By the time I crest the hill at the highest point of the Murphys’ property, Jonathan is jogging around the side of the barn. I curse him under my breath for dragging me out on a muggy June morning when it’s obvious that I’m an afterthought, but just as I’m about to turn around and head for home, a thin wail pierces the morning calm.
It sounds like an animal in pain, or worse, dying. I hurry down the hill toward the barn, slipping and skidding in my rubber flip-flops as the cries intensify. The Murphys have a small hobby farm: a handful of goats that supply them with milk for their soaps, chickens that lay pretty speckled eggs, a pony named Penny, and a pair of horses they ride on Sunday afternoons. I don’t like the thought of any of them suffering.
When I round the far corner of the large barn, I almost crash into Jonathan. He’s crouching in the shade, arms wrapped around a hunched form. It takes me a moment to realize that he’s holding Beth, rubbing her back in slow circles like Mom used to do. Her dark head is bowed. She’s sobbing.
“Thanks for coming, June.” Cal’s hand lands heavy on my shoulder and I jump. I hadn’t realized he was standing with his back against the wide, shadowed side of the barn. “I was hoping you could take Beth inside and fix her a cup of coffee while Jonathan and I bury the body.”
“What?” I jerk and feel Cal’s hand fall away. It lands on a spade that’s propped beside him. A nip of premonition lifts the fine hairs on my arm.
“Jonathan didn’t tell you?”
“I didn’t know,” Jonathan says over his shoulder. “I couldn’t make out what Beth was saying when she called.”
As I stare at my brother, I realize that he and Beth are kneeling in front of something. It’s a dark mass curled into a half moon and hidden in the gloom cast by the tall barn, but twin tufts of white help the picture slide into focus. There are markings on his paws and a milky plume on his muscular chest. Baxter. I’m looking at Baxter, one of the Murphys’ beloved border collies. He’s one of a pair—I never see Baxter without Betsy, his twin. But I don’t have to ask where she is. In the beat of silence while I work out the scene before me, I can hear her whining and barking from inside the house.
“What happened?” I choke, stumbling backward a step. My head swims, and my stomach, too. I press a hand to my chest and gulp a ragged breath. It’s obvious even at a glance that Baxter is dead. He’s lying on his side, legs stiff in front of his body and stomach obscenely distended. The bloody froth around his mouth makes everything inside me twist and buck, and I have to look away.
“He was poisoned!” Beth pushes herself to her feet and spins to face me, eyes swollen and wild.
Cal shakes his head. “We don’t know that.”
Jonathan stands slowly, settling his hands on his hips. He catches my gaze. The message in his blue eyes is pointed, but for once I don’t know what he’s trying to tell me. Suddenly, I realize that I can smell Baxter. Rotten fish, a whiff of garlic. My heart quivers high and insistent beneath my collarbone and my lips tingle. The ground sways, but nobody else seems to notice.
“Come on, Beth. June is going to take you inside and make a pot of coffee,” Cal says, wrapping one arm around his wife and brushing his lips against her forehead. “Take one of your heart pills, okay? And give Betsy a hug. She needs it.”
Jonathan takes Beth by the elbow and motions to me. “Her heart pills are on the windowsill above the sink,” he tells me as he leads us toward the house. It’s postcard perfect: crisp, clean white with black shutters and a cheerful profusion of multicolored flowers spilling from window boxes. But behind the slanted roof I can see dark clouds rimmed in black. A storm is coming. The sky rumbles with thunder in the distance as Beth pulls away from us. When she’s out of earshot, Jonathan says, “Cal and I will bury Baxter. All you have to do is make sure Beth is okay.”
“But—”
“For once in your life, Juniper Grace, just do it.”
I cross my arms over my chest and take a step away from Jonathan. Something has shifted in him between the moment he came into my bedroom less than an hour before and now. He knew something was wrong at the Murphys’， but he hadn’t been expecting this.
“What happened?” I say it quietly, but Jonathan’s eyes dart to where Beth has just put her hand on the farmhouse door. She pauses with her palm against the lacquered wood, then sets her shoulders and slips inside. I can see Betsy framed in the narrow gap for just a second or two, her black-and-white body wriggling against Beth and trying to get past. To get to Baxter. The door snaps shut.