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The dogs were neither noisy nor silent, neither idle nor busy. They snored and sighed, coughed, scratched, and snapped at buzzing passersby. They stood and stretched, ambled to the bushes to lift a leg or crouch, returned to shade or tall grass to circle and settle again. They smelled one another lazily, chewed on the grass, lifted their chins to follow the motion of a bird or a scent on the wind. Ruth passed whole days among them, floating through time like it was warm water.
In the days after Easter’s departure, Ruth took note of the greening trees and began to look forward to the coming summer afternoons. But her anticipation was undercut with dread, too, for the pack was dwindling fast. When Ruth first arrived in Dogtown, there were nearly twenty-five dogs in the hills, living like a nearby but separate neighborhood, at peace with the people next door—a little standoffish, perhaps, but friendly enough. By the time Easter moved to Gloucester, there were no more than eight of them left, and those few were bony and mangy.
That spring, Ruth caught sight of the last breeding-age female, waddling and swollen with puppies, and hoped there might yet be a future for the pack. But the litter was stillborn and the mother lost too much blood in her labors and died as well. Ruth found little Brindle’s body in the woods a few weeks later, his ribs showing beneath his dull, dusty fur: she buried him where he lay.
In August she counted the last six dogs, sprawled in their sun-baked pasture overlooking the sea. Ruth turned at the sound of a rasping sigh, and watched as Brownie sank gently into death, as if the earth were welcoming his body home.
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Tan got to her feet immediately and padded to Brownie’s side, where she lay down with her head on her paws. Ruth knew that she was mourning her companion, though not in the manner of men and women, who make much of
themselves when death takes a loved one. Her sorrow seemed purely selfless by comparison. The other dogs made a show of shaking their coats and sneezing before they walked into the forest, leaving Tan to absorb her loss alone.
Ruth fetched a shovel so that she would not have to watch the crows pick Brownie’s body clean. Tan was still there when she returned but walked away when she started to dig a small oval hole, which hugged the curled-up corpse in a neat embrace.
The blue of the sea caught Ruth’s eye as she wiped the dirt from her hands, and she felt an involuntary shiver of pleasure at being alive. She was not quite one of the dogs, she thought, kneeling to arrange a cairn of stones on top of the freshly turned earth. It felt good to finish something properly, even if it was something as inconsequential as piling rocks over the bones of a wild dog.
As she bedded down that night, Ruth felt the dirt of the grave under her nails, and listened to the silence left by Easter’s absence, regretting again that she had not said a proper thank-you. She closed her eyes and summoned up her landlady’s impish face and wondered, though it had only been a few months, whether Easter still walked the earth. Ruth hated to think of that pleasant spirit trapped forever in a narrow wooden box.
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Had Ruth tried to find out, she would have discovered that there was no cause to worry about Easter: she had flourished from her first day at the tavern. Her fond smile could still melt the ice off a pump, and she knew how to make the dullest fellow feel so clever, he’d order another draught just to remain close to the glow of her attention.
Easter had a talent for making out a person’s mood, knowing when to comfort a lonesome traveler and when to back away from a black mood. She understood that most people needed only a semblance of interest, and that some men got downright testy if she paid too much attention, suspecting her of trying to catch them in a lie.
There were times that Easter missed being the
mistress—especially when Louisa Tuttle gave her the evil eye for pocketing a little bonus from some grateful fellow. But all in all, she was as happy as she’d been in twenty years.
Easter was a favorite with the regulars, who loved her stories and jokes. And she had many pets among the sailors and merchants and farmers, with a soft spot for handsome faces. When the greenest eyes she’d ever seen stopped at her counter, she fluttered right over to see what he’d drink.
His name was Robert Newell, and a fetching lock of brown hair curled over his wide forehead. He had nice manners, matched her smile for smile, and made Easter giggle like a girl.
Newell told her that he was a chandler from Ipswich with business in the harbor and an elderly relative on Cape Ann. After he finished his ale, he announced, “I’d better be going. My auntie is waiting supper for me.”
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“Too bad,” said Easter, who had forgotten herself completely and laid her weathered hand on top of his.
“Well, I wouldn’t say no to a cup of tea before facing that wind.”
“Will you be wanting me to tell you your fortune?” she purred.