“Come up soon,” Sam says, and I say, “I will, five more minutes,” as he and Benny gather their stuff and start for the cabin. Sonoma used to follow Benny everywhere, I happen to know, when she wasn’t following Sam everywhere, but now she sticks with me. She’s my dog. Benny’s feelings weren’t hurt-he took it as a matter of course. Sam, too. The only one who had a problem with her instant devotion was me.

She splashes over and sits next to me, her rump in the water, chin on the arm of my lawn chair. “Hey, babe,” I say, gently squeezing one thick, silky ear. She’s smaller than I thought. Smaller than I felt, rather. She comes to just above my knee, perfect stroking height as she winds gracefully by. She has soft, soulful, light brown eyes. She likes to cross her legs in front when she lies down, very ladylike. We have the same color hair, tawny reddish tan, but hers is straighter. I admire her trim waistline. When I take her to the ball field in the park and let her off the leash (illegally), she chases the low-fl ying barn swallows until she’s so tired her tongue hangs out. I could watch her run forever.

Now she puts her paw on my lap for me to shake, which I do, but it’s never enough. She switches paws, I shake that one, she switches back. It’s almost a tic. “What do you want, honey?” She never answers, but sometimes I think it’s to put her arms around me. Just get closer.

She scared me at first. I was, of course, ecstatic when I heard she hadn’t drowned, but when they brought me home and the first thing she did was leap up beside me on the bed and gaze deeply into my eyes, I was, frankly, weirded out. “Who are you?” I whispered-when we were alone. “Are you me? Nod your head for yes.”

Nothing.

Since then I’ve tried lots of other ways to communicate (“Blink your eyes.” “Lift one paw.” “Wag your tail.” “Bark twice.”), but nothing’s worked. Either I haven’t found the key yet, which seems increasingly unlikely, or Sonoma is simply a dog (“simply”; not “just”). A delightful, handsome, intelligent, affectionate dog, yes, but nothing more, no one hidden or trapped inside trying to get out. Apparently.

So I don’t know what happened to me. Sometimes I imagine all dogs are, from time to time, secretly people, and there’s this global conspiracy to keep it under wraps so those of us who’ve experienced it aren’t carted off to asylums. Other times I think, well, why just dogs? Why not cats, too? Or birds? Squirrels, whales, hedgehogs? Maybe there’s constant species body-swapping going on, but nobody talks about it except in children’s books and science fiction.

Other times, I’m pretty sure I dreamed the whole thing.

One thing is true: Being a dog changed me. I’ve become a pack animal. Family’s everything-Sam and Benny not only complete me; in some bone-deep way they are me. And not just them. The whole concept of family stretches out farther, farther, planets around the sun. It includes all my friends, Delia and her family, Charlie, and Monica, Ronnie Lewis, neighbors, the community, anybody I love, even Mr. Horton-we’re all a pack. With my little, immediate pack, Sam and Benny, I still have a faint but undeniable urge to roll around on the floor, but with the secondary and tertiary members, I mostly just want to have constant goodwill and cooperation. Which, believe it or not, works out well in the real estate business. Ronnie says I’m better than I used to be and, in all modesty, that’s saying something. It turns out that honesty, reliability, transparency, and kindness not only make good retrievers; they make good house sellers, too. News to me. I thought my profession was dog-eat-dog.

“Shall we go in?”

Sonoma backs up in the water, tail wagging. She loves transitions, anything new. I was the same way. I fold my chair, tuck my phone in my pocket, the real estate contract I was reading under my arm. Put on my water sandals. It’s such a pretty day. Maybe we’ll go on a hike this afternoon-Shenandoah National Park is our backyard. “Ready?” Sonoma and I set off across the rocky shallows, and of course I’m extra alert, setting each foot down with care, wary of slipperiness. We reach the shore without mishap.

Sometimes I try to catch her off guard.

“Who saved Monica, Sonoma? Hmm? Who saved her, girl, you or me?”

Her ears twitch at her name and my questioning tone. She looks at me in happy blankness.

We start the climb to the cabin. I think of another trick.

“Hey, Sonoma! How would you like to be spayed? Huh? Do you wanna be spayed?”

I can’t believe my eyes! Her tail sags-her ears flatten.

“No?” My heart skips a beat or two. “You don’t want to be spayed?”

She shakes her head so violently, her ears sound like cards shuffling.

“Okay,” I say, shaky-voiced. “Okay, then. Don’t worry; we won’t.”

Now what? Did that just happen?

“I’m actually having the same dilemma,” I tell her as we proceed up the path. “Not getting spayed-getting pregnant. Sam and I, we’re talking about it. He’s for it, but, you know, trying to sound neutral. What do you think?”

But she’s through communicating. She’s got her nose buried in something stinky on the ferny wood floor. When she finishes smelling it, she pees on it.

So I am left, once again, to imagine what my dog thinks. It’s not as satisfying as knowing for sure, but since she’s the best of me I can never go far wrong-in ethical quandaries, tough decisions, tricky situations. I just ask myself, “What would Sonoma do?”

“We should not have come. The curse will never die.” Father Joubay blessed himself as he spoke.

“A curse? What curse?” Why in the world would he say that? Isabelle wondered. It was a gorgeous day. The boat chugged its way through calm water clear to the seabed, filled with fish and sea grass.

The sky ahead was as blue as a sky could be, the island they were headed to as lush as one expected in the Caribbean. The air was warm. The old fort that loomed over the bay was the only thing that kept the shore from looking like a postcard picture of a tropical paradise. The home of the mysterious Sebastian Dushayne. A man who owned an island and lived in luxury. But a man Google had never heard of.

When Isabelle Reynaud turned to question Father Joubay, she saw that he was not looking at their destination, but was mesmerized by something behind them.

Isabelle looked toward the wake of the boat and drew in a sharp breath of shock. The sky on the far horizon was darkening with astonishing speed. Even as she watched, the rapidly building clouds eclipsed the late-afternoon light.

“How can there be a storm from the west? The weather never comes from the west here.” Isabelle folded her hands in front of her heart. “It’s only a squall.”

The boat lost its smooth momentum. The engine still ran steadily but the increasingly choppy waves made the going rough.

“Squalls pass quickly.” Please God. Isabelle breathed the prayer as the waves around them grew.

“We will outrun it,” the captain called back to them as the small boat sped up noticeably. Lightning lit the storm clouds, and a dozen prongs of light chased after them.

“We cannot outrun this,” Father Joubay said, and Isabelle agreed with him. It was true that neither of them was a weather expert. They were, however, realists.

Isabelle turned from the storm to look toward the land, grabbing on to the strut that supported the canopy over the engine house.

The waves had grown from choppy to malicious. Not only was it a challenge to stand but the waves were so high Isabelle could not see the shoreline or the trees, only the fort rising over the harbor. It was more threat than comfort despite the lights that flickered through the dark.