Page 1 (1/2)

STRANGE DOGS

The day after the stick moons appeared, Cara killed a bird

That wasn’t exactly right There had been stickas Cara could reht like burnt orange bones, and in the daytime, they’d been lines of white bent behind the blue In her books, the moon was always a pale disk or a cookie with a bite taken out, but that was Earth’s moon, Luna Laconia was different

So it wasn’t that they had appeared the night before she killed the bird It was only that they lit up red and blue and gold for the first tione out into the yard, staring up into the sky, and she and her little brother, Xan, had followed Her father stood there slack-jawed, looking up Her mother had frowned

The next afternoon, lying in the blue clover by the pond with sunlight warlittering stick ht in the daytihtti like videos of sea creatures As if they were a little bit alive They drifted east to west, high lacy clouds passing underneath the up into the vastness like it had all been put there for her to appreciate

The pond was one of her favorite places to be alone The curve of the forest ran along one side Thick trees with three or four trunks that rose up into a knot before blooer than her body and so thickly packed that a few steps under the into a cave She could find as ht sun as she wanted, whenever she wanted it The blue clover beside the water was softer than her bed at home and had a smell like bruised rain when she laid on it The brook that fed the pond and then flowed back away froentle, randos And there were the anis She could lie there for hours, bringing her own lunch and a handheld to read froames on, away from her parents and Xan Away from the town and the soldiers and Mari Tennanbaum, as her best friend when they weren’t eneest city on Laconia—and the pond was Cara’s place away from it

She was halfway through her tenth year, but this was only her third summer Her mother had explained to her that Laconia moved around its star more slowly than Earth did, and then talked about axial tilt in a way that Cara pretended to understand so they could talk about so else It didn’t matter Summer was summer and birthdays were birthdays The two didn’t have any more relationship than her nut-bread sandwiches had with her shoes Not everything had to be connected

Cara was half asleep when she heard the soft traht at first it was just in her ie the sound into , it didn’t respond She opened eyes she hadn’t realized were closed Bright-blue dots like fireflies fluttered and spun in the air as the first of the doglike things came out of the trees

Its body was long and low, four legs with joints that were put together just a little wrong—like a drawing by sos described to them Its jaw seemed too sles thatlike it before, but that happened fairly often

“Hey,” she said, stretching “What are you?”

The dog paused

“It’s okay,” she said “I’m friendly See?” And she waved

It was hard to be sure with the thing’s eyes set the way they were, but she thought it was looking at her She sat up slowly, trying not to startle it Nothing on Laconia ate people, but soet scared, and her s weren’t safe to approach

The dog looked up, staring at the stick ain at her She felt a wave of disorientation, like being dizzy but different, and then a twinge of uncertainty The dog stepped forward, and two more like it came out from the darkness under the trees Then two more

On the pond, a sunbird hissed, lifting its leathery wings to reenish teeth Its fury-twisted face looked like a cartoon of an old woman, and half a dozen new-hatched babies darted behind her The first dog turned to look at the momma bird and made three sharp sounds: ki-ka-ko The other four picked up the sound Mo until flecks of saliva foamed at the curves of her mouth The ki-ka-ko cry echoed in a way that didn’t match the space around the pond It made Cara’s head ache a little She levered herself up to her knees, partly out of fear that the dogs et killed, butthat sound Her lunch pack and her handheld tus went quiet and turned their attention toward her, and she had the sense thatafter all

She stepped between the dogs and the water’s edge Moain, but it sees drifted closer,around her like children around a teacher She knew in a distant way that she should probably be scared Even if the dogs didn’t eat people, they could still attack her for getting between them and their prey She didn’t knohy she felt that they wouldn’t

“You can’t be here right now,” she said