Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay

by Babette de Jongh

  “Hey, Aunt Reva.”

  “What’s going on? I was dead asleep and woke up thinking I heard cats fighting. I think it was just a dream, but I can’t shake the feeling that something bad has happened. I called the house phone, and…well, as you know, you didn’t answer. What’s happening? Who’s hurt? Are you okay?”

  “Griffin had an altercation with a raccoon.” No way was Abby going to tell Reva about her broken foot in the same phone call as this horrible news. “We’re at the vet’s office now.”

  Reva took a breath, then went quiet. After a second, she spoke. “Griffie says that it looks bad, and it feels bad, but he’ll be okay, so don’t worry. Just stop telling the raccoons they’re invited to dine on his patio.”

  “I know.” An unexpected prickle of tears tickled Abby’s sinuses. She sniffed the tears back into submission and got hold of herself. Falling apart wouldn’t help anyone, least of all Griffin. “I’m sorry. I put food out for the stray dog. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Why didn’t you put the food across the street? Isn’t that what you’ve been doing up until now? I’m getting a strange feeling that you’re not telling me everything. Not that I don’t trust you—of course I do. But are you okay? You’re not sick, are you? You don’t sound sick.”

  “No, I’m not sick.” Luckily, Reva asked a hundred questions at a time instead of just one, so Abby could pick the ones she wanted to answer and ignore the rest. “I wanted to lure him closer to the house.” True, even if it wasn’t the actual reason she’d put the food on the patio.

  “Good instinct,” Reva praised. “But he wants to earn his place. He won’t come to the patio until he knows you’ll welcome his presence.” Reva paused, and Abby heard her take a breath. “Aww. He’s been bringing you presents?”

  Holy shit. The newspapers. The realization had come to her in a barely remembered dream: The newspapers didn’t contain a message; they were the message. “He’s been bringing me newspapers. I’ve been leaving the gate open, and he’s been putting them on the patio by the back door. Should I close the gate, though? I mean, because of the raccoons?”

  “No. Gates don’t keep raccoons out. They can climb anything. Hang on a second.”

  Abby took the opportunity to lay the phone on the scooter’s seat and push the contraption to the dark waiting room, where she sat on one of the dusty Victorian velvet sofas. She picked the phone up again and put it on speaker. “Reva, you still there?”

  “Hang on,” Reva said, sounding a little irritated.

  While she waited, Abby switched over to her texts and saw one she’d missed from Reva. Couldn’t find the mama deer’s babies, but met a nice farmer who sold me a runty baby goat that he was bottle-feeding. I didn’t get in trouble—my roommate (who is usually a pain) covered for me. Now everyone is wondering where the baby goat came from. And look! Abby scrolled down to see the photo of a spotted baby goat nursing from the mama deer.

  She hit the !! button.

  “Okay,” Reva said. “I talked to the wolf dog.”

  Abby switched back to the phone-call screen, though it didn’t really make any difference; she could hear and respond either way. “And?”

  “He wants to be useful. He wants to know the rules, because human rules don’t make sense to him, and even when he thinks he knows what people want, the rules keep changing.”

  “Okay. So what am I supposed to do with that information?”

  “He wants to know where he belongs. He is afraid you’ll chase him away again.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Well, he doesn’t know that.”

  Frustration crawled up Abby’s throat and came out as a growl. “How am I supposed to let him know I won’t chase him away?”

  “Tell him!”

  Abby closed her eyes. “Okay, fine. Tell me how to do that.”

  Reva’s huff of irritation sounded the same as Abby’s had. “How many times have I explained this to you?”

  Starting when Abby was five years old? Maybe eleventy-million times by now. “Not enough, I guess.”

  “Pay attention this time.”

  “Fine.” Abby sighed. She had paid attention all those other times, too, but it didn’t make her any better at communicating with animals. Truth was, she didn’t trust herself. Reva had done her best to teach Abby to trust, but then she’d go back home and have that trust shamed out of her. What felt right at the farm felt silly everywhere else. “I will.”

  “All right. Both feet on the floor, relax your body and let your breath flow through you, as if you’re an empty straw.” Reva took a slow, deep breath and let it out with an audible whoosh.

  Abby did the same.

  “Breathe up through the soles of your feet, then down through the top of your head,” Reva instructed. “Release anything that isn’t yours. Release your worries to the heavens, release your baggage to the earth. Clear yourself, clear the channel of communication.” Together, they did a few cycles of deep breathing over the phone.

  “Ready?” Reva asked.

  “Ready,” Abby responded. Her body felt energized with a pleasant buzz, oxygenated by the deep breaths she rarely took in her day-to-day life.

  “See the wolf dog walk up and stand in front of you.”

  With her eyes closed, Abby imagined what it would look like if Wolf came up to her, sniffed her hand, and sat, giving her his full attention. “His name is Wolf.”

  “Good!” The approval in Reva’s voice stroked Abby’s ego, giving her a burst of confidence. “He’s giving you information you haven’t even asked for. Now you know you’re in. Tell him you won’t chase him away again. Tell him he is welcome to live at the farm. Ask him to come.”

  In Abby’s imagination, Wolf turned away from her and looked down a hillside toward something she couldn’t see.

  “He’s looking at something else.”

  “Yes, he is. Ask him what he’s looking at.”

  “Dogs. Lots of dogs. They’re everywhere, scattered all over the hillside, and none of them have people to belong to. They’re all separate, but they want to come together. They need a tribe to belong to.”

  “Yes. But that’s not a literal image, right?”

  Abby didn’t know how to tell the difference. “I don’t know.”

  “Ask!”

  She didn’t have to ask; suddenly, she knew. “He just wants to belong somewhere. He doesn’t care if it’s with a pack of strays or a human family.”

  “Really?”

  The scene of all the disconnected dogs scattered across the countryside changed, coalescing into a line of dogs, following the leader like sheep, all heading to Bayside Barn. “No, you’re right. They want a family, a home, and a safe place to live.”

  “Anything else?”

  “They want to love and to be loved.”

  “Yes. And what does Wolf want? What does he want from you, in particular?”

  In her imagination, Abby apologized to Wolf for chasing him away. She told him that she understood, now, that he had only caught the chicken because he was hungry. She asked him to please come to live at the farm, so she could stop worrying about him being on his own in the cat’s-claw forest.

  “He’s listening,” Reva said. “But he wants to be useful, too. He wants you to give him a job.”

  Abby laughed. “I don’t read the newspaper.”

  “What else can he do,” Reva prompted. “What can he do to prove his worth and do his part as a family member at the farm?”

  In Abby’s imagination, she saw Wolf turn toward her, his golden eyes shining. She asked him what sort of job he thought he’d be best at and enjoy doing. The word protector blossomed in her mind. “He can protect the farm’s cats from wild animals.”

  “Get more specific. Birds are wild animals; blue jays don’t hurt the farm animals, but hawks will kill
the chickens. You’re telling him what you want him to do. What do you want him to do?”

  Abby felt like her body was floating, not quite connected to the earth anymore. “Protect us from animals who want to do harm.”

  “Yes.” Reva’s voice was rich with approval. “Yes. Now, tell Wolf what you want. He needs a gold-plated invitation and a job to do, or he won’t come.”

  Abby heard a door close, and Quinn and Mack talking to each other as they moved closer. She suddenly felt silly—talking to a dog or, worse yet, pretending to. The pleasant floating sensation evaporated, and Abby became aware that her foot ached. She snatched up the phone and turned off the speaker function just as the men walked into the room. “Just a minute, Aunt Reva.”

  Quinn frowned at Abby and reached down to prop her foot on the scooter’s seat. “Elevation, remember?”

  Without even asking, Mack took the phone from Abby’s hand. “Hey, Reva. How’s your class coming?” He walked out of the room.

  “How’s Griffin?” Abby asked Quinn.

  “If he makes it through the night, he’ll probably be okay. Mack is keeping him here for a few days so he can get IV fluids and antibiotics.” He sat next to her and put a hand on her thigh, lightly massaging. “You ready to go?”

  “Welp, I’ll need to get my phone back first.”

  Mack’s deep voice and low laugh drifted from the reception area.

  “Sounds like they know each other pretty well,” Quinn commented.

  “Yeah, they do. Mack and Reva’s husband, Grayson, were buddies from way back. Also, with all Reva’s animals, she’s one of Mack’s best customers.”

  “Yeah, she is,” Mack confirmed, walking back from the reception area. He handed Abby her phone. “She single-handedly paid for my truck. Don’t tell her I said that, though, because then she’ll want to ride in it, and my wife won’t like that.”

  “Probably not.” Abby would bet money that Patricia McNeil wouldn’t want Reva riding in Mack’s truck. Though Mack’s wife was pretty enough, she couldn’t hold a candle to Reva’s lit-from-within beauty; the kind that didn’t fade with age.

  Quinn helped Abby to her feet. “Let’s get out of here so Mack can go home and get some rest.”

  “Thanks for everything, Mack,” Abby said. “Meeting us here after midnight… That’s above-and-beyond territory.”

  Mack chuckled. “Nah, not really, since I’ll be sending Reva the bill for my time.”

  On the way back home, Quinn rested a hand on Abby’s thigh. “How are you doing? How’s your foot?”

  “Fine. I’m fine. My foot’s fine.” Actually, she felt like death warmed over and her foot felt even worse than that. “I’m sorry you’re going to all this trouble for us.” Us being the multispecies collective at Bayside Barn. “I don’t know how we’ll be able to make it up to you.”

  “You don’t owe me a thing.” He rubbed her thigh; she could tell that meant he was thinking. “But I do have a favor to ask. My son, Sean, is coming to visit next weekend. I really appreciate all the meals you cook for me when I’m at the farm doing chores, and it would be great if Sean could come, too, when he’s around. It’s not all that often.” Quinn sighed, and his hand on her thigh felt heavy. “Unfortunately.”

  Quinn’s sadness and regret over the damaged relationship with his son ignited Abby’s despair over the daughter she would never see again. At least Quinn had a chance with Sean. Could Abby deny him whatever help she could provide? Offering to help didn’t mean she had to embroil herself in their relationship. She could cook a few meals and still remain uninvolved.

  “Of course, Sean is welcome to come to the farm whenever you’re there.” She definitely didn’t want to form a personal relationship with the boy herself, but if Quinn and Sean could bond over her dinner table, what harm would there be in that? “I’ll be happy to cook all your meals, especially since you’re helping me so much.”

  They had just pulled into the driveway at Bayside Barn when Abby’s phone pinged with a text message from Reva: Don’t forget to finish the conversation with Wolf. Also, why is Georgia telling me that you’re always riding a bicycle, even in the house?

  * * *

  Wolf heard Abby talking in his head. He had always been able to hear some of what the people near him were thinking, or understand some of what they were saying. But this was different. This time, he knew Abby wasn’t anywhere near him, but he heard her voice in his head. And she was talking to him, as if she wanted to have a conversation with him the way people talked to each other.

  He’d been following his own scent back to the cat’s-claw forest, but he couldn’t talk to Abby and pay attention to his nose at the same time, so he flopped down exactly where he was: in a strange, man-made field with alternating rows of raw dirt and small bushy plants. To be sure he was safe, he took stock of the area by sniffing the air.

  He smelled wild rabbits close by—different than the ones at the farm—and the oily, rubbery odor left in the dirt by farm equipment. He could still get a whiff of the female dog he had followed and coupled with. After he fulfilled her request, she had no further use for him and trotted away, unconcerned. He had hoped she would come back with him and help him to start a pack so he’d have a place to belong. But she made it clear that she already had a home, and he wasn’t invited to share it.

  Georgia had invited him to live at the farm, but Abby had chased him away. He wished all the dogs who didn’t have homes could somehow find their way to the same place so they could be together. There would be safety and security if they all banded together.

  He could tell that on some level, he was telegraphing his thoughts to Abby in the same way people often did without being aware of it. But he knew what he was doing, and so did Abby. He calmed his thoughts to make room for hers.

  “I’m sorry,” he heard Abby say in his head. “I was afraid for the chicken you caught, and I didn’t understand that you were hungry. If you will come to the farm, I won’t chase you away, and you’ll have plenty of food to eat.”

  Wolf could tell that someone else—another human—was listening in on the conversation. It felt like she was helping Wolf and Abby to hear each other better. He tried to show them how his fear and reluctance to trust held him back. He tried to show them that he needed to feel useful and have a job to do.

  Then, the connection broke. Abby dropped out of the conversation. The other person tried to keep Wolf engaged, but he had to get back to the forest. It was unsafe to sleep in an unfamiliar place, and his body craved rest now.

  But more than that, he had a bad feeling that he had somehow let Georgia down when he followed the other dog’s tantalizing scent. He would have to explain to her that he couldn’t help losing himself in these overwhelming urges that took over his rational brain and compelled him to do whatever it took to satisfy the biological imperative.

  Then he thought of Georgia’s sweet face, her soft brown eyes, her healing presence; and he realized that he wouldn’t have to explain anything. She knew him, she understood him, and she accepted him, just as he was. That knowledge made him more determined than ever to truly deserve everything she gave him freely without demanding anything in return. Even though it scared him more than any terror he had faced before, he vowed to try to fit into Georgia’s life. Maybe he could do it without having to get too close to the humans.

  He knew without asking that she wouldn’t leave her people to go with him. But if he could find a close-by place to dig a den for them to share, he might be able to convince her that he could be her home, too.

  Wolf made it back to the forest when the sky at the horizon turned orange and pink. The hum of a small motorbike and the soft thunk of a rolled-up paper hitting the ground lured him out of the forest before he had the chance to lie down and rest. He picked up the paper—this one still sharp with the smell and taste of fresh ink—and carried it down the farmhouse ro
ad, then dropped it by the see-through door. Inside the house, the lights were off. He pressed his nose to the cool, damp glass. A small, dark kitten curled up on a soft pillow that was raised off the ground on polished blocks of wood.

  He remembered pillows.

  He missed pillows.

  Chapter 13

  Over the next week, Quinn’s life settled into a regular rhythm. Not an easy rhythm, just a regular rhythm. He woke early and walked to the farm, where he brought in the roll of advertising flyers that miraculously appeared at the back door every morning. (Abby blamed the elusive wolf dog; Quinn figured it was Georgia.)

  Then he did the morning chores. Abby had stopped following him around outside, which made things go faster. When he finished feeding the animals and cleaning stalls and enclosures, he went to the farmhouse where Abby always had a hearty—and sometimes elaborate—breakfast ready for him. Fresh eggs he had gathered the day before, prepared a dozen different ways. Cheese grits or hash browns or a vegetable-and-potato concoction blended with scrambled eggs and coated with melted cheese. Biscuits and honey, or pancakes and syrup. Fresh berries or fruit—most of it from Reva’s garden; he had harvested the berries just this morning.

  Today, he tucked into a plate piled high with fresh crepes, blackberries, and whipped cream drizzled with honey, along with three strips of bacon on the side. Also, fresh-ground coffee blended with a spoonful of coconut oil, half-and-half, and butter—yes, butter! Sounded strange, but tasted magnificent, like an ultra-rich cappuccino. And, everything tasted all that much better because he had worked up an appetite.

  Abby put a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice by his plate. Feeling appreciated in the best way, he reached out and snagged the waistband of her shorts. “Thank you,” he said with his mouth full. When she tried to slip away, he wrapped a finger around the stretchy elastic and pulled her back. Swallowing, he tilted his face up to hers, inviting a kiss. God, he really wanted a kiss; he could feel it already—her warm, full lips smashed against his.