Wizards at War, New Millennium Edition (57 page)

His eyes started to fill up, as he realized, on a different level, what Nita had had to deal with earlier in the year. The place where the other had always been … or for nearly as long as you could remember … now gone forever.

He kept walking, because that was what he did, this time of day, with a leash in his hand. There was no barking in the street. Even Tinkerbell, the slightly psychotic dog three doors down, stood quietly at his gate and watched Kit go by without the usual threats of bodily harm.

“
Dai stihó,
” he said.

Tinkerbell just stood looking at him, then turned and trotted back behind his own house.

Kit sighed and kept on walking down the block toward the corner where he usually would stop and let Ponch do his thing. The only thing he was missing right now was the plastic bag he’d have picked up Ponch’s doings with. There was no need for that now.

Kit stopped at the corner, looked around him, and let out a miserable sigh.
What am I doing here?
he thought.

That was when the sheepdog came trotting down the sidewalk. Kit just stood there for a moment, watching it come. It had been sitting on the lawn, weeks ago, and it wasn’t a neighborhood dog: Kit’s father had asked him where it had come from, and Kit had had no idea. His first urge was to turn away; the sight of any dog was a touch on an open wound.

Then he stopped himself.
I don’t care,
Kit thought.
I want to talk to a dog, any dog, and get an answer back.

The sheepdog crossed the street toward him, jumped up onto the sidewalk, and paused by him, looking up. Kit almost managed to laugh: the way its hair hung down in its face, it was amazing that it could see anything. He hunkered down next to it and ruffled it behind the ears, though the gesture made his throat go thick with tears. In the Speech, he said, “So listen, guy, just where did you come from?”

The sheepdog shook its fur out of its eyes and gazed up at him, its tongue hanging out.
That’s sort of a funny question,
it said.
You should know. You were there, too!

And Kit’s breath went right out of him—because though the sheepdog’s eyes were golden and not dark,
Ponch
was looking out of them.

Now the tears he’d been fighting so hard did come, and Kit didn’t care. “But I thought—I thought that you—”

That
me did,
said the sheepdog.
But there’s a lot more of me now. I’m more here than I ever was. I’m in every dog there is! Didn’t I tell you I wasn’t going to leave you?
The sheepdog grinned at him.
Some parts of the old Choice were worth keeping.

Kit threw his arms around the sheepdog.
But I made another Choice,
Ponch said.
For all of us. And now we have a new story: how the Hound of Heaven defeated the Wolf that ate the Moon … but only with the help of the Wise One who knew that what you give away, you get back a hundred times more, and who brought the Hound to where he could learn how the sacrifice could be made. Now all debts are paid, and we can all be more than we were.

And suddenly the street was full of squirrels, sitting upright on their haunches and looking expectantly at the sheepdog.

At least most of the time!

The sheepdog started wriggling wildly in Kit’s arms and washing his face like crazy. Laughing, Kit opened his arms, and the sheepdog went lolloping off after the squirrels, barking his head off, tearing down the road and out of sight. One after another, all the dogs living up and down the street started to bark.

With the tears running down his face, and grinning, Kit turned back toward his house to get his things. As he did, he saw someone standing at the end of his driveway, watching him, as if she’d known exactly where he’d be.

Laughing, he ran to meet her.