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By Root 868 0

did. He always stood to greet me, and when I left, he politely walked me to the gate. Other than those two rituals, he didn’t seem to notice my existence. I talked to him sometimes, but he never even tilted his head. He ignored me. I still had the bite mark on my wrist from the day my sister died. The bite had faded, but when I ran my hand over my skin, I could feel it. That following spring I turned twelve. I learned how to make rhubarb pie with a fine crust and how to read Latin. I cut my hair short, and it was a scandal. Everyone was talking about it, but by summer most of the girls in town had followed my lead. Now when I went to the cemetery, Topsy was there by the gate, waiting for me at four o’clock. He could tell time it seemed, and when I was late, he always looked put out. As we walked to my sister’s grave I told him what was going on in town, bits of gossip and news. Not that he cared. I told him I couldn’t sleep at night, and that I had started swimming in the Eel River, even though I knew I would never be as strong a swimmer as Sara.

One afternoon when there was so much pollen the air itself seemed yellow, Billy Kelly came down the path. I was reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which thrilled me, not only the story but the fact that a woman had been daring enough to write it. We had a new library in town and I was there nearly every week, stopping on my way to visit Sara. The librarian had hesitated when I checked out Frankenstein. I said, “Don’t worry. I’m not afraid of words.” Sometimes I read aloud. Now I looked up from my book and there was Billy. He was staring at Topsy. Topsy stared back at him.

“You’d think he’d have died out in the cold,” Billy remarked.

As far as I knew Billy had never come out here before. Perhaps his mother had filled his head with some nonsense about disease reaching out from beyond the grave. Perhaps he simply didn’t have the heart for such visits.

“He’s stubborn,” I said. When Topsy gave me a baleful look, I added, “All pugs are. It’s the nature of the breed.”

“Do you think it’s in your best interest to spend so much time out here?” Billy asked me. It was then I realized that people in town were talking about me, thinking I was odd.

“I wasn’t thinking about my best interest,” I said quietly.

Billy went away, but I stayed until dark. I didn’t want to have dinner with the family or speak to anyone, although that night Hannah slipped into my bed the way she used to when she was younger. We were a bit closer, but we were very different. I didn’t tell her to leave, but I turned to the wall. I spent more time at the library. I had decided I wanted to further my schooling, perhaps attend Smith College, and Hannah now came to the library with me. There was another baby in the house, and the Kellys seemed to have taken over. It was noisy and hectic even for Hannah. For me, it was like being in a madhouse where I was being driven out of my mind by all the diapers and dinners and laundry and people who meant something to each other but nothing to me.

When you read, the time flies by, and before I knew it I was fifteen, then sixteen, nearly a woman. I was tall, and I kept my hair cut short. People said I looked like Sara, but they were mistaken. Sara had been beautiful. All I had was the name she had given me, and Topsy. He was more than twenty by then, ancient. He had difficulty getting up but he still waited for me every day at four, still walked me back to the edge of the cemetery when I left. He never once set foot outside the gate. Never ventured onto the road. Sometimes the weather prevented me from bringing him his supper. During one bad storm I couldn’t get there for several days when the snowdrifts rose higher than our windows and doors. I was certain he’d be gone because of the circumstances, starved or buried alive. But when I finally managed to get out to the cemetery, Topsy was waiting. He’d found a den of sorts in an oak tree and had managed to make it through. He let me pet him now and then, and when I spoke, he turned his head in my direction, though I could tell