In the dream Ruby is standing outside of a door. It is an interior door, perhaps a bedroom door or the door to a cellar. She knows, in her dream, that her mother is standing on the other side of that door. She can hear a quiet rustling, as if her mother is wearing crinolines or taffeta. Every time Ruby’s dream-self reaches for the doorknob, it moves. She tries to catch it in both hands, and it disappears. She wakes, realizing that she needed to dream her mother into opening the door.
“Hi, Ruby,” Granddaughter Molly has liberated her mother’s phone and called her. She does this occasionally, usually with some whim that needs satisfying. A game or a must-have fashion item for the tween set.
“What’s up?”
There’s the sound of Molly clumping up the stairs of their antique house, a door shutting. “I have a question.”
Maybe it’s being a psychic, maybe more being a blood relative, but Ruby hears the question before Molly can ask it. Is it normal to know things before they happen?
“Is it normal for me to know things about people before they do?”
“Have you asked your mother?” Sabine has always been closemouthed about her skills in front of the children.
“She said that sometimes people get feelings. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Did she say, ‘people like us’?”
“Not exactly, but I don’t know anyone else who knew that my friend Grace would get sick. I saw, Ruby. I saw her blood in my mind. It was bumpy.”
“She’s very sick?”
A sigh. Maybe a sniffle, and Ruby wishes Molly had FaceTimed instead of calling. “Luke something.”
Leukemia. Disease of the blood.
“Molly, the important thing to understand is that you might have predicted Grace’s illness, but it was already there. You didn’t cause it.”
“I know. I just got scared when my mind told me this and then it happened.”
“I’m glad you called me. You know that both your mother and I have the same…” Ruby almost says affliction. “… gift.”
“Kind of. Mom gets kind of weird if you call her on it.”
“And you do know what I do for a living.”
“You tell fortunes. For real. Like in fairy stories.”
“Yes. Well, not exactly like in fairy stories, but at fairs and carnivals and even parties.”
“Ruby?”
She knows the question before Molly asks. No big deal for a woman blessed with second sight. “I was your age when I knew. Your mom was too. It’s who we are.”
“No, I knew that. I just want to know if we’re witches.”
“Heavens no!”
Ruby hears Sabine hollering up the stairs for Molly to get a move on. Off to some organized activity no doubt. Molly signs off with a quick thank-you and I love you and is gone. The phone against Ruby’s cheek is hot.
At the very least, Molly will never have to figure out this “gift” for herself.
Assuming that Sister Bea will send the file off first thing Monday morning, and assuming that she won’t send it overnight but by regular business, Ruby won’t allow herself to become anxious about the file’s arrival until Wednesday morning. In the meantime, it’s Saturday and the Makers Faire awaits.
Over the past few weeks, the number of booths set up has begun to increase and Ruby’s tent is now flanked by a hat maker and yet another herbalist. This one specializes in lavender, and Ruby can smell it even before she arrives at her spot. It reminds her of the scent of old women, but she supposes that’s only because of the connection to the play, Lavender and Old Lace.
She greets the milliner, admires her array of hats, many of which are wide-brimmed and decorated with dried flowers. Very hippy, Ruby thinks. The milliner also has cloches on display and Ruby sort of wishes that she was a hat person, someone who could carry off wearing a cloche. Someone who wore the right coat and had the right shoes for such a hat. On her other side, Ruby says hello to the lavender lady and tries not to inhale too deeply.
Ruby gets the tent up, admires the little row of stitches she’s put into the tear in the tent wall, satisfied that it should hold up awhile longer. She’s been looking online for a new tent, feeling a bit like a traitor. This old girl has been a part of Ruby’s life, her routine, for so long, she fancies it is an old friend, a guardian. The holder of secrets. How should she honor it when the time comes to replace it? She feels the same way about the Westfalia. It’s sentimental, not logical. There’s no explaining it, no excusing it. Ruby runs a finger down the length of the repair and sighs. If her old tent and her old bus quit on her, she’ll be bereft.
The Hitchhiker bumps up against the back of Ruby’s knees. “You have me.”
“Yes, I do.” She scoops the dog up into her arms, never mind the dog hair embedding itself against her brocade caftan. She’ll wear it with pride.
The air seems lighter, the atmosphere around the tents and trailers and canopies cheerier somehow, and Ruby realizes that Cynthia Mann is nowhere to be seen. She will not invoke the name of her nemesis for fear of making her appear in a puff of brimstone smoke, but she does wonder where the heck she is. It doesn’t feel like Cynthia will suddenly jump out at her; it feels like a delightful absence. As if in recognition of that, her booth has been busy all morning, the cup of coffee she started with is untouched and cold. Fully half, maybe more, of the clients have been there for their dogs. She’s done more translating of canine concerns than predicting of future love. A nice change. She’s come to love touching these animals, feeling the soft fur, the bony skulls. The hiss and zizz of thought and feelings. The basic necessities they all come desiring—affection and kindness. A human hand laid out in hers never feels as accurate. The things she envisions for the dogs come to her so much more easily than the forecasting images she gets for humans. Maybe because dogs live so much in the present; humans, not so much.
Finally Ruby gets a break, slips off her caftan, hangs up her decorative BACK SOON sign and snaps the Hitchhiker’s leash to her harness. The pair circumnavigate the grounds, stretching their legs, letting the dog relieve herself, deciding which food truck to patronize. Ruby sees Polly’s animal control truck alongside the western edge of the park. Polly is in line at the burger truck. If Ruby knows anything about her friend, she’s pretty certain Polly will be asking for leftovers for her guests at the shelter. She joins her in the line.
Lunch in hand, the two ladies snag a park bench. The Hitchhiker keeps making little muttering sounds, trying to look like she’s not begging, but willing to be a help cleaning up leftovers. Ruby has been firm about not feeding the little dog people food, but sometimes a bite of hamburger just happens to fall to the ground.
Around a mouthful of burger, Polly says, “Got a call the other day. Missing dog.”
“Can I help?”
“Possibly.” Polly swallows, wipes her lips with her paper napkin, doesn’t look at Ruby.
My life is in what happens in front of me, not behind. I don’t think about what came before, how it made me feel. I think about the here and now. The closest I come to understanding the future is knowing that if Ruby puts on her big dress, we go to the place where she touches other people and dogs and makes them feel good. If the sun is gone, I know that dinner is possible. If the lady who smells like lots of other dogs and even cats shows up, something usually happens.
But having said that, I can admit that I remember the past. I remember it in images that sometimes come to mind because of a scent or a sound or the sight of a crate. I remember grooming and trotting alongside a tall man who taught me how to “stack,” how to tolerate long rides in a crate. How to be a winner. The humans all say that we know when we’ve won. It’s true. There’s a pleasant air of approval that comes with winning. And sometimes special treats. Then it starts again. But we also know when we haven’t won. And the air around that is heavy with disapproval. That first tall man went away, and a short fat woman began to show me. But she had no stamina for the long trots around the ring and soon handed me over to yet another human. This one made some mistake and we were sent from the ring even before the ribbons were handed out. And that’s when my life changed.
Polly says, “Ruby. The dog described sounds a lot like your dog.”
Ruby crumples up the remains of her burger, now just bun, and jams it into the paper bag. “Her person is gone.”
“I know, she told you.” Polly doesn’t sound the least bit cynical.
“Whoever had her died. Of that I am certain.”
“You are correct. That’s the story the caller gave me.”
The Hitchhiker has jumped onto the bench, made herself comfortable on Ruby’s lap. Her muzzle is draped over Ruby’s arm. She sighs. Ruby is filled with florid images, bright clouds of an unfamiliar odor, part perfume, part offal. She almost puts the dog off her lap; it is almost too much to receive this kind of information. Within a moment, the images resolve to a deep sense of needing to run. Of needing to be gone. She isn’t sure if it’s the dog’s thoughts or her own.
Polly doesn’t seem to notice that Ruby isn’t listening as she relates a story about adult children finding their elderly mother dead on the kitchen floor in her house, where she had been for some time. Apparently there was a clause in the adoption agreement stipulating that the dog go back to the breeder if the owner was unable to care for her. Unfortunately, the dog had vanished in all the drama.
“Ruby, the Hitchhiker might be this dog.”
“What evidence do you have?”
“Tricolor Cavalier King Charles spaniel. That’s what’s gone missing; that’s what you’ve got.”
“And I imagine that there are any number of similar dogs circulating.” Ruby sets the dog back on the ground. Stands up, brushes off her front.
“Gone missing pretty much the same week that you arrived.”
Ruby gathers the leash into both hands. “You don’t know that.”
“I do. You’ve told me.”
“No proof.”
“She’s microchipped.”
Ruby sits back down. How come she hadn’t seen this coming? Why hadn’t she consulted her own cards? She had, but it had been in such a narrow way, focused on what direction to take, when to leave, when to stay. She hadn’t seen loss.