When Juliet got home her parents were waiting for her in the living room.
“Are you sure about this trip to Canada?” her father asked.
“I’m sure,” Juliet assured them. “There’s something very strange happening with these birds.”
She could see that her parents were worried. Her mother came to her and gave her a hug. “We raised you to be independent,” she said. “But now that you’re going every which way, we’re having second thoughts. Please be careful.”
Juliet put her arm around her mother and promised to be very careful.
That night Katie came into her room and sat on the end of her bed.
“When are you leaving?” she said.
“I’m going early in the morning.”
Juliet could tell that Katie had something that she wanted to say and was having a lot of trouble trying to say it.
Juliet said it for her. “You want to come, don’t you?”
Katie nodded.
Juliet pulled herself up and sat foreward. Katie was petting Max absentmindedly as she waited for Juliet to say something, and when Juliet finally spoke she stopped and folded her hands and waited.
“I wish you could, Katie,” Juliet said. “But you can’t this time.”
Katie’s eyes clouded. Juliet didn’t want to make her sad, but she had to. “It might be dangerous, Katie, but don’t tell Mom and Dad that. I’ll be all right, but I can’t have anybody but Max with me to worry about. Maybe next time. Is that all right?”
“I guess so,” Katie said, too quickly. “Did I tell you about the weasel? He was all white. I thought weasels were brown.”
“Did it have a long tail?”
“Very long.”
“Then it was a long-tailed weasel. They turn white in the winter so that they can blend with the snow and hide from predators.”
“Like mountain goats and snowshoe hares,” Katie said as she slipped off the bed and started for the door. When she was almost there she hesitated and turned and said, “Could I come to work with you when you get back?”
“Of course you can,” Juliet said. “Why? Have you decided to become a vet?”
“I think so. Animals are interesting, aren’t they?”
Juliet smiled. They were alike after all. It was nice to know that. “They’re very interesting, Katie,” Juliet said. “But they’re a problem too, because you always fall in love with them, and then they leave you.”
“Be careful,” Katie said.
“I will. I promise.”
Juliet left the next morning. She drove straight through. She stopped to eat and feed Max, and let Max out for a run, but that was all.
She arrived in Edmonton at dusk, checked into a small bed and breakfast on the outskirts of the city, and fell into a deep, dream-filled sleep. She dreamed about Canada geese this time, hundreds and hundreds of them, flying in V-formation. The old males kept changing places, so that one of them would always be leader, just like they always do, except that in the dream it wasn’t always an old male at the tip of the V. One minute a swallow was the leader, and the next minute it was a swan. And then something strange happened. Instead of a bird at the tip it was Cam, and then herself, and then Cam again, and they kept fighting and fighting to lead the geese south. And just as she was about to become the leader of all leaders, she woke up and looked around and realized that she was in another strange room in another strange place. She pulled the blanket up to her chin and called Max to her and held him tightly until she had calmed down, and then she pushed him off the bed and slid off behind him.
She looked at her watch and saw that it was almost ten in the morning. She fed Max and drove to the main post office. The line was long and slow, and by the time she reached the counter she was quite nervous.
“I’m trying to find the person who rented box number 98,” she said to the clerk. Her voice sounded shakey to her, and she wondered if it was obvious to the woman behind the counter.
“We can’t give out that information,” the woman said.
Juliet wasn’t surprised, but she was a bit disappointed. She went directly to box number 98 and looked inside and saw that it was full. He’ll come soon, she thought. And if he doesn’t then I’ll just wait until he does.
She didn’t have to wait long.
He came at eleven. She saw him coming down the street through the window, saw him stroll toward her, saw him glance at the jeep and move closer to it and look inside at Max. She could tell by the way that his shoulders stiffened that he recognized him, and he must have made a noise of some kind because suddenly Max abandoned his bone and leapt at the window and began to bark and bark. The man jumped backward and turned and ran into the post office. He was watching Max still, and so he didn’t see her, and she had a moment or two to hide.
But where?
There was no place, and so she ran to the line before he turned. She got lost there with her back to the door and she waited like that, with her head down, for what seemed like hours instead of only minutes.
When she turned around he was gone.
She ran to Box 98 and looked inside and when she saw that it was empty she ran outside.
The man with the grey cap was nowhere in sight.
He knew now that she was after him. She had made a very, very big mistake. he next day she went back to work.