Ellie's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Ellie was eleven, and she had six feet of dirt between herself and the dog. She crouched in the ferns behind her grandmother's house, overalls damp at the knees, red bandana slipping loose from her bun. The dog stood in the pine needles at the edge of the creek path — a black and tan dachshund with a silky coat and a red bandana of her own tied at the neck. Someone had tied that bandana. Someone who wasn't Ellie. The dog looked at her, went still, and ran. Ellie sat back on her heels and pulled beef jerky from her pocket. She'd taken it from her grandmother's pantry four times now. Four trips into the woods, four handfuls of jerky, and her grandmother had watched her leave through the kitchen window every time and said nothing. That was the part that bothered her. Her grandmother noticed the wet towel on the wrong hook. She noticed a chair moved an inch. She did not miss a granddaughter slipping into the trees with stolen meat, unless she was choosing to miss it. Ellie tore the jerky into strips and laid it on a broad leaf beside a piece of bacon she'd saved from breakfast. She set the leaf on a flat stump where the dog could see it from the ferns. Then she backed off ten steps and sat down. The dog came out slow, one paw at a time, the red bandana bright against the dark of her coat. She ate the bacon first. She ate the jerky next. She did not run. When she finished, she looked at Ellie across the clearing and lay down in the pine needles, six feet turned into four. Ellie walked back through the trees with her pockets empty. Her grandmother was on the porch shelling peas into a bowl. She did not look up when Ellie climbed the steps. "You're feeding her bacon now," her grandmother said. Ellie stopped on the top step. "You know about the dog." "I know about the dog." Her grandmother set the bowl on her lap. "Sit down, Ellie. There's something about that dog I should have told you a week ago."