Multiple award winner and Amazon bestseller under several pen names, Olivette Devaux now has consolidated all her stories under one name.

She writes a recent-historical series called Cancelled Czech Files, an LGBT romantic suspense Swordfall series, and Millennial Vampire stories. They’re all available wherever fine books are sold.

She has also written the Heritage Cookies of the Old and New World with her husband, which remain under her Kate Pavelle name. Two hundred and fifty classic cookies.

This is her second story in these pages. If you love dogs, you’re going to love this one.

* * *

October wind whistled by Jube’s ears, coming in fresh and brisk off the lake that formed one of the boundaries of the dog park. The yellow maple trees shuddered next to him under the gust, and the crimson sycamores followed right after, spreading their vibrant bounty over the flat lawn as though they were bestowing a tithe of seasonal beauty.

Jube smiled and drew another deep breath.

He let the energy in, feeling it trickle down his spine and hold—hold—hold—and then he exhaled with the wind, feeling it.

Being one with it.

Being one with the soft ground under his scuffed sneakers, aware of his center, of the luminous presence of his chakras. In his imagination, they glowed in colors and spread energy that he let out of his personal egg, willingly letting it blend with his environment.

He didn’t often let himself blend with the world, but on a day as beautiful as this, giving some of his own energy to the world seemed only right and proper. He, as a karate master, was well aware of all the karmic checks and balances. Of the give and take in his interactions with all living things.

With his wife, with his dog, with the grass underfoot.

He inhaled again, letting his nostrils widen as he relished the scent of vegetation decaying in the lake.

Then the dogs hit his legs.

He was airborne—amazingly free and flying and one with the world—before he splatted into an inconvenient patch of mud.

Then he was one with the mud.

Shouting of people and barking of dogs mingled in a cacophony as he lay there, staring at the gray cloudy sky as the cold mud seeped through his jeans.

“Are you okay?” A woman bent over him. Her curly hair, as red as the leaves of the sycamore trees, flopping into her face and hid her eyes—but not her grin. “Sorry about that. I think my pup was involved.”

Dog tongues got his face all slimy. “Uh, leave it. Leave it!” He laughed, though, and his Zashi took it as a go-ahead to continue her affectionate assault, leading the charge of furry muzzles and hot, slimy tongues.

Heck, he couldn’t blame her. She was a sweetheart, and rest of the pack must’ve followed.

“Uh.” Jube moved his limbs. “I’m okay,” he said finally as the four people hovered around him, trying to call their dogs off and wondering how to help him up without getting dirty themselves. He lumbered to his feet. His hands squished into the mud and left tidy handprints.

“Really, dude, you flew like ten feet,” a guy said. He was a young pup, barely legal to drink, and skinny. His gages gleamed in his ears like chromed wheels.

Jube wiped his hands on his thighs. “Ah, no way. I got knocked down, that’s all.”

“No, really,” the young guy said. “You were, like, over there and then zoom!” He waved his arm in a swoosh. “You landed over here. I didn’t see it, but I knew this isn’t where you were before. We were all avoiding this muddy patch.”

“Huh.” Jube scritched Zashi’s ears as he tried not to take an inventory of his injuries with everyone watching. Could this be even more embarrassing? One with the world, after all. At least he hadn’t landed in a pile of dog-recycled stardust.

Which is what he called Zashi’s stinky-poo when he picked up after her. They were all stardust, after all. All equal in the eyes of the Universe.

“Okay, man. Just so’s long as you’re okay. I’m Rob, by the way.”

“Jube,” Jube introduced himself to the guy he’d seen at the dog park every so often, wiped his hands on his jeans, and shook Rob’s hand. “So which one of the dogs is yours?”

“The mutt, Kronos.” Rob said. “And yours is the yellow lab, right? Plus there’s the golden retrievers, and that lab mix.” Rob grinned. “They like to chase the ball in a pack.”

Slowly, Jube nodded, and produced a smile. He didn’t want to be talking to Rob right now, even though the kid had a pleasant vibe around him. Right now, Jube yearned to sift through the thoughts that rumbled through his mind.

Unlikely thoughts.

Such as, why had he moved from over there to over here? If Rob hadn’t been chattering away at him just then, he’d pace the distance off and see how long the dogs have taken him.

Taken him.

The concept alone was outrageous. Stunning, even. The dogs took him what he guessed must’ve been fifteen feet.

“…so we’re doing the off-leash training now.” Rob looked at him expectantly, and Jube felt a little bad for tuning him out.

“Off-leash is nice,” he said. “Zashi will work up to that eventually, I think.” He smiled, then he checked his watch. “I think I better get going. Dry jeans would feel pretty good just about now.”

* * *

For the next two days, when Jube was doing his meditation exercises and thinking of the way his aura interacted with that of a pack of playing dogs, he paid special attention to Zashi.

As though she enjoyed his special attention, Zashi followed him up the stairs and down, through the living room and even into the kitchen, where she knew she wasn’t welcome.

His wife, Anne, sure noticed. “What’s with that dog lately? She’ll trip you up and you’ll go flying at this rate!”

Jube gave her an affectionate smile, and gave Zashi an affectionate pat. Flying was, after all, the general idea. If he could make sure he landed without wrecking his aging body, he’d give the dog flight another try.

Although if his aura meshed with that of the world around him in general, and with the aura of the dogs in particular, then it was more dog-surfing than dog-flying.

“She had a good time at the dog park the other day,” he said lightly. “I should take her again.”

Anne glanced at the microwave clock. “I’d go with you, but you know I have an appointment.”

“Do you want me to wait for you?” Jube asked, even though he really, really didn’t want her to tag along.

He didn’t want her to see him do something patently stupid and fail. She wouldn’t be mean about it—she never was—but still, succeeding as his wife looked on was vastly preferable to falling on his ass in a mud puddle. Or, even worse, standing there and meditating without levitating a single inch and making it look like he was ignoring her.

Because he couldn’t explain what he was doing until he was sure it worked, and not explaining was tantamount to ignoring her.

And ignoring her would make her mad and sad, and there was no need for that.

“You go ahead,” she said. “I’ll run ahead and see if I can fix people. I’ll catch up with you later.”

He gave her a kiss, called Zashi, and clipped a leash to her harness.

Time to find out whether dog-surfing had just been a figment of his overactive imagination.

* * *

The bad thing about modern technology was the way people didn’t talk to each other as much anymore. The good thing was they left Jube alone, stuck to their phone screens and texting away. Or looking up dog-training tips, or checking their shopping lists. No matter what the three people at the park were doing, they were entirely immersed in their little digital worlds.

Taking on the responsibility for being the main ball thrower wasn’t an entirely selfless act. Throwing the ball let him study the dog-energy, which seemed in direct proportion to their excitement.

The longer the throw, the more excitement they generated.

It took him a few ball throws to get centered, and it took him a few more to incorporate the ball throw-and-release sequence into the Qi Gong movement number four.

It got the dogs moving.

It kept his own energies swirling.

He reached out with his mind—and this was hard while watching the dogs at the same time—and felt the wind again. The distinct dog-auras thunder past him on their way back, and as they almost sideswiped him, he felt their joy and happiness in his gut. Their eager chase after the neon green tennis ball tugged at him.

It moved his center a bit outside himself, it invited him to join the fun.

He jumped a bit, hoping to float—but his timing was off, and he landed on the same tuft of grass when he’d began. Surfing the dog-wake would be as tricky as catching the wind.

He tried again.

And again.

He tried until Zashi walked to him, panting, and plotzed by his feet, and until he felt a pang of pain in his right shoulder.

“Wow, you sure know how to get them some exercise!” Somebody had said something, pulling him out of that focused state.

Jube looked up. She looked like a mom in yoga pants, getting the dog a workout while her kids were in school. “Yeah?” he said. “They look pretty happy. What a beautiful day, right?”

“Right,” she nodded, brightening as though the idea of a beautiful day new to her. She put her phone away, then tilted her head. “Sometimes I get so busy, I don’t even notice. Last spring rushed by me so fast, I pretty much missed the blooming trees.”

“Have a great day, then,” he said, meaning it.

“Do you always come here before lunch?” she asked. “I’m Elsa, by the way.”

He introduced himself. “Not always, but often.”

“Good,” Elsa said. “It helps to have someone with a good throwing arm around!”

* * *

The autumn rains came, and for three days, Jube and Anne exercised Zashi in a friend’s empty, rundown warehouse on the North Side, right by the Allegheny River. As they passed the Frisbee back and forth and talked about the upcoming redevelopment of the whole block, Jube did his best to remain centered while simultaneously talking to his wife and while spreading his aura out a bit toward Zashi.

And, sure enough, Zashi’s joy and excitement tugged at him, aura and heart and all. When he defocused his sight a bit, he thought it might be tugging on Anne’s as well—and just at that moment Zashi caught the Frisbee, and Anne’s joyful laughter reverberated off the old, concrete walls.

“She’s so much fun,” she said. “No wonder dog people live longer!”

No wonder indeed.

At that moment Jube had come dangerously close to sharing a theory he was working up, a system that rivaled quantum mechanics when it came to describing dog energy and the way it interacted with the energy fields of others.

He grinned instead, drew a cleansing breath, and came over to hug his wife. “Dogs are great people,” he said, just as Zashi thrust her nose between them not to miss on any of the action.

Since Anne had a physical therapy client the next day, Jube took Zashi to the warehouse on his own. The clerestory windows under the roof let in just enough light for him to see the cracked concrete of the floor safely, and Zashi was an easy visual target with her gleaming gold coat.

He threw the pink Frisbee. It didn’t go as far as the tennis ball, but Zashi’s excitement pulled on his center twice as hard as when she chased just a ball, presumably because the plastic disc’s flight path was less predictable.

By now, Jube had amassed enough empirical evidence to know that a dog aura could move a human one. After due consideration, he even decided that the unit of dog energy would be a “bork.” Thinking back, he decided that in his new dog-energy units, Zashi produced a pull of one bork while chasing a tennis ball, but two borks while chasing a Frisbee.

There had been five dogs at play the day they’d make him fly. And they did. He was done denying it. Occam’s Razor applied here—the simplest explanation was likely the correct one, and he sure didn’t teleport to fifteen feet away by himself. He hadn’t been hit hard enough to fly that far, and teleportation would’ve been much harder to explain than simple dog-surfing.

Except not even two borks were enough to physically move him, and he didn’t want to tease Zashi into further excitement for the sake of juicing another half a bork out of her. First, half a bork wouldn’t have made a difference compared to the theoretical pull of five borks of that fateful day. His second, and more important consideration, was for Zashi’s well-being. He was going to take only what she was willing to give.

* * *

“She’s in great shape,” Anne shouted across the field as Zashi chased the ball with four more dogs.

“She is!” Jube called back. Today he had the perfect dog-surfing conditions. The five dogs were all wired up and eager for their exercise after several days of rain, and their pull had exceeded the theoretical five borks by two at least.

He had seven. But did he dare use them?

Anne would think he was ready for those nice men in white coats and a dose of horse tranquilizer if she knew what he’d been planning. Except he could just do it and not tell her anything. The other dog owners were chatting or texting, happy that he and Anne had brought one of those plastic ball-throwers.

The ball flew much farther than he could’ve thrown it with his arm, and the dogs ran faster and longer, which he thought would be to his advantage.

He made up his mind. “Hon,” he said as he neared her, “how ’bout you throw the ball for a while. I bet you can get it as far as I can.”

“Oh,” Anne said as a look of concern tightened her face. “Does your shoulder hurt again?”

“Not so much. I just want you to try it.”

She took the ball-thrower, hot pink just like the Frisbee, and gingerly accepted a dog-slimed tennis ball from one of the mutts. “Watch out,” she said. “Don’t stand behind me so I don’t hit you.”

“Sure,” Jube nodded, glad for the excuse to move up and to the left. This way he’d be right in the path of their bork pull.

The dogs milled with excitement between him and Anne, jumping and yapping, tails wagging, spit flying. Since Anne was taking her sweet time loading the ball and hefting the ball-thrower in her hand, the dog’s excitement grew to at least ten borks, if not higher.

Jube had never felt a pull as strong as this before. Had it not been just friendly dogs, he’d have been alarmed.

Anne swung. The ball flew. The dogs flew.

Centered and open to their pull, Jube flew too.

“Jube!”

He heard Anne’s startled exclamation, and between that little distraction and trying to keep upright instead of being tugged through the air headfirst, he lost his focus.

His link to the dogs broke.

He crashed so fast he didn’t even have enough time for one of his fancy ukemi rolls. Only his skill at break-falls from long ago saved him from hitting his head on the ground.

The rest was the same as before. Clouds swam overhead, darker and heavier than few weeks ago. The earth was still under him, and the cold wetness of the autumnal ground seeped through his formerly clean jeans.

He was unhurt, though. He knew it as much as he knew, with startling clarity, that he had just dog-surfed.

“Are you okay?” Anne bent over him. Her hair was pulled back as always, but to his surprise, she didn’t look too worried.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said from where he was, knowing that he had only moments before the dogs would start showing their wet and furry concern. Seeing as she raised her eyebrows in an unspoken question, he tried to explain. “I was just trying to surf on the wake of their energy. It’s…it’s just a matter of controlling gravity.”

As he got up, he became aware of the presence of the other dog owners. They got a handle on their dogs this time, and he didn’t much care for the looks they were trying not to toss in his direction.

Except for Rob, who stepped up with his mutt clipped to his leash. “That was dank, man,” he said. “How didya do that?”

“Do what?” Self-preservation, and an image of being chased by villagers with pitchforks, had Jube reverting into a sly seventh-grader.

“I’d have sworn you flew through the air, like Jackie Chan, or something!” Rob looked him up and down as though he was assessing him. “You got a black belt, right? You’re one of them guys who does stuff and then it ends up on YouTube and everyone thinks it’s just a trick, right?”

Jube didn’t go around telling people. He looked down at his jeans and fingered the empty belt loop. “I have no belt on today at all,” he said so stupidly, he knew his patent lie was obvious.

“Oh, cool!” Rob bobbed up and down, making the gages in his ears flicker with reflected light. “Will you teach me how to do that?”

Their eyes met.

“Please?” Rob added. “It’s the dogs, isn’t it?”

* * *

The trouble with dog-surfing came from the necessity of borrowing other people’s dogs while keeping their activity secret from their owners. The way things stood, neither he nor Anne could’ve shown up at the dog park without people getting all alert and aiming their cell phones at them.

They’d become dog-park pariahs.

Taking Rob on as a student of all things arcane, such as dog-surfing, or karate, or making wine in the cellar, came with an unexpected advantage.

Rob, a young guy who was still finding his way in life, was making extra money as a dog-walker. He looked through all his charges, assembled a team worthy of Iditarod, and met up with Jube and Anne twice a week in an isolated clearing in the nearby woods.

They didn’t want to be observed.

Anne had also pointed out that the lake was a dog-surfing hazard, since the dogs would get excited going in, but were sure to slow down getting out. “Walking on water would be a neat trick, but can we save it for the summer?” she said sensibly. Wet, muddy jeans had been bad enough for Jube, so he nodded and agreed.

Lobbing a tennis ball resulted in long, awesome dog-surfs. Controlling gravity was a lot like controlling one’s position in yoga, and remaining upright was of paramount importance, especially near trees. They all had fun levitating a foot off the ground and surfing the dog wake, with one simple exception: the crash landings.

One day, Anne came home from a client appointment and produced a bag from an ordinary big-box store. She thrust it into Jube’s hands, looking all kinds of victorious. “Here you go, open it!”

“What’s this?” He stopped stirring the mushroom soup, wiped his hands, and reached in for the sizeable box hiding inside. “What? Really? What did you buy a drone for?”

“We’ll learn to fly it, and the dogs will learn to chase it,” she said with a satisfied smile. “No more crash-landings!”

Zashi came in just then, lured by her people’s proximity, and by the rustling of a shopping bag.

“This is for you, girl,” Jube told her. “So you can go in and out of shallow water!” He couldn’t wait to try the Jesus trick. He pulled Anne in for a kiss.

Zashi thrust her nose between them, not wanting to miss out on anything, and that’s when Jube felt the flow of energy again.

It went the other way.

“Huh,” he whispered in Anne’s ear, as though the dog couldn’t hear them anyway. “I guess she’s people-surfing!”