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Not a morning went by when she didn't inspect me the moment I descended the stairs. With her hovering over me, ready to pounce on any mistakes. I continued to treat my oncoming sexuality as others treated their illnesses. Mommy was suspicious about every look I had, every change in my temperament. If my face looked flushed, she would make me drink a herbal medication. She seemed to remember when I might be having some abdominal cramps. There was always one of her remedies waiting for me at the breakfast table.

And then one day I think she decided that to compensate for the way my body was taking shape, curving and tightening, I should eat more. Weight could disguise it all.

"There's nothing wrong with a boy being a little overweight," she would mutter as she slapped down another helping of buttery mashed potatoes or cut me another piece of her rich chocolate cake. My thighs did become bigger and my waist wider. I couldn't help not liking the way I was starting to look.

Noble wouldn't be fat at my age, especially not with all the activity and work. I shouldn't be fat. I told myself, but if I didn't finish the food Mommy put on my plate, she would make me sit there until I had. Once, she made me eat so much I threw up, and immediately afterward, she made me eat everything again and wait at the table until she was sure I wouldn't throw it up a second time.

One of the worst things I could do was stop and look at myself in a mirror. To prevent that, she removed every mirror she could, even the full-length one in my bathroom. She told me spirits avoided mirrors, that not seeing their reflection made them unhappy, and everything in our world was to be designed to make our spiritual company comfortable. But in my heart I knew what bothered her was simply my unhappiness with my own appearance.

"Stop worrying about looking too fat. Work harder, and you're muscles will get bigger, stronger," she told me. "Your father wasn't a vain man."

I could almost see her thinking up ways to make me feel more like Noble would feel as I grew older. When I was fourteen, she decided I should have a dog.

All boys on farms have dogs," she told me, and we went to Luzon, a bigger village about twenty miles south, to shop at a pet store. I had no idea what sort of dog I should have. but Mommy seemed to think a golden retriever made sense since we had so much land. The four-month-old puppy she chose was a male she decided we should name Cleo, because she said he had a face that reminded her of a lion. It seemed to me she wanted the dog far more than I did, but after we brought Cleo home, he became my sole

responsibility and I was the one blamed for anything he did wrong, like digging holes in Mommy's herbal garden, terrifying the chickens, or leaving droppings too close to the house. She would threaten me with. "If you don't take better care of that animal. Noble. I'll give him away." She made it seem like I was the one who had wanted the dog more.

I can't say I didn't grow attached to Cleo quickly. He took to following me everywhere, and by the time he was a year old, he had grown big enough to challenge any animal he saw, even a bobcat that had wandered down the old stone wall toward the pond. He got badly scratched. but Mommy didn't take him to a veterinarian. She treated his cuts herself, and they did heal quickly. She didn't blame me. We couldn't hold him down anyway. He loved charging through the woods, sniffing after every creature that burrowed or hid in the bush. Just watching him chase after wild rabbits was delightful. He never caught one, but he never stopped trying.

As far as water went. Cleo behaved more like a fish. He couldn't look at the stream or the pond without charging into it seconds later. He would splash about, his tongue moving excitedly out of his mouth and his head wagging from side to side. He was a dog any boy would love. I thought, and I took to running with him at my heels or training him to fetch sticks and balls. I saw that Mommy derived great pleasure from watching us play, too.

She pounced on me, however, whenever Cleo tracked in mud, and one day, when she discovered he had chewed on one of the old piano legs, she went into a rage and threatened to make both of us sleep in the barn. She worked on that piano leg like an experienced craftsman until she got it so it didn't look much different from what it had before Cleo had gotten his teeth around it.

Maybe he just hates music. I thought to say, but Mommy wasn't in the mood for any sort of humor about her sacred furniture. Anyway, nothing could be further from the truth. Cleo loved music. He would lie at my feet and listen to the classical music Mommy played for us, his ears sometimes perking up at a high note and his head tilting slightly as if he had heard something very, very curious or strange.

One day. when I heard him barking out front and walked out to see what it was. I looked out over the meadow in the direction he was looking at. but I saw nothing. He continued to bark and growl. I knelt beside him and kept my hand on his neck, feeling his growl nimble down to his stomach. His eyes were fixed in this one direction. I studied it and studied it and then came to the conclusion that perhaps he saw something spiritual and perhaps what he saw wasn't nice. Was that possible? I presented the idea to Mommy.

She put down her needlepoint and thought long and hard. As always, she had a story from her ancestral past.

"My great-uncle Herbert had a golden retriever exactly like Cleo. You know." she said. pausing. some animals can sense animal spirits and human spirits, too. They have a gift."

She looked at Cleo.

"I had a suspicion he might have that gift. When I looked into his eves that day in the pet shop. I sensed it. Anyway. Uncle Herbert's dog grew so attached to the spirit of his younger brother. Russell, that he would often go off for days at a time and be with him. Uncle Herbert said that when his dog. I think he called it .Kasey, returned from one of his spiritual visits, he would stay even closer to his side. He told me it was as if his brother's spirit had impressed Kasey, with how important loyalty is, and how important it was to watch over Herbert.

When I see you and Cleo out there. I think he might have visited with your daddy's spirit, and perhaps that is why he was growling. He's here to protect you, and he saw something Daddy had warned him about," she added. and I looked at Cleo in a new light. He was staring up at me as if he had understood every word Mommy had spoken.

"There is truly a link, a relationship among all beautiful and loving creatures in this world," Mommy said. "Never forget that. And that was why I was always chastising you for killing pretty butterflies or caterpillars. Noble," she added, wagging her finger at me.

Then she leaned over to kiss me just the way she always did when she reprimanded Noble.

Like Noble always did. I denied it. Mommy gave me that look, half critical, half loving and went back to her needlepoint.

Three days later. Cleo was barking at something at the edge of the woods again.

Only this time, it was definitely not any sort of spirit, good or evil.

It was a slim, tall boy in a pair of jeans, an oversize dark blue T-shirt, and a pair of dark brown hiking boots with the laces undone. At first he looked like he had a patch of strawberries growing on his head, his hair was so red. It streamed down the sides of his head, over his ears, until it nearly touched his shoulders. He stood so still beside an old oak tree that he seemed to be part of the forest, something unusual that had just grown there.

It made my heart pitter-patter. I knitted my eyebrows and stared back at him.

Cleo barked harder and started to run toward him. The boy didn't cower. He clapped his hands and called to Cleo as I followed. Cleo's tail began to wave when he reached him, and the boy knelt to pet him. He looked up as I drew closer.

"Hey, how you doing?" he asked.

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" I demanded.

Mommy's distrust of strangers on our land had become my attitude as well. I rarely answered the postman when he said good morning or waved back at any delivery man if he waved to me.