She laid her head on my shoulder and stared at nothing, same as me. “What kind? A clue to what?”
“That’s just it—I don’t know. A clue to what might wake him up, I guess. Something I could say. Something that was important to him.”
“His butt was important to him,” she said. “A source of endless fascination.”
I had to smile.
That’s when it happened. That’s when he yelped, ever so slightly, and his paw twitched.
I looked at Lisa and she looked back. And then my hand was on him and we were running—Puck and I—down cobblestone lanes lined with streetlamps and through pools of foggy light; through tides of rusted Maple leaves, which leapt and swirled as we passed.
“What is it?” I heard Lisa say, her voice growing smaller, more distant. “What do you see?”
I turned to look at Puck as we ran
