“Did Mr. Bowditch give you those?”
She nodded and looked down at them with her version of a smile.
“Are they your for-best?” It seemed to me they must be, because they were spandy-clean, as if they’d just come out of the box.
She nodded, pointed at me, then pointed at the sneakers: I wore them for you.
“Thank you, Dora.”
Her eyebrows appeared to be melting into her forehead, but she raised what was left of them and pointed in the direction I’d come from. “Zee?”
“I don’t get you.”
She turned to her workshop and got her little chalkboard. She erased the squares indicating the house and barn she must have showed the young man and woman, then printed in big capital letters: LEAH. She considered this, thinking, then added:?
“Yes,” I said. “The goose girl. I saw her. Thank you for letting us stay the night. Tomorrow we’ll be on our way.”
She patted her chest above her heart, pointed to Radar, pointed to me, then raised her hands in an encompassing gesture. My house is your house.
5
We had more stew, this time accompanied by chunks of rough bread. Rough, but delicious. We ate by candlelight, and Radar got her share. Before I let her have it, I took the bottle of pills from my backpack and sank two of them in the gravy. Then, thinking about how far we had to go, I put in a third one. I couldn’t get over the idea that when I was giving them to her, I was robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Dora pointed to them and cocked her head.
“They’re supposed to help her. We’ve got a long way to go, and she’s not as strong as she used to be. She thinks she is, but she isn’t. When they’re gone, I guess—”
Another of those drawn-out howls came from the far side of the road. It was joined by another, then a third. They were incredibly loud, rising to screams that made me want to grit my teeth. Radar raised her head but didn’t bark, just uttered a faint growl that came from deep in her chest.
“Wolfies,” I said.
Dora nodded, crossed her arms over her bosom, and gripped her shoulders. She gave an exaggerated shiver.
More wolves joined in. If they kept that up all night, I didn’t think I’d be getting much rest before beginning my journey. I don’t know if Dora read my mind or it just seemed that way. In either case, she rose and motioned me to come to the round window. She pointed skyward. She was short and didn’t have to bend to look up, but I did. What I saw was another shock to my system in a day that had been a steady parade of them.
The clouds had parted in a long rift. In the river of sky that was revealed I could see two moons, one bigger than the other. They seemed to race through the void. The big one was very big. I didn’t need a telescope to see the craters, valleys, and canyons on its ancient surface. It looked ready to fall on us. Then the rift closed. The wolves stopped howling, and I mean immediately. It was as if they had been broadcasting through a giant amplifier and someone had pulled the plug.
“Does that happen every night?”
She shook her head, spread her hands, then pointed to the clouds. She was good at communicating with her gestures and the few words she could write, but that one escaped me.
6
The only door in the cottage that didn’t lead to the back or front was low and Dora-sized. After she had cleaned up our little supper （shooing me away when I tried to help）， she went in this door and came out five minutes later wearing a nightgown that reached to her bare feet and a kerchief on what remained of her hair. The sneakers were in one hand. She put them carefully—reverently—on a shelf at the head of her bed. There was something else there, and when I asked for a closer look, she held it out to me, obviously reluctant to hand it over. It was a small framed photograph of Mr. Bowditch, holding a puppy who was obviously Radar. Dora held it to her bosom, patted it, then put it back near the sneakers.
She pointed to the little door, then at me. I took my toothbrush and went in. I haven’t seen many privies except in books and a few old movies, but I guessed that even if I’d seen a lot, this one would have been the neatest. There was a tin basin of fresh water and a toilet with a closed wooden lid. There were poppies in a wall vase, giving off their sweet smell of cherries. There was no smell of human waste. Zero.
I washed my hands and face and dried with a small towel embroidered with more butterflies. I dry-brushed my teeth. I was only in the privy for five minutes at most, maybe even not that long, but Dora was fast asleep in her little bed when I came out. Radar was sleeping beside her.