THIRTY-SIX

“SNICKERS,” ELLIE SAID, “play dead!”

The brown labradoodle rolled onto his back.

“Dead,” Ellie repeated.

His pink tongue lolled out.

Jay whistled, impressed. “How’d Snickers learn that in a week?”

Had it really been just seven days since her father brought the dog home? Ellie felt like she’d known Snickers for years. Granted, he was no Kirby. That was fine, though. She didn’t want a replacement.

“He’s the most food-motivated dog I’ve met,” Ellie said. She passed Snickers a pea-sized treat. He revived in a heartbeat and swallowed it whole. “I could train him to vacuum my bedroom for a slice of bacon.”

“I’m surprised that nobody wanted him,” Jay said.

“Sadly, I’m not.” Ellie gave Snickers a firm squeeze. He leaned into the hug and tickled her cheek with his floppy ear. “People don’t go to the shelter for eight-year-old dogs. They want young ’uns and puppies. If Dad hadn’t agreed to foster him …”

The underworld must teem with unwanted pets. She hoped that, in death, they finally found love. Maybe, Kirby integrated with a pack in the labyrinthine Below. Ellie wondered if she’d have to wait until her own death before they’d be reunited. If they’d be reunited at all. Could she risk another visit to the underworld? Return just long enough to call Kirby’s name?

“Just foster?” Jay asked. “Great! I’ll adopt him! Awyeah. Doggy maid.”

“Sorry to crush your dreams,” she said, “but Snickers is joining my family. You can visit any time, though.”

Ellie winked and returned to the center of her bedroom. There, balsa wood, paint, and superglue were scattered across an unfolded newspaper. A half-finished bridge dried atop the comics pages. The semester had just started, and she was already working on a group project. Fortunately, she and Jay were in the same structural physics class. With a partner like him, Ellie finally enjoyed group work.

“Another one!” Jay plucked a page from the newspaper mat. “Hah. ‘Senator resigns after Willowbee connection revealed.’ It’s the guy from Texarkana! Can I keep this for my summer scrapbook?”

“Feel free.” She prodded the bridge delicately. “Needs a few more minutes.”

“This Willowbee thing got so big,” he continued, folding the newspaper into a tidy rectangle, “I’ve had to start a second book for news articles. Mom thinks we can use the publicity to get scholarships. You … still want that, right? College?”

Considering her role in the Willowbee scandal, Ellie could easily start her own business after high school. Although her parents guarded her privacy with every trick they knew, the occasional interview request, fan message, or angry screed broke through their barrier. If one third of the people who contacted her were serious, she had enough potential clients to fill years of work.

Dear Ellie Bride,

My son has been acting weird lately. He hears rats in the walls, but there are none! Is our house haunted? Other strange events include …

Dear Ellie,

I live in an apartment near El Cementerio del Barrio de los Lipanes. My girlfriend thinks that the original burial ground was larger, but developers built on it. Please tell your dead tribe that I’m sorry for living over their graves. I can’t afford a better location right now. My girlfriend won’t stay the night until I do something. We’ve been together three years …

Hello Miss Bride,

What are your opinions on alien abductions? Namely: can an alien ghost abduct a human ghost? Please respond …

Dear Ellie Bride,

Abraham Allerton is not alone. There are other wizards on our land, self-worshipping people who corrupt reality itself. Be careful.

“There’s a lot I want to learn,” Ellie said. “My mother, her mother, and my grandmother’s mother taught me about the way of our land, our dead, and our monsters, but the times have changed. I need college to prepare for the next Willowbee.”

Ellie threw Bear Buddy across the room; Snickers caught it midair and crawled under the bed, wringing squeaks from the toy with his teeth. Unlike Kirby, he did treat fetch like a game of keep-away. The habit would take more than a week to break.

“Will there be another Willowbee?” Jay asked.

“You can bet on it.” Ellie knelt and tried to grab Bear Buddy, but Snickers just wiggled farther back. Groaning with mild annoyance, she dropped to her stomach and used her elbows to scoot halfway under the bed.

“At least we’re prepa—AAAAH! What the hell! Run!” Ellie felt Jay grab her by the foot and pull. If she hadn’t been wearing overalls and long sleeves, the maneuver would have caused serious carpet burn.

“What?” she cried.

“That!” Jay pointed. A googly-eyed skull bobbed across the room, carried in the mouth of an invisible dog.

It took a moment for Ellie to regain speech. “Appear, Kirby!” she said. “Appear!”

In an instant, he turned visible. There stood Kirby in all his floppy-eared, feather-tailed glory. Ellie made a joyous sound that verged between a shriek and a wail. She threw herself at him, squeezing his intangible body, and he wagged his poltergeist tail so enthusiastically, it scattered balsa wood slivers in a preternatural wind. “You aren’t afraid of it anymore,” she said.

Snickers poked his nose into the open, intrigued.

“This is your big brother,” Ellie declared. “He’s a ghost.”

The dogs circled each other twice. Neither seemed to care about life or death, living or dead. After the silent introduction, they bounded around the room, and Jay narrowly rescued the bridge from destruction. Eventually, when Snickers grew tired of play, he and Kirby curled side-by-side on the doggy bed. Ellie was torn between watching them sleep and gathering both dogs in her arms in a tight, joyful hug.

“I knew that Kirby would find a way home,” Jay said. “Dogs always do. Huh. What’s that?”

He stooped and picked up a dirty, torn doll from the ground. It was made of leather and rattled when Jay tossed it across the room to Ellie’s outstretched hand. Kirby and Snickers perked up, their eyes trained on the toy.

“I’ve never seen this before,” Ellie said. The doll was no marvel of craftsmanship. Just a sock-shaped tube of leather with a smiling face painted on one side. A long braid of fibrous material dangled from the top of its head, and the rattle, which reminded Ellie of dry mesquite seeds shaking in their husks, came from its belly. “It looks like a dog toy, though. Maybe Kirby brought it with him.”

“From Below?” Jay asked. “You … do you think it’s cursed?”

“It took him forever to warm up to Skull Buddy over there,” Ellie said. “I really doubt Kirby would be in the same room as a cursed dollie. Hm. I wonder …”

Ellie thought that her happiness would sprout a pair of wings and fly through the window, over the house, higher than Owl, and above the sun. Fly so high, that the ground would disappear and there’d be nowhere to fall.

That night, she and Jay finished the bridge together, and once the glue dried, they decorated its beams with acrylic paint. There were no broken hearts.