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Authors: Dean Koontz
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throat and lungs.
No. The game with the slippers could not have been for the purpose of reminding her of that long-ago conversation about dream-walking in the woods.
This new dog was just a dog, nothing more. In the storms of this world, a way forward can always be found, but there is no way back either to a time of peace or to a time of tempest.
To the observant, all dogs have an air of mystery, an inner life deeper than science will concede, but whatever the true nature of their minds or the condition of their souls, they are limited to the wisdom of their kind, and each is shaped by the experiences of its one life.
Nevertheless, the slippers now under her pillow reminded her of another pair of slippers, and the recollected words replayed in her mind:
I have to wear slippers to bed so I won’t be walking barefoot through the woods in my dream.
Ethel had begun to snore softly. Fred was a quiet sleeper except when he dreamed of chasing or of being chased.
The longer Amy lay listening for Nickie’s rhythmic breathing, the more she began to suspect that the dog was awake, and not just awake but also watching her in the dark.
Although Amy’s weariness did not abate, the possibility of sleep receded from her.
At last, unable to stifle her curiosity any longer, she reached out to where the dog was curled, expecting that her suspicion would not be confirmed, that Nickie would be fully settled.
Instead, in the gloom, her hand found the burly head, which was in fact raised and turned toward her, as if the dog were a sentinel on duty.
Holding its left ear, she gently massaged the tragus with her thumb, while her fingertips rubbed the back of the ear where it met the skull. If anything would cause a dog to purr like a cat, this was it, and Nickie submitted to the attention with palpable pleasure.
After a while, the golden lowered her head, resting her chin on Amy’s abdomen.
I have to wear slippers to bed so I won’t be walking barefoot through the woods in my dream.
In self-defense, Amy had long ago raised the drawbridge between these memories and her heart, but now they swam across the moat.
If it’s just a dream woods, why wouldn’t the ground be soft?
It’s soft but it’s cold.
It’s a winter woods, is it?
Uh-huh. Lots of snow.
So dream yourself a summer woods.
I like the snow.
Then maybe you should wear boots to bed.
Maybe I should.
And thick woolen socks and long johns.
As Amy’s heart began to race, she tried to shut out the voices in her mind. But her heart pounded like a fist on a door: memory demanding an audience.
She petted the furry head resting on her abdomen and, as defense against memories too terrible to revisit, she instead summoned into mind the many dogs that she had rescued, the abused and abandoned dogs, hundreds over the years. Victims of human indifference, of human cruelty, they had been physically and emotionally broken when they came to her, but so often they had been restored in body and mind, made jubilant again, brought back to golden glory.
She lived for the dogs.
In the dark she murmured lines from a poem by Robert Frost, which in grim times had sustained her: “‘The woods are lovely, dark, and deep. But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep.’”
Head resting on Amy’s abdomen, Nickie dozed.
Now Amy Redwing, not this mysterious dog, was the sentinel on duty. Gradually her heart stopped pounding, stopped racing, and all was still and dark and as it should be.
Chapter
14
A t the windows, dawn descended, pressing darkness down and westward, and away.
Traffic noise began to arise from the street, the wheels of commerce and occasionally a far voice.
On the kitchen table lay the drawing of Nickie and two studies, from memory, of her eyes. The second study included less surrounding facial structure than the first.
Brian had begun a third study. This one involved only the eyes in their deep sockets, the space
No. The game with the slippers could not have been for the purpose of reminding her of that long-ago conversation about dream-walking in the woods.
This new dog was just a dog, nothing more. In the storms of this world, a way forward can always be found, but there is no way back either to a time of peace or to a time of tempest.
To the observant, all dogs have an air of mystery, an inner life deeper than science will concede, but whatever the true nature of their minds or the condition of their souls, they are limited to the wisdom of their kind, and each is shaped by the experiences of its one life.
Nevertheless, the slippers now under her pillow reminded her of another pair of slippers, and the recollected words replayed in her mind:
I have to wear slippers to bed so I won’t be walking barefoot through the woods in my dream.
Ethel had begun to snore softly. Fred was a quiet sleeper except when he dreamed of chasing or of being chased.
The longer Amy lay listening for Nickie’s rhythmic breathing, the more she began to suspect that the dog was awake, and not just awake but also watching her in the dark.
Although Amy’s weariness did not abate, the possibility of sleep receded from her.
At last, unable to stifle her curiosity any longer, she reached out to where the dog was curled, expecting that her suspicion would not be confirmed, that Nickie would be fully settled.
Instead, in the gloom, her hand found the burly head, which was in fact raised and turned toward her, as if the dog were a sentinel on duty.
Holding its left ear, she gently massaged the tragus with her thumb, while her fingertips rubbed the back of the ear where it met the skull. If anything would cause a dog to purr like a cat, this was it, and Nickie submitted to the attention with palpable pleasure.
After a while, the golden lowered her head, resting her chin on Amy’s abdomen.
I have to wear slippers to bed so I won’t be walking barefoot through the woods in my dream.
In self-defense, Amy had long ago raised the drawbridge between these memories and her heart, but now they swam across the moat.
If it’s just a dream woods, why wouldn’t the ground be soft?
It’s soft but it’s cold.
It’s a winter woods, is it?
Uh-huh. Lots of snow.
So dream yourself a summer woods.
I like the snow.
Then maybe you should wear boots to bed.
Maybe I should.
And thick woolen socks and long johns.
As Amy’s heart began to race, she tried to shut out the voices in her mind. But her heart pounded like a fist on a door: memory demanding an audience.
She petted the furry head resting on her abdomen and, as defense against memories too terrible to revisit, she instead summoned into mind the many dogs that she had rescued, the abused and abandoned dogs, hundreds over the years. Victims of human indifference, of human cruelty, they had been physically and emotionally broken when they came to her, but so often they had been restored in body and mind, made jubilant again, brought back to golden glory.
She lived for the dogs.
In the dark she murmured lines from a poem by Robert Frost, which in grim times had sustained her: “‘The woods are lovely, dark, and deep. But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep.’”
Head resting on Amy’s abdomen, Nickie dozed.
Now Amy Redwing, not this mysterious dog, was the sentinel on duty. Gradually her heart stopped pounding, stopped racing, and all was still and dark and as it should be.
Chapter
14
A t the windows, dawn descended, pressing darkness down and westward, and away.
Traffic noise began to arise from the street, the wheels of commerce and occasionally a far voice.
On the kitchen table lay the drawing of Nickie and two studies, from memory, of her eyes. The second study included less surrounding facial structure than the first.
Brian had begun a third study. This one involved only the eyes in their deep sockets, the space
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