by O J Barré
“Nice doggy. Nice collar. Did Hope ask you to bring it to me?”
Every part of the dog wagged.
Emily found this encouraging. She tried again. “You’re Cu, right?”
“Yes.” The voice sounded in her head, in an accent similar to Hope’s.
“So, you talk, too.” That struck her as funny. She snickered, then giggled. Heat rose in her body as she tried to contain the bubbling laughter, but it burst from Emily like pressurized lava.
So certain had she been that she would be crawling through a dark, vermin-infested cave searching for a priceless collar, she’d been barely shy of panic all day. Over a stupid treasure hunt. The dog was the kicker. Emily’s laughter peeled through the glade.
“I’m glad you find me amusing,” the dog muttered with an air of genteel patience. “Try Cu, capital cee, letter u. Cu.”
“Oh, oh, oh—” Hilarity burst through the hand Emily clamped over her mouth. Trying not to laugh was making it worse. “I’m sorry,” she managed, in between giggle fits. “It’s…not you…it’s just—”
She collapsed on the soft verge, laughing hysterically into the grass.
“It’s me!” she finally managed and struggled to pull it together. Tears bubbled up to join the laughter. “I’m supposed to…go in that cave.” She raised her arm to point. “I’m supposed to…find a collar. Only…you’re wearing it. Or one like it.”
The hundred-plus pound dog sidled closer on feet that could grace a claw-foot tub. Wavy hair covered a lean face and body and the long, graceful legs. Emily watched Cu through teary eyes, but she wasn’t afraid.
“Yes, but it didn’t take much coaxing. I retrieved the old torc from the cave for you. Now come, little one. We’ve no time for magic collars or for tears. Sir Hamilton needs me.”
“Sir Hamilton?” Emily sniffled, wiping at tears with her sleeve. “You mean Hamilton Hester? My father?”
“Yes, yes! He awaits. Take me to him!”
“Of course,” Emily consented, springing to her feet. Then wondered why. The dog had brushed away her fears as easily as she swept the must from her shins. Once again, all was not as it appeared at Wren’s Roost.
The wolfhound charged up the path toward the house. Emily followed at a jog. Cu knew her Da. Had Hamilton somehow communicated with the dog? Maybe through Hope?
The dog sniffed the underbrush and lifted a hind leg to pee.
“Nice!” she snarked, just managing to avoid his stream.
“When you gotta go, you gotta go.” Scratching off with his hind legs in a show of doggy dominance, Cu trotted toward the house. The forest fell silent. Siesta time.
Slowly, softly, the leaves began to rustle in the trees overhead, the wind passing on its way east. The bushes fluttered as they traversed the last few yards and exited the woods. Wren’s Roost rose before them in all its Tudor glory. Cu stopped to sniff the air.
“What now?”
“We go in. To Hamilton.”
“Why do you think my father needs you?”
The dog looked baffled. “Because he does. He’s been calling for days. I only just managed to get away. Please,” Cu pleaded, “the master needs me. Won’t you take me to him?”
As farfetched as the wolfhound’s story sounded, Emily detected no lie. Her father was in a coma and hadn’t communicated with her since that day in the hospital. What if Hamilton had been able to reach the dog?
“Follow me.”
Hamilton and the Wolfhound
H is body languished in a coma, but Hamilton’s spirit sensed his daughter’s approach. She’d brought the wolfhound. Her voice had served as his anchor in the Otherworld, where Ham had been stripped of all senses except loss.
Now light pierced the eerie twilight as Cu’s wagging tail swirled the mist. Hamilton’s excitement mounted. Soon he would leave the body that had lasted longer than humanly possible.
“Da?” His daughter’s presence called.
“Sunshine,” he projected psychically, and felt Emily’s pleasure as the sentiment landed and absorbed the fear oozing from her.
“Da! You’re here!” He couldn’t feel her touch, but he knew she took his hand. “I thought you were gone. You haven’t spoken to me since that night in the hospital.”
Unable to do more, Hamilton whispered in the silence of their minds, “My spirit has wandered, but I am here, little wren.” He left out the fact that the Otherworld was ghastly. And that he’d begun to wonder if he would make it out in time.
“I brought you a visitor.” His daughter’s tone was reproving. “An unexpected one. Though you probably knew he was coming.”
“Yes, I had hoped.”
Hamilton sensed the hound’s long snout touch his body, but felt nothing. Cu whined long and low, ending on a high-pitched yelp that pierced the silence and Hamilton’s heart.
“Cu, my good and faithful servant,” he whispered. “You’re here.”
“Aye, master,” Cu barked. “I am here. Speak your command that I might serve you once more.”
“Old friend,” Hamilton whispered, “my vehicle is broken and dying. Without alternate transport, my spirit will follow. Would you allow an old man passage?”
Cu wriggled, a joyous yip escaping his doggy lips. “Aye, Sir. I am delighted to welcome an old friend. Tarry not. Your end is near. Do it now.” The wolfhound thrust his wet nose against Ham’s cheek. When the dog made contact, Hamilton slipped from the dying body into Cu’s vibrant one.
Neither of them felt more than a tickle.
**
Emily listened to the exchange between her Da and the dog, conflict knotting her stomach. This never happen in the rule-riddled world in which Emily had lived before coming to Wren’s Roost. The emotion radiating between man and beast was so sweet and so pure it filled her heart to bursting and tears streamed unchecked down her cheeks. Before her eyes, the wolfhound transformed, taking on the air of a king. Emily stifled the urge to curtsy.
The dog’s lips moved, and sound came out. She heard her Da’s voice, not in her head, but with her ears. “Hello, Sunshine.”
The melodious voice carried a hint of amusement, its clear Southern drawl a close approximation of her Da’s. So close it gave Emily goose bumps.
“Da?” The trepidation and need to believe vibrated in her voice. “Is that you?”
“Yes,” the dog chuckled. “It is I.”
Throwing her arms around the long neck, Emily hugged Cu so tight he yipped. She let go and was nearly bowled over by exuberant face-licking. Giggling, she squirmed away.
“Well, what do you expect?” Cu sat, tail wagging. “I’m your Da in a dog’s body. Now, where to?”
“Where to?” Emily repeated, not comprehending.
“I’ve been in bed for weeks. I need to stretch my legs." The sentence ended on a doggy whine. “How ‘bout I give you a tour of the estate?” Like Emily hadn’t tromped all over it searching for Hope’s treasures.
“What about Cu? Won’t his owner be worried?”
“I’m a passenger, not the owner of this body, dear. Cu and I will return to his house later. And tomorrow we’ll be back here bright and early. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover and years of catching up to do.”
Emily eyed the chunk of gold around Cu’s neck. “Maybe we should leave the torc here.” Cu dipped his head to let her remove the precious collar. “Where should we put it for safekeeping?”
Cu led her to an alcove she hadn’t entered before. A door opened to a library similar to the one in the carriage house. In the center was a huge desk piled with books and papers. Sliding into the oxblood-leather chair, Emily opened a side drawer and placed the golden torc on a pile of manila folders. Cu circled the room, touching his nose to one thing after another.
They returned to Hamilton’s bedroom and Emily studied the form that had been her father. The chest barely rose and fell. “What about your, umm, body?” she croaked around the lump in her throat.
“It’s failing, Emily.”
No emotion registered in Hamilton’s voice. “When it does, the others will mourn. But you will know better.” He blinked at her with Cu’s big dog eyes and added furtively, “I believe that someone wants me dead. Let them think they have succeeded.”
“What?” she gasped. “You think someone…what? Who, Da? And how? We must go to the police.”
“No,” he said adamantly, shaking Cu’s head. “I have no proof, only suspicions. And I could be wrong. Let’s not give the Order a reason to doubt you, a ghrá. Especially if I’m mistaken.”
Emily looked at him askance, not sure whether she could ignore his allegation. Or its implications. Would the same person want her dead, too? The thought made her tremble. She wrung her hands and tried again. “Shouldn’t we at least tell Morgan? Or Lugh MacBrayer? Someone should look into this, Da.”
Cu ambled toward the door, tail high. “No, Dru-y-en. As your father and druid superior, I’m ordering you to let it go. When the time comes, we’ll deal with it. But for now, let me give you that tour.”
Conflicted, Emily followed Cu’s wagging behind out the door and down the hall. “Well, at least I know where my stubbornness comes from.”
The long, regal face looked back and quipped, “Yeah. I’m afraid you got a double dose of that. Your mama was the world’s worst.”
Snort-laughing, Emily followed him down the steps. “Amen to that.”
**
After an amble around the estate, Hamilton left Emily at the carriage house and took Cu home. The walk from Wren’s Roost was only a few blocks, but he sprinkled every mailbox along the way and half as many fences. The residence at Twelve Twenty-One Audrey Lane sat back from the street at the end of a long and gently sloping driveway. Newly-greened trees shielded the lot from the road.
Thinning sod, bare in places, could use a trim. Blackberries and wayward private hedges flourished in the islands, overrunning native azaleas and rhododendrons. Poison oak grew in dense mounds, its thick ropes snaking up soaring pecans whose canopy would provide shade in the hot summer months. What a shame they’d let it run down.
The house languished in similar disrepair. Old and elegant, the build was early-1940’s and was smaller than most homes in Druid Hills. Probably the carriage house of a larger property. Hamilton strained to recall the estate house that had once stood here, but nothing came to mind. Did being in Cu’s body limit the capacity of his brain?
Cu stopped walking and growled. “Excuse me?”
Hamilton chuckled. “Sorry, my friend. I meant you no slight. Carry on.”
Brian and the Talking Dog
L oud snores filled the den—Cu sawing logs in his oversized bed. Jonathan Brian Walker MacBrayer, known to his family and friends as Brian, poked the dog with a bare toe. “Roll over, Cu. You’re snoring.”
The dog mumbled, “I don’t snore,” and went back to it.
Brian gulped. “He doesn’t snore. The dog says he doesn’t snore. UNCLE LUGH!!!” he screamed, tearing down the hall toward his uncle’s bedroom. “The freaking dog talked! Omigod! The dog! SHIT!” Brian peered over one shoulder, grateful Cu wasn’t behind him. Even knowing it was a bad idea, he pounded on the locked door. “Uncle Lugh! Open up!”
Just home from a long workday, Lugh had yelled at Brian only fifteen minutes earlier for being up late playing video games. Mid-knock, the door opened on his uncle in a terry robe, hair dripping from the shower.
“What? Brian, what?” It was the long-suffering tone Brian hated.
“The…um, uh, oh never mind.” He backed down the hall. Dealing with his uncle at this exact moment might just be worse than a talking dog.
“Go to bed!” Lugh yelled and slammed the door so hard the floor vibrated.
Brian thought of his father. Would he have shouted? At least his uncle wanted him. Not that he’d been given a choice. But neither had Brian, who had come prepared to spend a weekend in Atlanta with his dad’s family. Turned out, Lugh was the extent of the MacBrayer clan. And one weekend had multiplied to two months, two weeks, and three—almost four—days.
But yikes. The crazy dog had talked.
Brian’s mind raced. Cu had shown up in the middle of a snowstorm. Uncle Lugh was at work and Brian hadn’t had the heart to make the dog stay outside. When his uncle found him cozied on top of an old blanket in front of the fireplace that night, he had hit the roof.
Peeking in the den, Brian spied the dog asleep on his back and stifled a giggle. Cu’s skinny legs were high in the air, his big feet drooping. Brian tiptoed past the twitching dog whose loud snores had calmed to gentle snuffles. When no one had claimed the wolfhound, Uncle Lugh had caved and let him stay. Other than a hamster, Cu was Brian’s first pet. But who lost a giant dog and didn’t notice? Or claim it? Lugh had said considering the food the wolfhound ate and the huge piles of poo, probably half of Atlanta.
Poking through the remains of several nights’ take-out, Brian settled on pepperoni pizza. He unwrapped it, plated it, and tucked it in the microwave in no time flat. It dinged and Brian grabbed the plate, yelping when it was hotter than he’d expected. He tossed the plate to the counter and stuck his scalded fingers in his mouth to the knuckle. The plate landed clattering and the pizza slid part-way off.
A strange voice demanded, “What’s going on in here?”
Brian wheeled to face the intruder, not much relieved to find it was Cu. Snatching a bag of carrots from the freezer, he wrapped his stinging fingers around the soothing cold. Determined to get to the bottom of this nonsense, he sputtered, “You did not just talk to me.”
The dog cocked its head. “I most certainly did. What was that racket? Can’t a fellow get some sleep?” The wolfhound shook its head, ears flopping.
“Dogs can’t talk.” Brian’s knees knocked a little. “You are not talking. I am imagining things. My mother says I have an overactive imagination.”
“You do, Brian. That’s one of your better traits. Don’t let anyone tell you different, not even your mother. One of the greatest men of the last century said, ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge.’ That was Albert Einstein, in case you didn’t know. A druid, like you.”
Brian heard the words and saw the dog’s lips move but comprehended nothing. How could this be?
“I am going crazy. You really are talking.” He retrieved a slice of pizza with his good hand and stuffed it in his mouth, mumbling past it. “Why talk now and not before?”
The dog remained silent and watched him chew.
“Cat got your tongue?” Brian snickered, and almost choked on the pizza. The dog let him hack.
“Gonna make it there, son?”
When the coughing passed, Brian wiped his runny nose on his sleeve.
“Eeeeuuww,” the dog exclaimed.
Brian sneered, “At least it’s not my butt.”
“You have a point there. Nevertheless, use a Kleenex please. You can help it—I can’t. Now, did you want an answer to that question?”
Brian nodded, stuffed the slice in his mouth and chewed.
“I met a friend. A very old friend,” the dog said, like that explained things.
Brian put the table between them and nabbed another slice. He bit in and moaned. His uncle’s recipe was killer, better than the store’s patented sauce. The dog’s eyes followed his every move.
“So, what’s your name?” Brian asked, munching.
The dog stared. “You get to ask a question of a talking dog and you ask one to which you already know the answer?”
“I didn’t. And I don’t. I’ve had Cu for nearly a month, and never once has he spoken or told me what to do. You snore. You sleep on your back. You’re bossy. Who are you and what have you done with my dog?”
Lugh shuffled into the kitchen in worn leather slippers, damp hair curling around his neck. Blue-plaid pajama bottoms and a rumpled white tee had replaced the terry robe, but not the sour look. “Who you talking to?”
Brian glanced at the dog, waggled his Smartphone in the air and lied,
“No one. I was watching a show on VideoCloud.”
“Is that right?” Cu said and flopped to his belly looking from man to boy. “I thought we were having a conversation. Something about me being bossy and demanding. Oh. And I snore. Anything else?”
Brian’s belly hit the floor.
Lugh wheeled toward the dog, shock wrinkling his dark brow. Cu lay still, tail waving slowly. Confused, Brian watched his uncle sink to one knee, so close to Cu they were nose to nose.
“Hamilton? Sir? Is that you?” Lugh’s voice was so low, Brian had to strain to hear. The dog chuckled. Chuckled! And then licked his uncle’s face. Brian’s jaw dropped open. Lugh didn’t even like the dog. But when he stood, the dog reared and put its paws on Lugh’s shoulders and looked him square in the eye.
“Lugh MacBrayer, to you I owe my deepest gratitude.” The wolfhound licked his uncle’s face and then dropped to all fours. “Where did you find my old friend Cu?”
He had no idea what was going on, but Brian interjected, “Bonsai!”
Lugh shrugged. “He showed up on my doorstep about a month ago.”
“And Brian?” The dog pointed its nose in his direction.
With an apologetic look, his uncle answered, “About a month before that. His mom dropped him off for a weekend visit, then called from the airport. She actually went to Bali for a job.” Lugh wrung his hands. “Hamilton, Arthur phoned the restaurant an hour ago and said you had died. Is that true?”
Brian froze. A dead man had possessed his dog?
“My body expired, yes,” the tone was curt. “Thanks to Cu, I am still alive. But you know that, Lughnasadh. I wouldn’t be here having a conversation through canine lips if I had remained in the Otherworld.”
Straightening, Lugh looked across the table at Brian, then back at the dog. “That changes everything, Sir. What would you like us to do now?”
“I would like to take your nephew to Wren’s Roost for druid training. Like my daughter, Brian has apparently been kept ignorant of our ways. He didn’t even get my Einstein reference.”