Part 4 – The Ghost That Stayed
Setting: Early November | Ashland, Kentucky
Junebug stopped eating her kibble.
At first, it was just a few skipped meals. Then came the sighs. The way she lingered in doorways. The way she looked past people, like she was listening for something none of them could hear.
Jolene noticed first.
“She didn’t touch breakfast,” she said one morning, setting the bowl down again anyway.
“She’s just tired,” Clara said. “We both are.”
Jolene didn’t argue. Not out loud. But her hands were shaking as she folded laundry later that day.
Outside, the last of the maple leaves let go.
Ashland’s sky had turned the color of wet stone. Wind whispered through the gutters like someone telling secrets in a language you’d forgotten how to speak.
Junebug lay by the sliding glass door, head resting on her front paws.
She didn’t twitch at the sound of squirrels anymore. Didn’t chase the wind like she used to. She just… waited.
Clara sat next to her on the rug, drawing in a spiral-bound notebook she kept under her bed. Her hand moved slowly, carefully.
When she was done, she tore the page out and slid it under Junebug’s paw.
A picture.
Of the two of them. In the rain.
Junebug looked down at it, then up at Clara. And wagged once.
That Tuesday, they arrived at the clinic early.
The waiting room was empty, dim in the morning light.
Even the receptionist’s usual smile was quieter.
“Dr. Whitmore will see you in a minute,” she said.
Clara nodded, then sat in the second chair from the corner—just like always.
But Junebug didn’t climb into her lap this time.
She stood still beside Clara, leaning against her leg, eyes half-closed.
Dr. Whitmore came out slowly. He looked more tired than usual, his gray hair sticking up in places, his shirt untucked.
“She’s been fading,” Jolene said quietly once they were in the room. “Junebug, I mean.”
Clara didn’t look up.
“She’s not in pain,” Dr. Whitmore said after checking her heart and breath. “But she’s… pulling away.”
Clara spoke then. “She gave me something. Now she has to rest.”
Jolene looked between them. “What do you mean, baby?”
Clara reached into her coat pocket.
Pulled out a folded sheet of paper.
It was her latest lab report. From Dr. Stanley.
It showed improvement again.
Slight. But real.
“She gave it back,” Clara said softly.
That night, Jolene couldn’t sleep.
She stood at the kitchen sink long after midnight, sipping chamomile tea that had gone cold.
Outside, the backyard was silver with moonlight.
And there, just at the edge of the porch, was Junebug.
Sitting.
Not lying down. Not sniffing the wind.
Just sitting perfectly still. Ears perked.
Staring up at the sky.
Jolene stepped onto the porch in her slippers.
The wind tugged at her flannel robe.
She sat down slowly on the top step.
Junebug didn’t turn.
Jolene whispered, “Are you waiting for something?”
Junebug’s head lifted slightly.
“Or someone?”
A gust of wind swept through the yard.
And then Junebug turned to look at her.
Her eyes—still soft, still brown—seemed older than the night.
Older than the trees.
Older than the ache Jolene had learned to carry.
And for one breathless moment, Jolene felt it again—
The strange certainty that this dog wasn’t just a dog.
Not quite.
The next morning, Clara found Junebug in her room, curled beside the drawing she’d made.
The dog’s eyes were open. Calm.
She lifted her head when Clara walked in.
Gave a soft huff.
And then rested it gently on Clara’s lap.
Clara stroked her ears, whispering something too quiet for anyone else to hear.
Then she smiled.
A real smile. Not forced. Not afraid.
She leaned forward and said clearly, “You don’t have to stay if you’re tired.”
Junebug closed her eyes.
Didn’t move.
Didn’t make a sound.
That afternoon, they returned to the clinic.
But this time, it wasn’t Junebug on the exam table.
It was Clara.
Dr. Whitmore stood beside Dr. Stanley, reviewing the most recent scans.
Bloodwork. Imaging. The chart from last November compared to this one.
“Three weeks of stabilization,” Stanley said. “This isn’t coincidence.”
“She’s turning,” Whitmore agreed. “It’s real.”
Clara sat on the bench, legs swinging gently.
Junebug lay on the floor beside her, tail limp but eyes alert.
When Jolene knelt beside her daughter, tears streaking her cheeks, Clara looked at her and whispered:
“She kept me safe long enough.”
That night, Junebug didn’t sleep beside the bed.
She didn’t sleep at all.
She sat in the doorway of Clara’s room, watching the hallway. Still. Guarded.
Jolene found her like that around 2 a.m., a shaft of moonlight falling across the dog’s back.
“Do you need to go out?” she asked, voice hoarse.
Junebug looked up at her.
Then walked to the door.
Outside, the yard was wet with dew.
Junebug stepped off the porch.
Stood in the grass.
Raised her head.
And howled.
Not loud. Not long.
But with something behind it that pulled at the roots of the world.
Jolene clutched her chest.
And wept.
Part 5 – The Shape of Letting Go
Setting: Mid-November | Ashland, Kentucky
Clara woke to silence.
Not the usual sleepy hush of morning, but a silence thick as cotton, like the world was holding its breath.
She sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes. The sky outside her window was the pale color of old bones.
Junebug wasn’t at the foot of the bed.
Not in the doorway. Not by the dresser.
Gone.
Panic bloomed before reason could catch up.
Clara scrambled out of bed, heart galloping.
She flung open her door.
“Mom!”
Jolene came running from the kitchen, dishrag in hand. “What is it?”
“She’s not here. Junebug’s not here.”
Together, they checked every corner of the house.
The porch.
The shed.
The backyard.
Nothing.
Then Clara spotted it—tiny pawprints in the frost leading toward the woods behind their fence.
She didn’t wait.
She just ran.
The woods were quiet, the trees still in their November skeletons.
Clara’s breath came in short bursts. Her slippers slipped in the damp leaves.
“Junebug!” she called, voice cracking.
No answer.
Only the caw of a crow overhead, watching her from a bare limb.
Then she saw it.
A patch of fur the color of toast, nestled beneath the weeping cedar where Clara had once built a fairy house out of moss and bottle caps.
Junebug lay curled, facing east.
Not asleep.
Just… still.
Clara didn’t scream.
Didn’t cry.
She walked carefully, like stepping into a sacred place.
Kneeled down in the frost.
Junebug’s eyes fluttered open at the sound of her, and the dog lifted her head just enough to nuzzle Clara’s palm.
“Are you leaving?” Clara asked, voice a whisper.
Junebug blinked.
Clara reached into the pocket of her coat.
Pulled out the stick.
Bent, cracked, but still hers.
She placed it beside Junebug’s paw.
“I don’t need you to carry it anymore,” she said.
Junebug exhaled slowly.
Then closed her eyes.
Dr. Whitmore arrived within the hour.
Jolene had called him, voice barely audible through her grief.
He crouched beside the cedar, pressed a hand gently against Junebug’s side.
“She’s going,” he said softly. “But she waited for you.”
Clara didn’t answer.
She was running her fingers gently through Junebug’s fur, not brushing out tangles, just touching her. Saying thank you without words.
“She never made a sound until that first howl,” Jolene said, tears running freely.
“That’s how they are,” Dr. Whitmore murmured. “They only speak when the truth is too big to carry quietly.”
He looked down at Junebug, then at Clara.
“Would you like me to…?” he began.
Clara shook her head.
“No. She’ll go when she’s ready.”
They stayed by the cedar tree all morning.
Jolene brought blankets. Tea. A picture book. She didn’t ask Clara to come in, didn’t try to pull her away.
By noon, Junebug still breathed, but barely.
Each breath shallow, spaced out like footsteps at the end of a long walk.
Clara leaned close and whispered something into Junebug’s ear.
Something no one else heard.
And then, as a breeze stirred the frost and sent tiny leaves tumbling through the air—
Junebug let go.
No sound.
No whimper.
Just stillness.
And a peace that pressed down on everything like snowfall.
The next day, Clara didn’t go to school.
She sat at the kitchen table drawing pictures of Junebug—running, napping, wagging, waiting. Page after page.
When Jolene asked if she wanted to talk, Clara shook her head.
But later that night, she brought a drawing into the living room.
It was Junebug standing under a gray sky.
But her star-shaped patch was glowing.
“She was carrying light,” Clara said.
Jolene wrapped her arms around her daughter, pulling her close.
“She gave it to you,” she whispered.
At the clinic, Dr. Whitmore opened Junebug’s file one last time.
It had only a few pages.
No medical history.
No real name.
No diagnosis.
But he wrote something on the final line before closing it for good.
“Patient discharged. Mission complete.”
He set the file aside.
And wept.
The next Tuesday at 4:15, Clara walked into the waiting room alone.
She sat in the second chair from the corner.
A worn envelope clutched in her lap.
The receptionist opened her mouth to ask something, then saw the look in the child’s eyes—and closed it again.
When Dr. Whitmore appeared, Clara stood, walked forward, and handed him the envelope.
Inside was a drawing of Junebug, lying beneath the weeping cedar.
And beneath it, in neat, crooked handwriting:
“She healed me.”
Outside, it started to rain.
Not the cold, punishing kind.
The soft kind.
The kind that feels like memory.
Clara didn’t run for cover.
She lifted her face and let it fall.
Part 6 – Rain That Doesn’t Hurt
Setting: Late November | Ashland, Kentucky
The first rain without Junebug felt strange.
Not sad. Not cold.
Just quiet.
Clara walked beside her mother under the gray sky, yellow raincoat flapping open, her red boots splashing through puddles without hesitation.
Jolene watched her carefully. She’d expected more tears. More silence.
But Clara moved like someone who had remembered how to breathe.
Not all the way. But enough.
At home, the little things stung hardest.
Junebug’s leash still hung on the back of the door.
Her bowl sat by the fridge, washed but untouched.
Clara hadn’t asked to remove them.
She just touched them gently each morning, like saying hello.
Or goodbye. Again.
At night, Clara sometimes reached down from the bed instinctively, expecting a warm body at her feet.
But her fingers found only air.
Still, she smiled.
“She’s probably busy,” she whispered to the ceiling. “Helping someone new.”
Jolene heard her through the cracked door.
And wept into her pillow.
The following Tuesday, Dr. Whitmore received a letter.
Folded inside was a single drawing—crayon on thick paper.
A girl and a dog sitting side by side under a weeping cedar, both of them looking up.
Above them: a patch of sky shaped like a star.
On the back, it simply read:
“She stayed until I wasn’t afraid anymore.”
He pinned it to the bulletin board next to the old bloodhound photo.
And didn’t speak for the rest of the day.
Thanksgiving came.
Jolene made Clara’s favorite: sweet potatoes with marshmallows, soft rolls with too much butter, and green beans nobody really liked but made anyway.
They set an extra place.
Clara didn’t say why.
Jolene didn’t ask.
They just left it there, untouched.
A bowl by the table.
A drawing tucked beneath the plate.
Junebug. With wings.
That night, as frost crept along the windows and firelight flickered in the grate, Clara sat in the rocker with an old photo album across her knees.
Jolene joined her.
“Did you know,” Clara said, flipping pages, “she never barked?”
“I noticed,” Jolene said. “Not once.”
“I think she was saving her voice.”
“For what?”
“For the howl,” Clara said. “She needed it to carry everything at once.”
Jolene squeezed her hand.
And for the first time since the clinic visit, they laughed.
A small laugh.
But real.
December brought snow.
Clara’s blood counts held steady.
Her cheeks regained color.
The circles beneath her eyes faded like old bruises.
At her next appointment, Dr. Stanley stared at the lab results, stunned.
“These numbers…” he began, trailing off.
He looked at Jolene. “She’s responding. And I mean truly responding.”
Jolene blinked back tears.
“Clara,” he asked gently, “how do you feel?”
“Like I borrowed time,” she said. “And now I get to give it back.”
Dr. Stanley sat very still.
Then he whispered, “To who?”
Clara smiled. “To whoever needs it next.”
After the appointment, they drove to the cedar tree.
Snow had softened the ground, but the trunk was dry beneath its weeping branches.
Clara placed a small rock beside the patch of bare earth.
Then another.
Then another.
Jolene helped.
They didn’t say what it was.
Didn’t need to.
When they were done, a small circle sat there. A stone ring, plain and perfect.
Not a grave.
Not a shrine.
A promise.
That night, the wind howled through Ashland again.
But it wasn’t mournful this time.
It sounded… joyful.
Alive.
Jolene woke with her heart pounding.
She slipped to Clara’s room, afraid the girl might be in pain again.
But Clara was fast asleep.
A peaceful kind of sleep.
The kind Jolene hadn’t seen in months.
At the foot of the bed, a faint indentation pressed into the comforter.
Small. Familiar.
And next to it, the drawing of Junebug with wings, now with a second dog sketched in—new, unnamed.
Clara’s hand still held the crayon.
She didn’t remember drawing it.
But her heart did.