She retained only vague memories of them because, just a year and a half later, their car had been hit by a cement truck. Walter and Darlene had perished instantly, but Amy had survived unscathed.

At four and a half, twice traumatized-once by cold rejection, once by loss-Amy had returned to the orphanage, where she lived until shortly after her eighteenth birthday.

Young Amy Harkinson might have been emotionally fragile and even psychologically damaged for life if not for the wisdom and kindness of the nuns. The nuns alone, however, could not have restored her.

No less important had been the golden retriever who had come limping toward her across an autumn meadow, filthy and half starved, only a month after her return to Mater Misericordiæ.

With its charm, the golden earned itself permanent residence as the orphanage dog. And because of its mysterious inclination, it had bonded to Amy above all others and had become no less than a sister to her and the foremost healer of her heart.

Curiously, what now inspired Amy to include the pistol in her bag was not the e-mail witch who had tormented Brian, but this new golden retriever that, less than a day previously, had come into her life with an air of mystery and with a direct stare that reminded her so powerfully of the dog who, long ago, had given her life meaning and who perhaps had even saved her.

She had known terror, loss, and chaos, but always she had found at least a fragile peace after terror, hope after loss, and pattern in the wake of chaos. In fact, it was her eye for pattern that made it possible for her to go on living.

The directness of Nickie’s eyes, Theresa’s beautiful but bruised purple eyes, Brian’s drawings of the dog’s eyes, his grandmother’s vivid wink in the dream, the bright eye of the lighthouse repeatedly flaring into her memory after all these years, blind Marco in the Philippines (real or not), blind Daisy at the side of three-legged Mortimer: Eyes, eyes, open your eyes, the pattern said.

The only physical danger she had faced recently had been from Carl Brockman and his tire iron, and that threat had passed. Yet she read the pattern of these eyes as having urgent and dire meaning.

Among other recent patterns, there were several incidents of strange effects of light and shadow, reminding her that there are both things seen and unseen.

In the scene as now set, something unseen waited.

Until her eyes were fully open or until the patterns proved to be benign and her interpretation proved to be misguided, she believed that packing the pistol and the spare magazine in the carryall was only prudent.

She had told Brian she would bring the gun. He had merely nodded as if to say Why wouldn’t you?

Likewise, neither of them had questioned the wisdom of bringing Nickie. Of all the patterns in the current web, the one that wove through all the others was dogs, and this dog in particular.

Although they were using Amy’s Expedition, Brian drove because he’d more recently gotten sleep, even if it had been troubled by a tornado, and because Amy wanted to think without the distraction of traffic.

They had put down both rows of backseats, allowing Nickie to lie immediately behind them in the now spacious cargo area.

As Brian pulled away from her bungalow, Amy thought that she glimpsed Theresa’s small pale face at a window in Lottie Augustine’s house.

She said, “Wait, stop.”

Brian braked, but when Amy looked back, a curtain fell across the glass, and the face was gone.

After a hesitation, she said, “Nothing. Let’s go.”

Block after block, street after street, and up the freeway ramp, she kept checking the side mirror and leaning between the seats to get a better view through the tailgate window.

“No one’s following us,” he said.

“But she told you we’d be watched.”

“They don’t need to watch us now. They know we’re going to Santa Barbara. They can put a tail on us there.”

Rush hour had long passed. Northbound traffic remained heavy, but it moved fast, the freeway a loom ceaselessly weaving from the warp and woof of speeding vehicles a fabric of red and white light.

“Do you think, as bitter and troubled as she is, she really could manipulate some very wealthy man into this, and into marriage?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “If he was unfortunate enough for their lives to intersect, Vanessa could turn him off his path and onto hers. It’s not just how she looks. She has an instinct for your weaknesses, for finding the buttons that open the door to your dark side.”

“You? Even young and stupid, as you described yourself then? I don’t think you have a dark side.”

“I think most of us do,” he disagreed. “Maybe all of us. And the most important thing we can ever do is keep the door shut to it, keep the door shut and locked tight.”

Piggy can’t keep them out. They can keep her in, but she can’t keep them out.

She never knows when the door will open. This is scary.

Let not your heart be troubled.

Sometimes she hears footsteps. But sometimes they make no sound, like your shadow makes no sound when it runs down steps behind you, and they come in quick.

She must never be caught doing the thing she does sometimes, so whenever she is doing the Worst Thing She Can Do, she always listens really hard for the lock squeak.

She cleans up potato salad, all Mother’s mess. She bags trash. She washes dirty cleaning rags in her bathroom sink.

Then she goes to the door to listen. Voices. They are far away, maybe as far as the kitchen.

Mother and the man stay awake all through the dark. They sleep when the sun happens.

Doing the Worst Thing She Can Do is safer when they sleep. But right now she wants to do it so bad.

She wishes she had a window she could see out. Sometimes, they live where she can see sky.

Her windows have wood over them now. Sun comes through some cracks, but she can’t see out.

If she could see sky, she could wait to do the Worst Thing. Sky makes her feel better.

Sky is best when the dark comes out. It gets deeper. You can see then, and you think what Bear said.

She misses Bear. She misses him worse than all the windows there will ever be or never be. She will always miss Bear.

She will never forget him, never, the way she makes herself forget some things.

She likes moon. She likes stars. She likes shooting stars you can wish on.

If she could see a shooting star, she would wish for a window. But first she has to have a window to wish from.

Bear taught her how star wishing works. Bear knew everything. He wasn’t dumb like her.

Let not your heart be troubled, Piggy.

Bear said that a lot.

And he said All things work out for the best, hard as that is to believe.

You just have to wait. Wait for a sandwich without a dead bug or live worm or nail in it. You wait and sometimes a good sandwich comes. Wait for a window. Wait.

The kitchen voices are still kitchen voices, you can’t hear the words from this far. Maybe she is safe.

The big chair has a cushion. The cushion has a cover. The cover has a zipper.

Inside the cover, under the cushion, the Forever Shiny Thing is hidden.

Forever means all the days there are ever going to be, and then that many more. Bear explained it.

Forever means no start and no finish. Forever means every good thing can happen to you, every good thing you can think of, because there’s time for all of it.

If there’s time for every good thing you can think of to happen, is there time for every bad thing you can think of to happen?

She asked Bear her question, and he said no, it doesn’t work that way.