Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay by Babette Jongh (best fantasy books to read TXT) 📕

slowly slid the strap of Abby’s sundress back up onto her shoulder. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll restart the dishwasher.”

* * *

Wolf woke in complete darkness. The smell of his friend Georgia lingered in the leaves beside his nose. The wound in his side stung as if he was being attacked by a nest-full of angry, stinging hornets. His mouth, even his body, felt hot and dry. He needed water.

He staggered to his feet and stumbled toward the road’s edge; maybe some dew had collected on the grass.

He spotted a flash of red in the cloud-dimmed moonlight; a bucket of water next to a pie pan full of dog food in the place where Abby had been feeding him. Wolf gratefully lapped up as much water as he could hold, then scarfed down the food. Replete but still in pain, he thought of Georgia’s insistence that he should come to the farm and ask for help—or had that been a fever dream?

No. It had been real. She’d said the gate to the farm would be left open, and it was, the black-painted metal gleaming dully in the dark. Wolf wanted help. He needed help. But something held him back. He wanted to deserve help, not just to ask for it without giving anything back. He limped across the darkened street and looked down the drive toward the farmhouse.

What could he do to help Abby so maybe she would want to help him, too, even more than she already had? He’d been taught tricks that made his family happy. He knew sit, stay, bark, and no bark. He knew shake, leave it, and no, stop! He knew bang-bang, which always came with a hand signal that mimicked a shooting gun, something the alpha’s friends liked to do in the field behind the house.

When the alpha gave the bang-bang command, Wolf would fling himself to the ground and roll to his back, paws in the air. Then he’d close his eyes and let his tongue loll, and lie very still while the alpha’s friends laughed and laughed.

But he couldn’t do bang-bang for Abby if she didn’t give him the signal, and she wouldn’t know about that. It was something only the alpha and his friends knew about. None of Wolf’s tricks would work unless Abby asked him to do them first.

The moon floated out from behind the shredded clouds, and Wolf noticed something lying in the driveway: a dew-wet roll of paper, the same kind he’d been taught to bring to the alpha’s wife every morning. She liked to cut the paper into little squares that she kept inside a leather bag. She took the bag with the paper squares inside it everywhere she went, so Wolf knew that the work he did in bringing the paper was important and appreciated.

This paper had been run over and smashed flat many times. The alpha’s wife liked her papers to be smooth and dry, with leafy sheets that crinkled. This mass of waterlogged paper had fused into a wet lump. But who knew why people liked the things they liked, and whether Abby would prefer her paper dry, the way the alpha’s wife had, or whether she liked a soggy and soft roll like this one.

Wolf, himself, preferred the soggy and soft kind; they felt squishy and bubbly in his mouth, while the dry kind had a sharp taste that made his tongue prickle. Wolf picked up the roll of paper, holding it gently so it wouldn’t fall apart. He limped down the driveway, taking short steps so the wound in his side didn’t hurt so much.

The windows in the front of the house were dark, but the ones that faced the pool all radiated light. He crept onto the back patio, worried that Abby would see him in the circle of lights that illuminated the salty pool’s blue waters. But she didn’t notice him; she and the sad man were standing in the kitchen, so close together that they looked like they were trying to become one big person.

Wolf padded as close to the entryway as he dared, close enough to smell the comings and goings of many feet, and laid the long lump of paper there. In the morning when Abby found the paper, maybe then she’d be happy, and maybe then she would decide that Wolf was worthy to receive more than the generous offerings of food and water she had already given him.

He didn’t hope to belong, or to be part of the family, as Georgia was. But he did hope that at least the next time Abby saw him, she wouldn’t chase him away.

Wolf wondered where Georgia was, and as if his thoughts had called to hers, she ran through a small, flap-covered opening in one of the doors. She gave a happy barroo and danced on her back legs, licking at Wolf’s mouth.

He backed up. “Shhh. Don’t warn the humans that I’m here.”

But it was too late. At Georgia’s happy yodel, the humans sprang apart and looked out the big windows that filled an entire wall from the floor almost to the ceiling.

Wolf ran into the safety of darkness.

Chapter 8

First thing Monday morning, Abby opened the sliding glass door and stepped outside—onto a wet, smashed wad of newsprint that squelched under her bare foot. “What on earth?”

Georgia sniffed the paper with great interest.

“Did you do this?” Abby asked the dog.

Georgia continued to sniff the paper. Then, making some sort of decision, she threw herself shoulder down onto the squishy mass and rolled, just once, before hopping up and shaking herself.

“Little dog,” Abby said, “why you do the things you do is a mystery.”

You’re a mystery to me, too. The words popped into Abby’s head. She looked down at Georgia, who was giving Abby an intense stare.

Abby laughed and reached down to pet Georgia. “You’re right, I’m sure. Sometimes, I’m a mystery to myself.”

Of course, Abby knew that the words she’d thought of were just as likely to be her