Part 10: “The Long Shadow”
Spring came slow to Red Hollow Road.
Soft and careful. Like it knew it was stepping on something sacred.
The sycamore leafed out early, casting a gentle shadow over the small wooden marker in the yard. The wind carried the scent of wet bark and honeysuckle. Somewhere in the distance, a mockingbird practiced an old lullaby.
Shadow had been gone three weeks.
And still, Sadie waited for him.
Not in the way she used to—expecting to see his tail wag behind the porch rail or his black shape trotting from the trees.
But in the deeper way.
The way you wait for a dream to return.
The way you listen for a voice you can’t hear with your ears anymore.
Laurel had offered to get another dog.
A younger one. Maybe from the shelter. A puppy, even.
But Sadie had shaken her head.
“I only needed one,” she said.
One day, while cleaning out the hall closet, Laurel found a small metal tin tucked behind an old heating grate. Inside were photographs—some yellowed, some creased.
Pictures of Elsie with baby Laurel.
Of Sadie in the garden, spoon-feeding Shadow mashed peas from her high chair.
One photo—dog-eared and stained at the corner—showed Shadow at maybe six months old, his red collar shiny, his eyes already wise.
Taped to the back was a torn scrap of notebook paper in Elsie’s tight handwriting:
“Train him to guard her. He’ll know what to do when I can’t.”
Laurel sat down on the hallway floor and cried in quiet, unshaking waves.
By May, Sadie had started writing stories.
Short ones. Just a few pages at a time.
Most were about a black dog and a little girl who wandered into strange woods and never got lost. Sometimes they chased ghosts. Sometimes they saved bees. One time, they found a house made of music.
At the bottom of each story, in crooked pencil, Sadie always wrote:
“He was always with her.”
On the last day of school, Sadie stepped off the bus in a yellow sundress with paint stains on it and a pair of hand-me-down boots.
She paused at the edge of the gravel. Then knelt down and drew a single line in the dust beside her sneaker.
Next to it, she drew a paw print.
It wasn’t perfect—too round, too shallow—but it was hers. And it was his.
Laurel stood on the porch and watched.
And for the first time in a long time, Sadie ran.
She ran up the path, laughing.
And she wasn’t alone.
Later that summer, a new family moved in down the road.
They had a boy named Tommy who was five and afraid of dogs.
Sadie sat next to him on the school bus the following fall and told him the story of Shadow.
“How he followed me when no one else did,” she said. “And how he waited, every day, even when he was hurting.”
Tommy listened, wide-eyed.
“Did he leave?” he asked.
Sadie nodded.
“But I never lost him,” she said. “Because he stayed here—”
She tapped her chest. “And here.”
Then she pointed to the road.
Tommy looked out the window. His hand reached for hers, unsure.
And Sadie held it.
That evening, Laurel and Sadie stood beneath the sycamore again. The breeze had changed—it was summer now, full of dust and dreams and fireflies beginning to glow.
They lit a single candle in a glass jar and set it on the stone near the wooden marker.
Sadie didn’t cry.
She didn’t have to.
Laurel slipped an arm around her and whispered:
“Some dogs guard the front door.
Some chase sticks.
But some?” She paused, smiling.
“They guard something deeper. And they don’t stop. Not even when they’re gone.”
Sadie leaned into her.
“Shadow was that kind.”
Laurel nodded. “He always was.”
The wind rustled the branches.
And for a moment—just a moment—they both swore they heard the soft padding of paws through the grass.
Not far.
Never far.
Just watching.
Just waiting.
Just there.
The End.
Thank you for reading The Dog Who Followed the Bus.