📗 PART 9 – “The Road Down Ridge Hollow”
The wind had changed.
Not colder, not warmer—just different.
It carried less weight, as if the trees themselves had exhaled.
Agnes stood on the porch with her cane in one hand and Echo’s leash in the other.
The leash was old—Bear’s, faded leather with a brass clip dulled by time.
It looked too big for Echo, but he didn’t seem to mind.
He just sat there, tail sweeping the steps, eyes locked on hers like he already knew where they were going.
“It’s time you met him,” she said.
And together, they walked down Ridge Hollow Road.
The trail was slick in places—melting snow, soft mud.
Agnes took her time.
Echo darted ahead, then circled back every few yards, never straying too far.
Always checking.
Just like Bear used to.
At the base of the ridge, they turned toward the clearing beneath the old oak tree.
The shovel marks were gone now.
Snow and earth had settled.
The wind had smoothed everything out.
But Agnes knew the place.
Knew it like a scar on her own hand.
She knelt slowly, one hand on her knee, the other resting on the mound.
Echo sat beside her, unusually still for a pup.
“He’s here, boy,” she whispered.
“Right here.”
She let the silence settle between them, heavy and soft.
Then she began to talk.
Not to Echo.
Not just to herself.
But to both of them.
She told the story of the storm—
How Bear dragged the feed sack full of kittens across the snow, feet bleeding.
She told the story of the fire—
How he pulled her from the smoke and wouldn’t leave her side for days.
She told the story of the copperhead—
How he lunged between her and death without a second’s thought.
And finally, she told the last story.
“There were two little girls,” she said, her voice cracking slightly.
“Alone. Crying. And Bear… he didn’t wait for me. He just ran.”
Echo crept closer, laid his chin on her boot.
Agnes smiled faintly.
“I think you’ve got some of him in you.”
She reached into her coat and pulled out the framed drawing Molly had given her.
Set it down gently against the tree.
“They remembered him,” she said.
“That’s what matters.”
They sat there a long time.
No noise but the wind and the distant sound of a woodpecker tapping out rhythm on a dead pine.
Agnes didn’t say much more.
She didn’t need to.
Because the stories had been told.
The memory passed down.
And Echo had listened.
In the way dogs listen—with stillness, breath, and presence.
As the sun dropped behind the ridge, they stood to leave.
Agnes took one last look at the mound, brushed the leaves from the frame.
“Goodnight, Bear,” she whispered.
“I’ll see you in the morning wind.”
Then she turned, and Echo followed.
Not behind her—beside her.
Not like a shadow.
But like a beginning.