the chest of drawers, and walked toward the stove.

I thought this was her way of telling us the subject of Caspian was closed, but she pulled a second chair up to the kitchen table and dragged over a small wooden crate to act as a third. When she placed the kettle back on the stove, I knew she wanted us to come and sit at the table with her. Something had shifted in her manner, in her energy. She was talking now, and she was going to keep talking.

She told us the story of Caspian.

Quin and I listened, enraptured, as Dodie recalled a painful story of a misunderstood dog that she and her sister loved more than any dog in the world. Of how her sister went missing in a storm, and the dog, Caspian, was blamed for it.

“That's most of it, I suppose,” Dodie said, her eyes unfocused and far away. “Oh, I'm not some crazy old hermit. I get into town every now and again. Clyde's son brings me up groceries and supplies. This is where I am, and this is where I'll stay until I die, and I can see Silla and Caspian again. And about a week ago, I thought I was doing just that — dying, I mean. Because I opened my front door and there was Caspian, plain as day, off near the old trail to the creek.”

Quin and I exchanged a look. There were so many puzzle pieces here, and I thought I was on the verge of
understanding, but I wasn't there yet. And neither, from her expression, was Quin.

“Did Caspian see you too?” Quin asked.

“Oh, yes,” Dodie said, nodding. “He was looking right at me, then he turned and trotted off. I grabbed my coat and followed him, but I couldn't pick up his trail, and just like that he was gone. The next day, he showed up again. Every day for a week, Caspian has been waiting when I open my door. And this time he let me keep up with him, and I did, even as the wind picked up and the snow started coming down like crazy. I followed him all the way to that old cabin, right to the doorway. And that's where your part of the story comes in.”

Dodie looked at me and I sat up very straight in my chair, suddenly understanding.

“Caspian led you to us,” I said. “You saved us because Caspian knew where we were and took you there.”

“That's right,” Dodie said, her eyes shining. “And here you are, and you come telling me that you've seen Caspian too.”

I nodded. Suddenly, I understood.

“We have,” I said. “But we were calling him Shadow.”

“Shadow?” Dodie asked. “Well, that fits, I suppose. He looked like one, and that's what he's been, more or less, all
these years. But how did you see him? Where? Please try to tell me everything that you know about him.”

I told her about my first outing with Henry.

“And then Quin came with me, and we found the old cabin. Caspian was there.” Dodie looked at Quin curiously.

“That's where you found him? How odd. Silla and I used to play in that cabin when we were girls. It's going to collapse, though — one good storm could bring it down. It's not a safe place for anyone to be. What was Caspian doing there?” she asked.

“I felt like maybe he was guarding something,” Quin said.

I nodded. “I thought that too. And later, neither of us could get him out of our heads. We felt like he needed help. And then one night at dinner Clay brought all these old pictures of dogs over to Quin's house.”

“Not Clay Nolan?” Dodie asked.

“That's right,” Quin said. “Do you know him?”

Dodie gave a short laugh. “Everybody who lives in Nome and has ever worked with dogs knows Clay. His brother, Vernon, worked for my father handling the dogs. He used to live right here in this cottage, actually. Clay's good people.”

“He is,” Quin said warmly. “Well, Clay brought over folders of old photos of sled dogs. Tee and I took them
upstairs and started going through them — it seems crazy now but we thought we might find our ghost dog there.”

“It's not really crazy,” Dodie told her. “Clay's probably photographed half the dogs that ever ran the Iditarod, and plenty more that didn't. My folks always had someone take pictures of their dogs — that's what all these are. You had good instincts.”

“And now we know there
was
a picture of Caspian,” I said, pointing to the picture on the chest of drawers. “But we didn't find anything. Except …” I laughed, shaking my head. “At one point we found a picture of Balto and we thought we'd found our dog ghost. It's so stupid, but that's what we thought.”

“It's not stupid at all,” Dodie said. “Balto was one of Seppala's dogs, and I told you our Siberians came from the same line as his. Balto and Caspian were related. Not father and son or anything like that, but distantly. You're not the first to think Caspian bore a resemblance to Balto.”

“Wow,” I said. “That's kind of incredible.”

“But back to your story,” Dodie said.

“Well, we decided if we couldn't find a picture of the dog ghost, maybe we could go back to the cabin and take a picture of him. And that might help us figure out where he'd come from. And when he'd come from.”

“That's how we ended up at the old cabin,” Quin said. “We had started home because Caspian wasn't there. When we got caught in the snow we doubled back to hole up in the cabin till the weather passed.”

“Smart young lady,” Dodie said. “With the whiteout, you'd never have been able to separate snow from sky. You'd have gotten lost, wandering out there. Frozen to death.”

I gulped.

“And that's when you found us,” I said. “We'd been there awhile, probably a couple of hours. The cabin didn't give much shelter. We were so cold and so tired, and in the end I just wanted to go to sleep.”

“It's a good thing you didn't,” Dodie said. “I expect that's how it went with Silla — she just gave in and let sleep take her.” Dodie let out a long breath and stared at the fireplace. “All these years gone, then Caspian comes back. He gets me and brings me to you.”

“He couldn't save Silla, but he saved us,” Quin said.

Dodie pressed her hand to her mouth.

“Oh, Caspian,” she said quietly.

The three of us sat in silence, the only sound the pop and hiss of the crackling fire. Jack was still curled up in a ball, lost in a deep sleep.

“Then you've solved my puzzle, I suppose,” Dodie told
me. “Caspian came back because he had to — because there were children that needed saving.”

“I think there's more to it than that,” Quin said suddenly.

“More how?” Dodie asked.

“You said Caspian had been coming to your door every day for the last week,” Quin said, and Dodie nodded.

“Well, we didn't need saving then. And it was less than a week ago that Henry got spooked by Caspian, which in turn led Tee and me to the cabin. You said you stopped catching glimpses of Caspian after that first year, and that he went away. And that he's come back now. But what if he hasn't come back, Dodie? What if he's been here all along?”

“But why?” Dodie asked.

Something in what Quin said made sense to me. I understood what she was getting at. I chimed in.

“Other than you, Dodie, and now us, has anyone that you're aware of ever seen Caspian all these years? Has anyone thought there was a wild dog living in the woods?”

Dodie shook her head

“Because not everyone can,” I continued. “Quin said there are stories about people glimpsing a shadow in the woods up here. But that's all it is — a glimpse — not enough
for anyone to even know what they're seeing. Quin is really good with dogs. I guess we both are. Maybe that's it. But whatever it was — we saw Caspian because we
could
see him. And somehow he knew that — he realized we were different. I think Quin and I sort of woke him up a bit. After all these years someone was speaking to him. So he went to get you. Quin's right — Caspian didn't leave and come back. He's been out there all along. Whatever he was trying to do fifty or however many years ago when your father ran him off, he's still trying to do it.”

Dodie had fixed me with a gaze so intense I almost drew back.

“Trying to do what?”

I hesitated, looking to Quin. She gave a small nod, and I knew she was thinking the same thing I was.

“I think maybe Caspian knows where Silla is,” I said quietly.

I don't know what reaction I was expecting — maybe anger or shock, but Dodie never took her eyes off mine. She rubbed her mouth again, once, then she placed her hand palm down on the table.

“Of course Caspian would know where Silla is,” Dodie said. “I've never had any doubt that he was with her until the very end.”

“But you were the only one who believed that,” Quin said. “As far as everyone else knew, Caspian was a murderer. People were as good as out there hunting him, you said so yourself. You were the only one who believed in Caspian after Silla went missing. And he knew that. So he stayed.”

“Stayed and hid?” Dodie asked. “If he thought I needed protecting, which he would have known I didn't, why didn't he just make himself plain?”

“I don't think you were the one he was protecting,” Quin said.

“Caspian was protecting Silla,” Dodie whispered. “For a half century. No one ever found her, and he's still keeping watch.”

“Yes,” Quin said quietly. “And he's going to keep guarding her until Silla is found, and he knows she's safe. She's home. Somewhere near that cabin.”

“The cabin?” Dodie asked. “No, that isn't right. Silla told me that morning she was going to look for gold in the pool. That part of the creek is at least five miles from the cabin. She was nowhere near it.”

“But is it possible Silla changed her mind?” I asked. Dodie looked at me sharply. “I mean, maybe she headed out for the pool, but changed her mind and went toward the cabin instead?”

Dodie narrowed her eyes in thought, her eyebrows creased. “I don't … I never thought … oh, heavens. I don't think so. But why not? She could have done, she might have changed her mind. Maybe she decided to save the gold hunt for a warmer day. But how can I ever know that now?”

The mention of gold jarred something in my memory. I found my coat where Dodie had hung it near the fire, and fished in the pocket.

“Jack found this in the cabin,” I said, handing her the little golden button.

Dodie took it from me and held it up to the firelight, her expression unreadable. Then I saw all the color leave her face.

“This was Silla's,” she whispered.

Dodie stood up and crossed the room, taking Caspian's picture in her hands.

“Why did I never think she might have gone to the cabin?” She turned to look at the two of us. “It was where we went to play when we wanted to share a secret, or we wanted to be well and truly left alone. Hidden. The roof was sagging even then, but we found a little trapdoor in the floor — a wooden hatch, and underneath it was a hole someone had dug, just a simple root cellar, really, to keep ice and things. We used to put treasures down there.”

“Treasures?” Quin asked.

“That's what we called them. Just little bits of things we had in our pockets or from the kennel. A bit of ribbon, or a marble, that sort of thing. A golden button,” she added, staring at the one in her hand.

“So she took off with Caspian, but decided to go to the cabin instead of the pool,” I said. “And when the storm came she climbed into the root cellar for shelter?”

Dodie nodded. “I think so. It's what I would have done — it was the smart thing to do. But she couldn't have known the storm would last three days. Even down in that little cellar out of the wind, she would still have been overtaken by the cold and the damp. Her lungs couldn't handle that. Not even with Caspian down there helping to keep her warm.”

“So he stayed with her until she … until she went to sleep. Could he have gotten out by himself after?”

“Certainly. Caspian was an extremely intelligent dog. Most of Seppala's Siberians were. Once he knew Silla was gone, he could easily have nudged the door open with his nose and leapt out. I suppose the door slammed shut behind him. With all the people searching the woods, someone must have gone by the cabin and looked inside — but no one
would have thought to poke around for that old door. We didn't think she was there.”