by Raci Ames
She sighed and sat down next to the bowl, hoping the dog would come up for a visit. He’d done so twice before, putting his head in her hand and letting her pat him for a few seconds. She should have been afraid, given that she couldn’t see, but she wasn’t. So far, he’d done nothing but hang around, and Cori said he was sweet looking and seemed harmless.
He came up then, as if her thoughts had conjured him, and nuzzled her hand before eating. His fur was so thick and soft, it trapped her fingers. At first she’d touched him cautiously, sure that he’d be filthy. But he felt surprisingly clean for a stray.
He finished the food, and lapped at the water, then paced a bit, like he was trying to decide what to do next. “You can go, it’s okay,” Pia said, expecting him to set off. Cori had confirmed that it was a boy, but Pia had just sensed that from the start. She laughed at herself for talking to the dog, when for months, she’d avoided talking to everyone She stretched her legs in front of her, using the leverage of the steps to get a kink out of her calf.
She’d finally started running on the treadmill a bit. It helped to manage her anxiety, but mostly it made her miss running outside. Cori had taken her once, but was too slow to be much of a help. So she’d hired a trainer to act as her eyes on the trails. It meant letting someone new into her life and she wasn’t happy about that. She had enough anxiety about Jeremiah coming back. He’d be there in about a week, which gave her seven more days to worry about it. In the meantime, she hoped the benefits of running outdoors would make up for dealing with the trainer.
She sighed, and then smelled that warm cinnamon smell that had become familiar. It made her smile in spited of her nerves. Something round and damp hit the palm of her hand. A tennis ball. That was new. She laughed again as the dog nudged her, dropped the ball at her feet picked it back up with his teeth, and returned it to her fingers again. He we wanted to play fetch. She shrugged and stood, thinking about the layout of the property. Woods to the right, clearing on her left. She through towards the open space and hoped for the best.
Feet scampered off, footsteps lighter than she would have imagined, given the size of the animal.
Seconds later the ball came back to her hand. Giggling, she patted his head and threw in the same direction. They had found a rhythm when a voice interrupted.
"Are you Pia?” a deep voice called out from a few feet away. Immediately the dog stopped playing, sat at her feet, and growled loudly. It wasn't threatening per se, but it was definitely protective.
“Are you Ryan?” Pia asked, keeping a hand on top of the animal’s head.
“Yes,” the voice said, from a bit further away.
“It’s just my running coach,” she said, speaking calmly. “He’s okay. We’ll play fetch again later,” she said, and the animal grunted. Pia felt better about meeting a stranger. Most people were friendly, of course, but now that she couldn’t see she felt so much more vulnerable. The dog’s interference had comforted her.
“Will he bite me if I try to shake your hand?” Ryan asked, walking over and stopping in front of her.
“He’s a stray dog. Seems to like the porch,” Pia said, not bothering to mention the way the animal followed her to and from work.
“Looks more like a wolf to me,” Ryan said, putting his hand out to meet hers. “Though I’ve never seen a red colored one before.” His grip was gentle, his hand was twice the size of hers. And having a wolf around didn’t seem like such a terrible idea at the moment.
Ryan had been better by her parents, and worked at the high school in town. But he was new to her. It was strange that she felt more comfortable with a strange animal than she did with a vetted human, but it was the truth. Ryan quickly let go of her hand.
“How about we start with some short sprints on the clearing, and you can practice changing when I tell you to?” Ryan said.
Bouncing on her feet, Pia got ready, happy to hear the animal moving just a few feet away.
“Left. Now right. One step, Pia,” Ryan said, catching her as she stumbled again. “Unless I tell you otherwise, I’m calculating for you to take one step to adjust when I give you an instruction.”
Pia had gone a bit too far to the left and stumbled on a rock. No damage was done, but it had shaken her confidence. The brush of fur that slipped by for a second restored it. She liked having the dog - or wolf, if that’s what he was - there.
She tried again, slowly at first and then working up to some speed. Ryan had done his research, and this method of training worked pretty well.
“I’m ready to try some distance, I think,” she said nervously.
“Okay. Good. It’s different on the trail. I’m going to go in front of you and call out the instructions. You need to match my pace and try to run on the same foot.”
“Like marching for the army?” Pia asked.
“Exactly.”
“Lead the way.”
Pia shuffled behind Ryan, and he started at a pace she could easily keep up with. She started on her left foot, as he instructed, and she concentrated on his voice as he told her when to step. Directions were given intermittently and she found herself following easily when he sent her left or right to follow a rock. As they gained distance, she learned to concentrate on the sound of his feet, and the way the dirt vibrated when they pounded the path. His voice faded into the background and she settled into the peaceful place that she loved about running.
She missed her music, but there was no way to have earphones and listen to Ryan’s voice at the same time, so she shifted her attention to the sounds of the forest, trees shivering, animals communicating. She tuned into the direction of each noise, and followed it in her mind, piecing together a picture of what the forest looked like in the full bloom of summer.
The best sounds of all, were the one’s made by the four feet keeping pace about thirty feet behind her.
Pia rested on the couch icing her knee. Cori had cleaned her cuts while her mother paced and fussed about canceling Pia’s running lessons. Her mother wasn’t a woman who cleaned up blood. That had always been a job for the various nannies who had been in her life.
“I want Ryan to come back. This wasn’t his fault.” She winced as Cori poured on the iodine, trying to minimize the pain on her face so that her mother would stop worrying. “Really things had been going well, we did sprints in the clearing and got about a mile down the trail before I fell.”
“You’re lucky you weren’t hurt worse. This isn’t really a big deal, Cynthia,” Cori said, attempting to be positive for Pia’s mother. “The benefits she’ll get from running really will be worth it.”
“Mother, I fell a hundred times before the fire, and you didn’t worry like this,” Pia said, keeping her voice free of the negative emotion that bubbled in her chest.
“Yes well I know that dear. But you weren’t blind then.” Pia heard Corey’s sigh and managed to refrain from making the same frustrated noise herself. Cynthia Matthews wasn’t known for biting her tongue around her family. She saved most of her polite communication for the various fundraising committees that she ran around Woodland Creek.
“I’m not going to stop,” Pia said defensively. But just Mrs. Matthews cell phone rang. She answered sweetly, differently than the way she spoke to Pia, and left the room.
“That’s good Pia. Really it is. I’m proud of you,” Cori said. In times like these she praised Pia like she would any of her other patients. Mostly Pia was unlikely to get to get that kind of support from her parents.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” Pia whispered, not wanting her mother to overhear. “I would’ve fallen a lot harder but the dog was behind us, I guess, and he got under me and he caught me. Again.”
“What do you mean again?” Cori asked.
“I think he’s the same dog who caught me when I felt the first time.”
“I don’t know. That happened so fast that day, I didn’t get a good look at him. But that’s amazing if it’s true. I guess he feels protecti
ve of you. Like a watchdog.”
“Except that I don’t think that he’s a dog. According to Ryan, he’s a wolf.”
Cori had pulled up information about wolves on her phone, paging through the images until she found a small red one that looked familiar. “This picture looks a lot like him, but red wolves are extremely rare, almost extinct actually. And they’re not usually found around these parts.”
“Well we do have our share of unique animals around here, although never on our property. My dad has traps set up everywhere, and the caretakers have his permission to shoot on command.” Pia said.
“That’s... intense for someone who lives so close to the woods. Maybe he’d like a condo or something where that wouldn’t be a concern?”
“No way. He’d never do that. It would be like giving in.”
“Giving in to nature?” Cori asked, confused.
“There are... dangerous animals in the woods and he thinks that they don’t have the right to be there. People do.”
“Seems like you have a protector, in any case. Maybe you’ll start a new trend. Seeing Eye Wolves,” Cori joked.
Pia laughed too, but the idea took root inside her head.
• • • •
Red wolf shifters did not play fetch. He spent his time searching for food, shelter, sleeping and watching Pia. But he’d wanted a way to interact with there, and didn’t have any other ideas. He was happy that it worked, and that she had enjoyed it as well.
So he was all the more unhappy when the stranger approached. They’d never met before and Pia was understandably scared. Even when she’d identified Ryan as safe, Pia remainder guarded. His guilt for starting the fire went deep, especially as he witnessed her experience a stressful situation. His presence provided some amount of comfort, and he wanted to be there for her even more.
He couldn’t protect her from everything. She’d taken a fall, and though he’d zoomed into break her contact with the ground, she still limped away bleeding and. He’d listened outside as Cori cleaned her up, and heard their jokes about a Seeing Eye Wolf. He decided he would find away to do that to make up for starting the fire.
He slept under her porch that night, greeting her the second she came out with food in the morning. The forest provided more than enough food for his simple needs, but he ate what she offered anyway. Human food tasted boring and dead compared to a fresh kill, but the time with her meant more to him than anything else. Especially now that she started speaking to him. He knew people often talked to their pets, but he hoped she did it out of a sense of connection.
“Thank you for saving me yesterday,” she said. “And I know it wasn’t the first time. I’m very lucky you seem to be around when I need you,” she said, looking at him like he could answer. Her gratitude touched him, and he wanted to let her know that.
He tilted his head and blinked, communicating the only way that he could, but she couldn’t see what he was doing. He moved his head under hand, pushing gently until she stroked his fur. Then he sat by her feet, and they stayed in the sun together, just breathing. It was one of the most peaceful mornings of Clark’s life.
From then on, every time she left the house, he followed. After a couple days of walking back-and-forth to the Apothecary with her, he snuck in to a garage they’d passed a few times and stole a leash and harness, and brought it to her in his mouth. He never imagined that he would willingly put on a leash and collar for a girl he hardly knew, but guiding Pia happened effortlessly, and he enjoyed it.
She asked Cori to find out exactly what Seeing Eye Dogs had to do, and Cori found the evaluation. They spent two days running through all of the items on the list, teaching Pia and him how to interact most helpfully. Most dogs required thousands of hours of training, but since Clark was human they got through the list in two days when Pia’s parents were away. Clark worked not to give any indication that he was a shifter, and neither girl seemed to suspect he was anything other than what he seemed.
Pia gave Clark a new name that he loved. She called him Heart because he calmed hers. Cori registered him as Pia’s service animal, and they were waiting on the paperwork to come through. When it did, he would be able to go everywhere that Pia went.
But in spite of Cori’s recommendation and Pia’s pleading, her parents wouldn’t let Clark in the house.
• • • •
Pia got up from the couch and walked around the apartment. This was the first time that she had been alone since moving in two days earlier. She couldn’t believe that her parents had let her move out. She knew she had Jeremiah to thank for that. Cori had a meeting and would be gone for most of the night. They were using it as a trial, because Cori would be gone for good in just four days and she’d be on her own with Heart.
“Blood red, but darker. Like heart blood. Remember that?” Cori had asked. They’d done a semester of dissecting together in med school and she’d been obsessed with that particular shade because it was so unusual. Over and over, she’d attempted to capture it with her phone, taken it to Home Depot, and tried to get them to make paint to match so she could color her walls with it.
She’d wanted to cocoon herself in it’s warmth and intensity and the way the color made her feel safe and warm and alive. So it seemed a fitting name for the animal, who was the first thing since the fire that made her feel like that again.
It was hard to get used to the combination of dark and quiet, but she held off from turning on music or TV. She had always been a person who valued their time alone, and she needed to find peace with it now. She needed that downtime in her life, and it would be especially important when she was running a store.
And she wasn’t really alone. Without other noise, she could hear Heart’s steady breathing from the place where he sat on the floor. Even though she couldn’t see him, she always knew where he was because the heat from his body traveled and he warmed up the whole room just by being there. She knew that he watched her, waiting to see what she might need, and she was so grateful for all of the help he provided, and how much easier everything was with him by her side.
But their bond went deeper than her immediate and specific needs. He helped her dial back the anxiety she felt about being blind in a sighted world. All she had to do was put a hand on his back and feel his steady breaths take her to a place of calmness.
She needed that comfort at the moment, so she sunk slowly to the floor, feeling for the chair and the sofa to sit down between both. The wolf came to her and sat on his haunches, head level with hers. With her legs crossed, they were the same size and if she could see, they’d be eye to eye. She felt his stare for a few seconds before he dipped his head to rest it on her shoulder, indicating her dominance. Pia knew what the gesture meant, but she didn’t feel in charge. She needed him far too much for that.
Listening quietly to his breathing, she matched his ins and outs and appreciated the way he just sat quietly, and didn’t ask anything more of her. Time slowed, and she felt desperate to know what he looked like for herself. Blind people often touched the faces of others to find out what they looked like, but that was something that Pia had shied away from until now.
Now, she wanted to try. “I’m gonna see what you look like, ok?” she asked, putting a gentle hand on top of his head so as not to catch him off guard. Pia considered Heart a calm and loving creature, but he was technically a powerful canine who could hurt her. She had promised Cori to be careful, but more than that, she just wanted to be respectful, so she started out very slowly.
Heart answered her, nudging her skin with his nose and giving her permission to get to know his face. She cupped her hands on the sides of his head, touching the fur that was already familiar to her. The cinnamon smell that she had noticed when he first came around got stronger in the air as she moved her fingers around his scratchy whiskers and up over his cheeks. She moved her fingers up and over the points in his ears gently. She’d avoided them before, based on Cori’s training about how sensitive they were to soun
ds and the environment, but she needed know their shape in order to complete the picture of his face she was building in her mind. She was caught off guard by how soft they were, and the way they twitched under the silky fur.
Heart let out a funny noise, not a bark exactly, but almost like a giggle. She figured it must tickle, so she laughed right back but moved on, in case he didn’t like the sensation after all. Slowly she explored his eyes, taking in the space between them, the delicate eyelashes, and the tufts of thin fur that continued to his snout. His nose was clammy and cold but warmed at her touch. It was the only part of him that didn’t burn under her hands. He felt at least ten degrees hotter than she did.
She explored slowly, absorbing the slight variations of texture and strength, using the differences combined in her mind to create a temperature map. She knew without a doubt that her understanding of his color went deeper than she would have ever comprehended with her eyes. And she also knew that now and forever more she would understand his color as fire.
She moved her fingers faster, following lines of his ribs and his stomach. She went down over his legs, around his tail and up his spine until her hands landed back around his neck. She took in every millimeter of his shape, the number of times his heart beat, and where his blood pulsed quickest under his skin. With her knowledge of medicine and physical systems, she pieced together an electric moving picture of him that went so far beyond anything she would have ever understood with her eyes.
It was literally like she could see inside of him. Overwhelmed by his beauty, and way she could sense him on a cellular level, she closed her eyes and began to cry.
Tears burned down her cheeks. He nudged her under her chin, so that she was more comfortable, and just stayed there, letting the tears go.
