Sylvie
A yell in the dark, and Winslow bounds toward me.
“Sit!” I tell him, trying not to cry. And he does, his eyes full of dog regret, the gnome still in his mouth. I grab his leash quickly.
The yell again, louder this time. Just vowels, no words.
“Hello?” I call out toward the woods, toward where I saw the boy disappear. “Hello, I—I don’t know your name? Are you okay?”
“No,” the boy calls back. There’s strain in his voice. “I’m not okay.”
“Let me just put Winslow in the car and I’ll come find you! Don’t move!”
In the van, I grab my flashlight and the first aid kit under my sink. Winslow curls up on the duvet, exhausted by his stupid short adventure.
“Hello!” I call out again.
“Here!”
My flashlight stripes the dark. “Hello!” I call again, like the Marco in Marco Polo.
“Here!”
He’s cradling himself. I couldn’t see him before in the dark and I can’t really see him now, but I can tell from here that his forearm looks . . . wrong.
“Oh my God. Your arm?”
“Yeah,” he says, and then he looks at me. Blue eyes. Bitten lip. Dirt on his face from the fall. “Winslow’s leash was tangled up and I got him loose and he started to run and I ate it trying to get his leash again.”
“We gotta get you to the ER.” With my help, we start shambling back toward the van. I’m babbling. “I’m so sorry, my dog is such an idiot, this is the second time he’s bolted tonight and I’m beginning to think it was a bad idea to bring him but otherwise I’d be alone—”
“It’s okay,” he says quietly.
I’m trying not to cry, because I don’t want to make this about me, but also I am going to cry. “That’s nice of you to say,” I tell him. “I’m going to make everything more okay than it is right now. Um. What’s your name?”
I turn the flashlight on his arm, and then I turn it off. He looks down at himself and shakes his head in a gentle way, like maybe someone turned off a show he was watching. Not like I just went and got his arm broken.
“I’m ’Mun—Knox,” he says. “Knox Rayburn.”
Why did he stumble? What was he going to say? And then it takes me another second, because it sounds like he’s saying nox. Nighttime.
“I’m Sylvie Blake. I guess—I guess we can’t really shake hands right now, can we?”
“No,” he says. “Guess not.” And impossibly, he smiles.