Part 4 – “The Trail of Crayons”
That night, the dog dreamed.
Its legs twitched in sleep—well, the three it had left. Its ears flicked, and a low whimper stirred in its chest. Eli watched from the porch steps, hugging his knees to his chest, the pink ribbon still tied to his wrist.
The stars were out—sharp, cold little eyes blinking through the Tennessee sky.
He should’ve been afraid.
Of the way the dog had appeared.
Of the box.
The key.
The journal.
But he wasn’t.
Because for the first time since Addie died, something made sense. Not like math did or how Irene said you were supposed to grieve. It made the kind of sense that lived in bones, not brains.
Addie hadn’t left him.
She’d left a trail.
And the dog had walked it back.
Eli woke early the next morning, a hum in his chest like something was calling him. He padded across the kitchen floor in his socks and peeked out the screen door.
The dog was gone again.
Just like the first time.
But this time, he didn’t panic.
Because this time, it felt different.
Not like a goodbye.
Like an invitation.
He skipped breakfast and left Irene a note on the fridge:
“Gone to find the dog. Don’t worry. I think Addie’s leading me.”
He shoved a piece of toast in his hoodie pocket and stuffed the key and his sketchbook into his backpack. Then he followed the tracks.
They were faint, scattered in the morning dew—three prints instead of four, easy to spot once you knew what to look for. They led out of the backyard, across the overgrown lot behind the fire station, and into the woods behind the school.
Eli had never been this deep into the trees alone. Twigs cracked underfoot. Gnats buzzed near his ears. The air smelled like pine needles and old secrets.
He didn’t stop.
He followed the tracks like they were stringing him to something forgotten.
About twenty minutes in, he saw it.
A single crayon.
Blue.
Lying in the middle of the dirt path.
Cornflower blue.
His heart squeezed.
Addie.
He picked it up and kept going.
Another five minutes, and he found a second one—broken in half, pink with chew marks down the side.
A third lay near a fallen log. Yellow. Smudged with dirt.
A trail of crayons.
Like a map only he could read.
Then he found the clearing.
It wasn’t much—a patch of grass surrounded by thick trees and quiet air. In the center sat a rusted tin lunchbox.
The kind with a faded cartoon cowboy on the lid.
Eli approached slowly, heart loud in his ears.
The dog was there.
Curled beside the lunchbox like a statue. Head up, ears twitching, eyes alert.
It didn’t move as Eli approached.
It just watched.
He knelt down.
Opened the box.
Inside were more crayon drawings—some faded, some sealed in plastic wrap. Some torn at the edges like they’d been held too tight too many times.
He recognized Addie’s style instantly—clumsy stars, big smiles, houses with crooked chimneys.
But these weren’t just hers.
His own drawings were there too.
From years ago. Before the crash. Before the foster homes. Before silence settled in like dust.
Addie must’ve taken them.
Hidden them.
Saved them.
He turned one over.
On the back, in her scratchy handwriting:
“When you forget who you are, find these.”
His chest crumpled inward. His breath hitched.
The dog laid its head gently in his lap.
Eli sat there a long time.
He traced the drawings with his fingertips.
And slowly, he began to draw again—right there in the dirt, with the blue crayon she left behind. A picture of the dog. A picture of Addie. A picture of himself, smaller, smiling, holding someone’s hand.
He didn’t care if it was messy.
It was theirs.
Then, from his backpack, he pulled out the journal again.
He turned to the back page.
Blank.
Until he picked up the blue crayon.
He wrote:
“I’m still here, Addie. And so is he. Thank you for not forgetting me.”
When he looked up, the dog was watching him with the kind of stillness that felt ancient.
And then the dog did something strange.
It stood.
Walked across the clearing.
And stopped at a tree with a hollow knot at its base.
It nosed the bark gently.
Then looked back at Eli.
He walked over, heart thudding.
Kneeling down, he reached into the hollow.
Another note.
Faded, folded, almost falling apart.
He opened it with shaking hands.
Addie’s handwriting.
“If I’m not here when you come back, don’t be scared. The dog will remember everything. Just follow him. He always knows the way home.”
Eli pressed the note to his chest.
The dog walked over.
Nudged his shoulder.
Then licked his hand.
Like it had been waiting for this moment.
Waiting to bring him back to where it all began.
Part 5 – “What the Dog Carried”
Eli didn’t walk back right away.
He sat in that clearing—lunchbox full of memories beside him, the pink ribbon still tied around his wrist—and just breathed. The forest held its breath with him. Even the air seemed softer there, as if Addie had left her hush behind in the pine needles.
The dog lay curled a few feet away, not sleeping, just present.
Guarding.
Waiting.
Eli reached out and touched the side of the lunchbox. It was dented in one corner. Rusted near the latch. A small spider skittered out from beneath it and disappeared into the leaves.
It had been here a long time.
Hidden. Protected.
He realized, slowly, that the dog must’ve carried it here.
Years ago.
Back when Addie still tied blue stars on ribbons and sang lullabies to stuffed animals.
Back when Eli was still too young to remember how it got lost.
The dog had carried it.
Carried her.
Carried them.
By the time he made it home, the sun had slipped low behind the school’s roofline. His shoes were muddy. The lunchbox swung from one hand, the crayon tucked into his pocket.
The dog walked beside him the whole way.
No leash.
No commands.
Just… there.
Miss Irene stood on the porch, arms crossed, but not angry. Her face folded into something that wasn’t quite a smile.
“You took a long walk,” she said gently.
Eli held up the lunchbox.
“She left this,” he said.
Irene looked at the box. Then at the dog. Then back at Eli.
“You found her trail, didn’t you?”
He nodded.
“She left more than drawings,” he said. “She left a way back.”
That night, Eli did something he hadn’t done in a year
He opened the old family photo album.
The one Miss Irene kept on the top shelf.
The one that still smelled like cedar and cinnamon.
He flipped through the pages until he found the photo—the one where Addie was holding the puppy on the day they brought it home from the shelter. Eli was barely a blur in a baby carrier behind her.
He looked at the picture. Then at the dog.
Same white ear.
Same crooked smile.
The same dog.
How had he not known before?
Because some truths are too big to fit in a child’s chest until grief cracks it wide open.
He brought the lunchbox to school the next day.
His teacher, Mrs. Tomlin, paused mid-roll call when she saw it on his desk.
“You bringin’ your lunch in there, Eli?” she asked with a warm drawl.
Eli shook his head.
“It’s Addie’s,” he said. “I’m just carrying it for her now.”
She didn’t question him.
Didn’t make him explain.
She just nodded, her eyes soft. “That’s a good thing to do.”
At recess, some of the other kids noticed the dog sitting patiently at the edge of the schoolyard fence.
Three legs. Pink ribbon. Still as a statue.
“He yours?” one of the boys asked.
Eli looked over.
“He’s family,” he said. “He remembers more than any of us.”
The boy didn’t laugh. Didn’t tease.
He just looked out at the dog for a long time and said, “He looks like he’s waitin’ on something important.”
Eli nodded. “He is.”
That evening, he buried the lunchbox again.
Not under the doghouse this time.
Under the sycamore tree where Addie used to braid grass into crowns.
The dog stood beside him the whole time.
When the last bit of dirt was patted down, Eli pressed the blue crayon into the earth like a flag.
He didn’t need to dig it up again.
Not now.
Because he’d found it—the thing Addie wanted him to find.
Not the notes.
Not the drawings.
Not the dog.
Himself.
Inside the house, Irene was folding laundry on the couch when he came in.
“Can he sleep inside tonight?” Eli asked softly.
She didn’t ask who.
She just pointed toward the old quilt on the floor beside the heater.
“Already set it out,” she said.
The dog padded in silently.
Lay down.
Exhaled deeply, like a burden had finally been set down.
Later, as Eli drifted to sleep, he thought of Addie’s voice. The way she used to hum when the lights went out and the monsters felt too big.
He hadn’t heard it in a long time.
But that night, in the space between dreams, he swore he heard it again.
And in the dark, the dog lifted his head and looked toward the door.
Like he heard it, too.
Part 6 – “When Dogs Remember”
The heater clicked once, twice, then settled into its steady hum. The dog lay curled on the old quilt, chest rising and falling in rhythm with the room’s quiet. Eli watched him from his bed, eyes heavy but heart awake.
A week ago, he wouldn’t have believed in a dog like this.
Not just loyal.
Not just smart.
But knowing.
The kind of knowing that didn’t come from training or treats. The kind that came from love so deep it outlasted loss.
Addie had called the dog “Scout” when they were small.
It wasn’t written anywhere—not on a collar, not in the lunchbox, not in the journal.
But that night, lying in the dark, Eli remembered.
He whispered the name into the quiet:
“Scout?”
The dog’s ear twitched.
Then his head lifted.
And just like that, something shifted in Eli’s chest. Not pain. Not grief.
Recognition.
By morning, Scout had returned to the porch, back to his vigil beside the doghouse. It was his post—one he’d kept through rain and silence and years no one counted.
Eli joined him with a bowl of oatmeal and a blue notebook.
The ribbon was still on Scout’s neck, soft and faded. Eli had started to see it differently now—not just a memory, but a promise.
He sat beside the doghouse and opened the notebook.
Inside were blank pages.
He didn’t know what he wanted to say yet. But he knew something needed to be said.
He touched the ribbon, then began to write:
“Some dogs wait for you even after you forget how to be found.”
He paused.
Looked at Scout.
Then kept writing.
“He remembers the songs my sister used to sing. He remembers the crayon stars and the dirt under our fingernails. He remembers the way the sky looked the day she tied the ribbon around his neck and said, ‘Don’t forget him.’”
“He didn’t.”
Irene peeked through the screen door later that morning and called out with her usual mixture of coffee and kindness, “There’s a letter for you, sugar.”
Eli furrowed his brow. He rarely got mail.
He took it carefully—just a plain white envelope, no return address. His name written in blocky, careful print.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
Typed.
Dear Eli,
We heard about the drawings. The ribbon. The lunchbox.
We didn’t know there were still pieces of her left until now.
Your sister meant a lot to more people than you think. She used to bring us pictures of the dog—Scout, she called him—when we walked her home. She’d talk about how much you laughed when he stole your blanket. How she swore he could talk if you listened right.
She made us promise to remember you if anything ever happened.
So we are. We’re remembering.
Thank you for sharing her with us.
—C and M
There was no signature.
But it didn’t matter.
It was real.
Someone else remembered, too.
That afternoon, Eli walked Scout to the edge of the school’s parking lot. He didn’t bring a leash. He didn’t need one.
A few younger kids came up and pet Scout gently. One even tied a daisy chain around his neck, right beneath the ribbon.
Scout just sat, tongue lolling, one ear cocked like he was listening for something beyond the noise of the world.
“Is he magic?” one girl asked.
Eli smiled.
“No,” he said. “He just never forgot.”
That night, Irene pulled a faded cardboard box from the top shelf of the hallway closet
“I thought you might want this,” she said. “Been holding onto it in case you ever started talking again.”
Inside was Addie’s old backpack—pink canvas, stained with juice spills and colored pencil marks. One zipper broken.
Eli opened it slowly.
Inside was a small stuffed animal: a floppy dog with one ear chewed, eyes loose in their sockets.
Scout barked once when he saw it.
A sound Eli hadn’t heard before.
Not playful.
Not loud.
Just clear.
The dog padded forward and nudged the toy with his nose.
Then licked it.
Eli watched, stunned.
“He remembers,” he whispered.
Irene’s voice was quiet. “Maybe you both do now.”
Later, in bed, Eli opened the blue notebook again.
He wrote:
“Some dogs don’t need words to keep promises.”
“Some sisters leave trails instead of goodbyes.”
“Some love doesn’t end—it just waits for you to come back.”
He closed the notebook.
The dog snored quietly beside the heater.
The ribbon around his neck fluttered with each breath.
And in the dark, Eli smiled.
Because he was starting to believe something he hadn’t believed in a long time.
Not in ghosts.
Not in magic.
But in memory.