Dog Whisperer

by Nicholas Edwards

  11

  Then, the fog cleared a little, and Emily saw that it was just Mr. Washburn, who lived about half a mile down the road. Mr. Washburn was a retired professor who spent most of his free time fishing—when he wasn’t hanging out and drinking coffee at the Mini-Mart.

  “Afternoon, kids!” Mr. Washburn called.

  “Oh,” Bobby said, and looked disappointed. “I mean, hi, Mr. Washburn.”

  Mr. Washburn was leaning against the bridge with his fishing pole in both hands, as he cast his line.

  Zachary wagged his tail, and nosed at the big red plastic bucket next to Mr. Washburn. Emily could smell fish, but the scent was so incredibly strong that she assumed it was Zack’s sensation, not her own. It must be pretty intense to have such a strong sense of smell all the time! Emily wasn’t sure if she would like it.

  “Have you caught much?” she asked.

  Mr. Washburn shook his head. “Enough to cook up for some supper, maybe, but that’s about it. Been pretty quiet out here.” He grinned. “Of course, it’s really always quiet around here.”

  Emily knew Bobby was dying to ask if Mr. Washburn had seen anything ghostly, but was managing to keep the words inside—so far.

  But, that didn’t last long.

  “See anything weird today?” Bobby asked.

  “Well, Mrs. Carleton drove by earlier wearing a very unfortunate hat,” Mr. Washburn said.

  Bobby’s face fell. “That isn’t all that weird.”

  Mr. Washburn winked at him. “You didn’t see the hat, Bobby.”

  Zachary tugged her towards the rocks, and Emily let him lead her over there. Maybe he could see the ghost, and she couldn’t this time? That seemed like a possibility. So, she would do her best to keep her mind very open to him, and try to pick up on his signals. But then, Zack just sniffed casually at the rocks, climbed around for a few minutes, and then pulled her back up to the road.

  “Maybe the ghost is hiding, so that Mr. Washburn won’t see him,” Bobby whispered.

  Maybe, yeah. Emily nodded.

  They hung around for a while, but it seemed as though the bridge was just—an ordinary bridge. Nothing special, nothing unusual, nothing haunted. There were seagulls, and occasional passing boats, and gentle waves lapping against the rocks—but, that was it.

  After Mr. Washburn caught one more fish, he deposited it into his bucket and began to pack up his gear.

  “See you later!” he said, and waved a cheerful good-bye as he headed towards his house.

  Emily and Bobby waved back.

  “Maybe now, since the coast is clear, the ghost will come out,” Bobby said.

  Emily nodded. “I hope so. Maybe ghosts don’t like to be around grown-ups?”

  “Yeah, he’ll definitely come out now,” Bobby said confidently.

  They waited, and waited, and waited—but, nothing happened.

  A car or pickup truck would drive by once in a while, seagulls swooped around and cawed at each other, and the waves washed back and forth across the rocks. The most exciting thing that happened was that Zack found a piece of driftwood, and walked around in circles, carrying it happily in his mouth and tossing it up in the air every so often. But, that was it.

  They both jumped when Emily’s cell phone suddenly rang, although it was just her father, saying that she had been gone for quite a while, and that it was time to come home. Bobby’s mother called Bobby about a minute later, and said almost the exact same thing.

  “Guess we’d better get going,” Bobby said. “Maybe the ghost only comes out once a year, or something like that. Like the moon and stars have to be aligned just right, maybe?”

  Emily nodded. “Yeah. Or maybe it was a real person, and my father couldn’t see him, because his glasses were fogged up, or he wasn’t paying much attention.”

  Bobby nodded, too, and they walked along glumly.

  “I was really hoping we’d see it,” Bobby said.

  To her surprise, Emily realized that she agreed with him. “Me, too,” she said.

  * * *

  When she thought about it later, though, she was glad that it hadn’t been a ghost, after all. Just being able to communicate with Zachary in a unique way was important and exciting. She really didn’t need to be able to communicate with mysterious spirits, too. Her life was already complicated enough.

  So, when she was walking Zack a couple of days later, and they ended up heading down the road towards the bridge, she didn’t give it that much thought. In a small town, there were a limited number of directions she could walk in, and going over to the bridge was as good an idea as any other.

  It was a very cloudy afternoon, and looked like it might rain soon. But, so far, she had only felt a sprinkle here and there. If it actually started raining, she and Zack would probably be able to make it home before they got completely soaked, as long as they hurried.

  The closer they got to the bridge, the more eager Zack seemed. He kept wagging his tail, and looking up at her, practically dancing with excitement.

  “He’s there, isn’t he?” Emily said.

  Zack barked.

  Which sounded a lot like a yes.

  It wasn’t too late to turn around, and she was tempted to do it, but Zack was moving forward with obvious determination.

  “If he turns out to be scary,” Emily said, “I am going to blame you.”

  Zack just wagged his tail.

  The bridge seemed pretty deserted today, maybe because the weather wasn’t very good. No one was fishing, there weren’t any cars driving by, and there didn’t even seem to be any seagulls around. But, somehow, Emily wasn’t surprised to see the same man by himself on the rocks.

  Zachary barked a greeting, and the man looked up. Emily raised her hand to wave a tentative hello, and the man lifted his hand even more tentatively in return. He walked towards them, although it seemed almost as though he was gliding across the rocks.

  He stopped about ten feet away from them, and they looked at each other.

  “Uh, hi,” Emily said.

  The man nodded gravely. “Hello.”

  Zack didn’t seem to think that any of this was at all unusual, and he sat down, raising his paw in a friendly way.

  “That is a fine dog,” the man said.

  Emily nodded, since she certainly agreed with that.

  “Why can you see me, when no one else can?” the man asked. “I’ve been trying to make contact for such a very long time.”

  Emily shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it’s because my dog can see you, and that makes it so that I can, too.”

  The elderly man frowned. “That is very strange.”

  “Very strange” was an understatement.

  “Is this where you always are?” Emily asked.

  There was a long pause.

  “It’s complicated,” he said.

  Well, yeah. “My friend and I were down here the other day, but you weren’t here,” Emily said. “Or were you—I don’t know—invisible?”

  There was another pause.

  “It is complicated,” he said.

  That didn’t answer her question, but he pretty obviously didn’t want to answer it, or give her any details.

  The only thing she could tell for sure was that Zack really liked the ghost, and wanted to be his friend. He kept going over to him with his tail wagging, and his head cocked to the side, waiting for a response.

  “I have missed dogs very much,” the man said, bending down to pat Zack. His hands looked as though they were partially transparent, but Zack seemed to be able to feel it, anyway.

  That gave her a pretty good opening, then, to continue the conversation. “Did you have pets?” Emily asked.

  He nodded. “Yes, and I miss my Marigold the most. She was a wonderful dog. But, she has also been gone for a very long time.”

  Okay, that totally wrecked one of the things she had always assumed happened during an afterlife. “You don’t get to see her?” Emily asked. “I mean, um, where you a
re?”

  Wherever that was.

  He shook his head wistfully. “She moved on, at once. Animals have very beautiful souls.”

  It was still very disappointing. “I always thought that if something happened to you, your animals were supposed to be there waiting for you,” Emily said.

  “And so she is,” he said. “As are many others. But, I must finish my work, first.”

  This was all way too confusing. It might be better if she just hadn’t asked at all.

  The man must have picked up on that, because he smiled at her. “You don’t need to worry, my young friend. Everyone is on a different journey. Each of us finds his or her own way.”

  “Aren’t ghosts supposed to—go someplace else?” she asked. “A different dimension, or something?” Her family went to church and all, and she was mostly Episcopalian, but her father was Jewish, and sometimes, they went to synagogues, too. Emily had been going to Sunday school classes for years, but she was starting to wonder if she had been paying enough attention. Her parents had talked about God, and religion, and different ideas, too, but Emily wasn’t completely sure what she believed, especially about things like the afterlife.

  “I cannot leave,” the man said, “until I finish.”

  Weird. “Um, finish what?” she asked.

  “Peace,” he said.

  Wow! “World peace?” she asked. If that was his job, he was maybe going to be busy for a really long time.

  “I need to put things at peace,” he said.

  Well, there was no reason that ghosts were necessarily supposed to make sense. It might even have been disappointing if an encounter with a real ghost wasn’t kind of cryptic, but at least, it would have been easier to understand. Maybe she would ask him something more basic. A question with a concrete answer might be the best choice. “How long have you been here?” Emily asked.

  “I don’t know,” the man said. “Time is slow, and fast. What day is it?”

  Standing here talking to a ghost, like it was normal—while she threw sticks for Zack to fetch—was maybe making her feel a little nuts. A situation like this shouldn’t seem ordinary. “Friday,” she said.

  That answer clearly made no sense at all to him. “Is it autumn?” he asked.

  She nodded. “October.” Oh, wait, maybe that’s what he meant by “day.” “October sixteenth.”

  “What is the year?” he asked.

  For some reason, that was the sort of thing she would have expected a ghost to know. Not that they would be reading newspapers or whatever, but shouldn’t they have inside information? Maybe nothing worked at all the way she had imagined that it would. “2012,” she said.

  He looked shocked. “Are you sure?”

  Of course she was, but for a second, she suddenly doubted herself. “Well—I think so,” Emily said. “I mean, yes. Definitely.”

  “I have been gone for longer than I thought,” he said softly. “Much, much longer.”

  It would probably be rude to say something like “So, uh, when did you die?” But, it was the obvious question. She was afraid to ask it, though, since she would sound completely tactless.

  “I would have thought that after so much time—” The man stopped without finishing his sentence. “I’m sorry, I must go now.”

  And with that, he disappeared again!

  * * *

  Emily tried not to make it obvious during dinner that she was completely distracted and finding it very hard to concentrate on the conversation—or her food. At least Zack, who kept nosing at her plate the entire time, wasn’t having trouble paying attention to food! Then again, hanging out with a ghost didn’t seem to bother him at all, either.

  Since her father had cooked the spaghetti, her mother did the dishes, and Emily helped her. Then, after her homework was all finished, she went into the den to watch television for a while.

  Her father was already in there, reading the newspaper.

  “Is it okay if I turn that on?” Emily asked, gesturing with the remote control.

  “Sure,” her father said. “Although I like shows better when they aren’t about high school students who all look thirty years old.”

  Emily laughed and put on a sitcom that was usually pretty funny. Josephine immediately got up on the couch and curled onto her lap, while Zachary stretched out on the floor, resting his head on her sneaker. Emily really liked the way her pets seemed to enjoy spending time with her as much as she enjoyed spending time with them.

  “Have there ever been any shipwrecks near the bridge?” she asked, when the first scene of the show ended and some commercials started.

  Her father glanced up from the article he was reading. “Which bridge?”

  Bailey’s Cove had three main bridges—the cribstone bridge, which had been built with a complicated arrangement of stacked stones and was a famous landmark in town, the “big” bridge, and the “little” bridge. “The big bridge,” Emily said.

  Her father shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe. We could do some research about it, if you want. Do you have a project for school?”

  Emily shook her head. “Not really. I was just curious.” As a history professor, her father was usually very good at remembering even the most obscure stories about past events. “Has anyone ever drowned there? Maybe someone who fell off the side and into the water?”

  “Possibly,” her father said, sounding as though he was only half-listening. “But, not that I remember.”

  Emily grinned at him. “Well, you are from away.” Which was how all of the locals described anyone who hadn’t lived in Maine for several generations. Since her parents were from New York and California originally, they were considered even more “from away” than most non–Maine natives.

  “And they’ll never let me forget it,” her father said wryly. He picked up his newspaper again. “But, no, the only thing I can ever remember happening on the big bridge is the terrible accident years ago.”

  Emily had been drifting off a little, but she perked up when she heard that. “What accident?”

  “The car accident the Griswolds were in, when poor Mr. Griswold was killed,” her father said.

  Wait, was it possible that the ghost was Mr. Griswold? No, that would be too weird. Besides, he seemed nice, so that made it even less likely. She would expect Mrs. Griswold’s husband to be as unpleasant and difficult as she was. “It happened on the bridge?” she asked.

  Her father nodded. “They were on their way home, and they hit some black ice, went through the wooden barrier, and ended up down on the rocks. The whole thing was really awful. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, but if you were behind the wheel, I think it would be very hard not to feel that way.”

  Wow. There were lots of rumors around town, of course, but she had never heard those specific details before. Or maybe she had, but just hadn’t been paying attention?

  “Jim Peabody called me, and we went down to try and help, but there wasn’t much we could do.” Her father shuddered. “That was a terrible night.”

  It must have been, and Emily was glad that she hadn’t been there. “Mrs. Griswold was driving?”

  Her father nodded.

  Okay. That meant that Mrs. Griswold had been blaming herself for all of these years—and maybe that was why she was so mean? “So, she changed after that?” Emily asked. “And wasn’t friendly anymore?”

  Her father waved his hand in a “no, not really” motion. “I don’t know. She certainly always had a strong personality. But, she wasn’t antisocial, and she never had trouble getting re-elected whenever she ran for mayor.”

  That still didn’t seem possible, but Emily’s mother had always described her as “a superb administrator,” so that might be why she had been re-elected so many times. “Were she and Mr. Griswold happy?” Emily asked curiously.

  Her father shrugged. “They certainly seemed to be.”

  Which must be why, so many years later, Mr. Griswold was still unable to be at peace.

  Somehow, she
and Zack had to figure out a way to help him!

  12

  Emily was eager to go back to the bridge, and see if the ghost really was Mr. Griswold, but she didn’t get a chance the next day because they already had plans. First, they raked some leaves in the yard, and then they drove over to the college to go to a home football game. They had season tickets, and never missed a game. Football wasn’t Emily’s favorite sport, but she liked going, because the people in the stands got so excited, and shouted and clapped and cheered every play, and it was fun to be part of that.

  Over the years, she had actually learned a lot about the game, and could now usually predict when the team was going to pass or run, and could sometimes even recognize different kinds of defenses.

  They also regularly went to college basketball, hockey, softball, and baseball games at Bowdoin. Her mother liked—and had played—just about every single sport that existed, so she would go watch anything, including boring stuff like golf. Emily’s father played tennis once in a while, but when it came to sports, he mostly preferred just being a spectator.

  Emily leaned in the direction of being a spectator herself, although a pretty active one, because she enjoyed sketching whatever kind of game they were attending. It was really hard to capture movement on the page, and she liked the challenge of trying to draw someone leaping for a ball, or diving for a goal, or whatever else might be happening.

  She had tried playing lots of sports, because her parents wanted her to be “exposed to new things.” She didn’t mind soccer, since it was an excuse to run around like an idiot for an hour, but the game itself didn’t do much for her. She had been taking swimming lessons at the college for years, with other faculty kids, and she wasn’t a star, but she was good enough to have been promoted to Level 5 as a swimmer, and was now working on her Level 6 skills. She didn’t think she ever wanted to be a lifeguard or anything, but it would be nice to be qualified to do that.

  Tennis was fun, but she wasn’t very good. She didn’t mind playing catch in the backyard, but other than that, baseball and softball were more fun to watch, in her opinion. Especially, of course, the Red Sox.

  Bowdoin won the football game, so everyone left in a good mood. A couple of professors her parents knew were having a post-game cookout, so they went to that. Emily always tried not to make a big deal of being a vegetarian, since it sometimes made people uncomfortable, but Dr. Bougainer made her a thick grilled cheese and tomato sandwich—without even being asked—which Emily thought was really nice. She had two ears of corn and some salad, too.