The Ghost Story

by Speakfire

"This is his first memory: The musky scent of wet wood and sun beams filtering through the leafy canopy of a large forest. It is home, or at least, the only home he has ever known." A companion piece to "Stray", done from a unique POV. Clint/Natasha

A/N I started this story back in June, when I was struggling with the last chapter of my story Stray. It is a companion piece to that story (which is done!), and I strongly urge you to read that before delving into this! If you like this, please take the time to review it! It's done from a very unique POV so I'd love some input on it.

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This is his first memory: The musky scent of wet wood and sun beams filtering through the leafy canopy of a large forest. It is home, or at least, the only home he has ever known. He knows he must have had a pack, a mother, perhaps even littermates at some point in his life, because he is instinctively aware that he must have come from somewhere, but he can not remember anything before the forest.

Hunger is the other thing he remembers, because for a long time it is the center of his existence. He wakes up, he searches for anything edible he can find and more often than not he collapses from exhaustion until the cramping pain in his belly wakes him up to scavenge again. Desperation, inexperience, and weakness from starvation make him a lousy hunter.

He does not have a name, it is a more awareness of what he is and is not. Small-Weak-Hungry-Thing. Bad-Hunter-That-Always-Hungers.

This is how he learns to be still: He has gone without food so long that he is weak, laying in a pile of leaves beside a rotted out log and a small brown lizard crawls right on top of him in an attempt to warm itself in the smattering of sunlight that splays across his striped hide. The meal is small but is enough to keep him going. A few days later, a chipmunk does the same, but the meals are few and far between.

He learns to avoid eating toads because they make his mouth feel funny and he is dizzy for hours afterwards, that tree bark only makes him vomit, and that the slightest ear twitch is enough to alert squirrels to his presence.

There are coyotes in the woods. He knows they are even wilder than he is, that he is not one of them. Even so, in his desperate and deep-seated need to be part of a pack, he tries to befriend them but they glare at him with angry yellow eyes, growl and run him off and he knows he is lucky when they stop chasing him.

His search for food causes him to roam far and wide, following a narrow stream that runs underground at points until it leads him to a huge lake. He finds a dead fish on the shore, and the air is strong with the scent of fish and frogs and furred things and he finds an empty fox hole nearby. It's almost too small but he scrapes it out enough that it serves as his den. The days are getting longer and warmer, but he has no muscle mass to keep him warm and his fur is patchy and coarse from malnutrition, so on cold nights this is his only protection from the elements.

This is how he has his first encounter with humans: There is a strong, pungent odor in the air, delicious and smoky, and it makes his hollowed out belly twist in reaction, so he follows his nose to the source. In a clearing, he finds a series of enormous sharply-angled dens made of metal and wood. He only knows they are dens because of the humans walking in and out of them, strange looking animals walking upright on two legs and wearing some kind of not-hide that covers smooth skin instead of fur.

There is food here, and a lot of it, his nose tells him, and gnawing hunger draws him out into the open. A wire barrier blocks him from getting closer, and a large white dog twice his size charges at him. Furiously, it barks, "Go away! My territory! Here, stranger here!" The humans cooking their food hear the noise and he's just starting to turn back toward the woods when he hears one of them yell something, bend and then pick something up before throwing it at him. The rock hits him square in the shoulder, hard enough to startle a yelp out of him and so he runs and runs.

After that encounter, he thinks of humans as Throwers. Most are both Throwers and Shouters, but when shouting isn't enough, they throw.

He does his best to avoid the Throwers but it is almost impossible. He is hungry and needs food, and is not experienced enough to hunt for himself. They have more food than they can eat, but they refuse to share it. Instead, they store it in large plastic cans or leave it in white bags on their porches. In the dark of night, when their canine guardians are inside or asleep, he slinks close and tears into the bag and knocks over cans to get at the treasure inside, but even that is not without risk. If he makes too much noise, they come out of their dens holding bright lights that unerringly find him in the darkness, yelling and shouting, throwing things at him.

Throwers are not very smart, and are nearly blind to boot, because if he sits still and quiet, he can watch them from the woods and they are never even aware of his presence. Their dogs aren't much better, with their fat bellies and thick fur and vapid affection for their two legged packmates. Thrower dens are so close together that it doesn't seem possible that there would be enough food in the area to support all of them, but they never seem to run out.

This is how he grows to fear thunderstorms: Some Throwers have long sticks that crack with flashes of lightning and throw thunder itself at him, causing it to splinter the nearby trees as he runs away. The air fills with a thick and bitter smoke smell for a long while afterwards. Rain does not bother him, but a flicker of lightning or distant roll of thunder becomes enough to send him running in a panic, even when he's dimly aware that he can't run fast enough or far enough to fully escape the storm.

The Throwers make it harder for him to get to their food, either keeping it inside, using heavier cans that he's not strong enough to break into, or even going so far as to have it carried off by a large vehicle that positively reeks of rotting food and old metal and plastic. After a few weeks, scavenging from the nearest Throwers has become nearly as fruitless as hunting is, so he moves on, further around the lake, and finds more Thrower dwellings and makes the hollowed out ground beneath a fallen tree his new den.

This is how he meets the Thrower who is different from the others: The smell of food is strong enough that he knows one of the Throwers is eating outside, so follows his nose to the source. The Thrower den is smaller than some he's seen, and there's no fences or indications that this one owns a dog. He can see the human, a male from the smell of him, doing something to a small two-wheeled vehicle. There's food spread out on a white, flat disk within arms reach of the man, and every now and again he pauses in whatever he's doing to eat some.

He picks his way through the woods to get closer to the tree line for a better look at this potential food source, and to his surprise the human stiffens and turns to look in his direction. That alone is unusual, the Throwers have been completely oblivious unless he is out in the open or they're alerted by one of their canine packmates. This one carefully examines the forest before those pale eyes settle directly on him, somehow managing to pick his small shape out of the dense brush and trees. Unlike all the other humans he's encountered, this one does not throw things once alerted to his presence, or even shout. Instead, the man goes back to working on his vehicle.

The whole experience is unsettling, but he stays where he is in the woods, watching until the Thrower-who-does-not-throw-or-shout finishes whatever he is doing and goes into his den. The white plate is left where it is, and after a brief time passes during which he can neither see nor hear the human moving in his den, he slinks out of the woods and cautiously makes his way over to the house. There is a small amount of food left on the plate and he gobbles it down in one quick gulp.

Traces of the human's scent linger on the white plate and for reasons he cannot explain, he wants to understand why this one seems different from all the others he's encountered. It is too dangerous to explore the scent so close to the house, so he picks up the flat disk with his mouth and carries it into the woods, all the way back to his tree hollow. He sniffs the plate over and over, licking all traces of food off of the white surface, learning the man's scent with his nose and his tongue until there is nothing more he can grasp and the flat white surface is smooth polished rock to his senses.

The plate is not his and he does not want it, so in the dark of night he takes it back to the not-Thrower's house and leaves it near the two-wheeled vehicle he found it by. The darkness gives him the cover he needs to explore every inch of the man's territory he can reach. There are two distinctive spoors he can track, the man from earlier and fainter, older traces of a female Thrower. The man keeps his food on a heavy plastic bin, so there is no real food to be found, other than seed at the foot of a pole that he can eat off the ground. It smells like birds and isn't very good, but it is edible—barely.

When morning comes, he sits on the edge of the woods, watches when the man comes out of his den, finds the plate and turns it over in his hands. He makes himself sit still when the human's sharp gaze examines the woods all around and somehow once again, picks out his form. Again, the man does not shout or throw things, just carries the white disk into his den and comes out again with something in his hand. After setting that down on the edge of the wooden porch in plain sight, the human contorts his body this way and that, and to his complete surprise, runs away from him down the broad, grey and hard packed trail that Throwers use for travelling.

His sharp senses again pick up the odor of food near by and tracking the source, he discovers it is coming from the thing the man left on the porch. He eats it, stares curiously down the road where Not-Thrower ran, and trots that direction. It is not the man he finds, but something else, a small colorful thing that doesn't smell like the human, but like something else entirely, so he picks it up and carries it to his den. It is soft in some places and rubbery and chewy in others, and smells like it came from Throwers. But it also smells like softness, like innocence and comfort and warmth and newness, and a myriad of other things he has never smelled before or experienced. He does not know where it came from, just knows that it makes him aware that there may be more out there than the loneliness he has experienced in his short life. For the first time, he finds himself hungering for something that has nothing to do with cramps in his belly and wonders if Not-Thrower has something to do with it.

All together, it troubles him enough that he decides to avoid the man's house. A day later, he returns from another fruitless day of scavenging to his hollowed tree hole and is alarmed to find Not-Thrower's scent all around the area. Nothing in the hole has been disturbed, and it is raining and he does not have the energy to find a new den anyway so he makes himself ignore the unwelcome presence for now and sleeps out of pure exhaustion.

When a few days have passed, the gnawing emptiness in his stomach becomes too much so more from desperation than anything else, he returns to the man's home. To his shock, the human is up in a tree—he did not even know they could climb! Once again, the human is immediately aware of his presence and descends from the tree before disappearing into his house. The man brings something outside and places it on the porch before heading back indoors.

He knows that it is food, that it is set out there for him.

This is how the Thrower who was different from the others became Not-Thrower became He-Brings-Good-Things.

He stays close to Bringer's house after that and there seems to be an endless supply of food available for him to eat. Not a lot at one time, but small, delicious meals spread through out the day that make him feel more content than he ever has. Without hunger cramps tightening his belly, he allows himself to indulge his curious nature, learns that when he pulls on the long green hose in the yard it shifts through the grass like a giant snake, that the metal cans on the porch split into two pieces and make a satisfying rattle when he knocks them over, that there are so many things around that have Bringer's scent on them.

He takes the ones he can to his den, seeking a better understanding of what makes Bringer so different from the other humans. There is a soft leathery thing in the shape of the man's hand that smells like sweat and skin that he sniffs over and over, licks and finally gnaws on with such enthusiasm that he inadvertently chews a piece off of it. Since it is damaged, he decides not to return that. He keeps another thing that was on the hose, too. It was more fragile than it appeared and cracked into pieces when he explored it with his teeth. The metal cans are made of sturdier material and the glass jar feels strange in his mouth, so he returns those.

Bringer is always aware when he is around, but does nothing more than bring him food. He never comes closer, never makes threatening motions, and certainly never throws things at him.

He learns the man's smell, comes to know it as well as he knows his own, not just the odor of his sweat or the food he has eaten that day or the bitter unnatural odor that sometimes lingers around him, but the unique scent that all of what Bringer is; strength, awareness, substance, playfulness, ingelligence, regret, frustration, sorrow.

His affinity to climb trees is exceedingly odd, though. He has sniffed all around the trees that Bringer climbs but has not yet figured out what is up there that has his interest.

Sometimes Bringer will talk to him in the strange tongue that other Throwers use, but not in a way that is loud and frightening. Instead it is quiet and almost comforting and he does not understand the words, but it doesn't matter.

This is how he meets She-Hunts-In-Silence: There is something different about Bringer one day, something like excitement and anticipation, and it grows sharper and more distinct as the day goes on. It makes him more cautious than usual, because in his experience new things are not good. Change is dangerous. So when the sun is going down and Bringer has been cooking outside in his fire pit, he stays further away than usual. The man eats outside and puts the food down on the edge of the porch just as he always does, but he only watches and waits from the safety of the woods for now. His unease grows when Bringer climbs a tree on the opposite side of the woods and settles in to wait as well.

A short time later, a car comes down the road and stops. The woman who gets out is in dark clothes and has bright colored fur on the top of her head, and the animal-like awareness of her surroundings is almost enough to rival Bringer's. This one is dangerous, his instincts scream at him, and when she stalks toward the tree Bringer is crouched in without saying a word, a huntress seeking prey, for the first time in his life he is frightened for something other than himself, frightened of what she might do to Bringer when she reaches him. The woman climbs the tree as nimbly as any squirrel and when she settles in beside the man in the tree, that feeling of tense anticipation that has been building all day dissipates. She is still dangerous, but she is not a danger to Bringer. She is something else.

He waits a little longer but his desire to eat the food Bringer's left is surpassing his initial wariness. Finally he picks his way out of the woods, pausing to lick seed husks from under the bird feeder out of habit. Bringer and the woman are talking quietly, but he hears them and pauses to peer up into the tree. When they fall silent, he grabs the meal and hurries back to the woods to eat it in peace.

The two humans come down out of the tree and Bringer leads her to his den.

That night, he sniffs the ground everywhere the female has been to learn her scent as well. He's not quite tired yet when he is finished, so knocks over the metal pail on the porch and picks it up. He knows it matches the lid he's got in his hollow, but has not figured out how the two fit together yet. His shoulders itch and he knows the woman is watching him, instinctively is aware that it is because she is not sure if he is good or bad for Bringer. After he deposits the bucket in his den, he returns to the house and slips out of the treeline. He sits by the edge of the woods and watches her, because he is not sure if she is good or bad for Bringer, either.

The following day Bringer and the Huntress go on a run (and this is another thing that makes no sense to him, running when neither chasing something nor being chased). He returns the metal brush that smells like meat and smoke. When they leave in Bringer's big vehicle, he gives up on fitting the metal pail and lid together and returns those, and then plays with the garden hose for a little while. He hears the noisy car long before it reaches the house and is back in the woods when they return later that morning.

That day he is fed something different. It is not as good as other food Bringer has given him, but it is crunchy and filling and that is good enough for him. He revisits the fire pit afterwards and makes off with the spatula, which still has tiny bits of cooked meat from last night stuck to it.

Mostly, he watches the two, notices how Bringer seems more relaxed and content when she is around than he ever has. He realizes that she is to Bringer what a full belly and a nap in soft grass on a warm sunny day is for him. He is mated to her, but she is not mated to him—perhaps she is not in season?

He wants to learn her scent as well as he has Bringer's, so when she leaves the towel outside, of course he takes it. It does not hold enough of her scent for his satisfaction but it will do for now. They may be faint, but the traces he whiffs reek of danger, deception, determination, caution, regret, innocence lost, satisfaction, awareness, contentment. That last is centered around Bringer himself. It is how he knows that she is Bringer's, even though she does not seem to be aware of that fact.

The towel makes a satisfying rip of sound when he pulls at it with his teeth and snaps when he shakes it from side to side, and before he knows it, it's in pieces all over the grass. Peering at his handiwork, it occurs to him that the Huntress may perceive this as a threat.

It seems he is right when she glares at him that following morning, but Bringer's reaction is the complete opposite of that, bright amusement accompanied by a sharp sound that is happier and lighter than a cough or a bark.

The Huntress proves how dangerous she can be when she bursts out of the house right as he finishes eating. He runs for the safety of the woods and she follows. The regular feedings he's been getting from Bringer make him faster than he's ever been, and he quickly leaves her behind. It isn't until later when he gathers his courage enough to return that he realizes he led her right past his tree hollow. Her scent mingles with Bringer's all around, even inside the hollow itself. It culminates around the soft and rubbery toy that has come to mean so much to him. Bringer and the Huntress have both touched it, but they have returned it too, just as he (usually) returns the things that he takes from Bringer's territory, so he thinks that everything may be all right.

He is still cautious when he goes back to Bringer's house, but the Huntress is gone, and the man seems lessened by her absence.

They settle into a routine. He is fed the crunchy kibble twice a day, and more often than not it will have some of Bringer's meaty leavings mixed in. His skin changes and he doesn't itch constantly, the bare patches of skin start to fill in with soft fur, his scrawny frame fills in with muscle.

Bringer gives him something else.

A name.

Ghost.

He does not know what it means, but he knows that it is his, and that it means something far more profound and meaningful than Small-Weak-Hungry-Thing. When he hears Bringer say it, he can't seem to help himself from coming closer to the man, wagging his tail at this human who has brought him more happiness and peace in the span of days they have known each other than he has known in his entire life.

After a time, Ghost forgets why he used to run at the mere sight of Bringer. He is still cautious of course, and stays out of arm's reach but finds he enjoys just sitting nearby and watching the man do what ever he is doing that day. Since he doesn't have to worry about scrounging for food, he has time to play and sleep and relax and dig holes and chase squirrels (for fun and not food!) and just be.

As it turns out, Bringer does indeed have a thing that throws objects, but he is very careful when he uses it, and seems to only throw the long, slender sticks it slings out at a particular target he sets up by the house. He never throws things at Ghost, so eventually he will come up behind the man and watch him use it. Bringer is very accurate with the throwing thing—he rarely misses, and even then, it is not by much.

Bringer goes through another period of tense waiting, and this one is filled with too much worry and dread to be linked to the Huntress. It peaks and ebbs one morning, much to Ghost's relief. When Bringer is nervous and unhappy, it makes him nervous and unhappy.

A more familiar feeling of cheerful anticipation replaces it, one that does herald the presence of the Huntress, who arrives later that same evening. Her sharp eyes seek him out at the edge of the trees, and he watches their subdued but happy reunion. And then she steps into his favorite hole. She does not yelp in pain and he is not surprised. Loud injured things are quick to become silent dead things in his experience and She-Hunts-In-Silence would know this.

When she glares at him, he ducks his head in submission. She was Bringer's long before he came along, and if he vexes her enough he worries that they will drive him off and he will be alone again.

He does not want to be alone again.

Fortunately her irritation seems to be fleeting, because a short time later Bringer comes out with his food, and when he scents the air he can tell it's got some of those doughy sticks that taste of meat and other delicious things. They go inside for the evening.

The next morning, there is a change in the routine.

Bringer brings the food dish outside, and the Huntress is with him, and instead of going back inside, he sits down on the porch steps and she sits beside him and they wait.

Ghost does not like change, because change is dangerous. He's growing accustomed to Bringer's presence, and has been closer to him than the food dish currently is, but when he is feeding, he is vulnerable to attack, with his head lowered and his ears filled with the crunching of the kibble food. He retreats to the edge of the woods to give them time to leave.

They remain where they are, right next to his food dish.

Clearly this is some sort of mistake. Perhaps this is Bringer's way of showing he is the Alpha? He approaches his dish and the humans, lowers his head in submission, and asks them why they're still hanging around when they're supposed to be inside so he can eat in a sharp, questioning bark. They discuss the matter in their tongue, but do not move.

Maybe it's a game? He play bows, wags his tail, tells them to go inside again now. Bringer says something in response, gestures at the food, and stays right where he is.

He does not like this game. He lets them know by trotting back into the woods, leaving both food and humans behind. Perhaps they will leave now.

They do not.

He is hungry and the food dish is right there and it seems that if he wants to eat, he's going to have to do it with them sitting there. Fine. But he's not getting any closer than he has to, so he stands as far away from the bowl as he can and stretches to reach it and one of them breathes, so he runs back into the woods, just to be on the safe side. The second time, the bowl touches his chin and again, he runs. The third time he actually manages to grab some food before retreating to chew it. He keeps an eye on them the entire meal, and they just sit there, watching him without showing any signs of threatening behavior. For now.

He will remain vigilant, of course.

They watch him eat the following day as well, and this time talk the entire time. It's terribly distracting, but he's gotten used to the regular meals and again, they are not acting aggressive or scary so he endures it.

They are gone most of the day and come back smelling of new food and new places, and he follows behind them when they walk from the car to the house, trying to gather as much information about where they went with his nose.

Sometime that evening, something changes between Bringer and the Huntress. He does not know what caused it, but it seems like a barrier has appeared between them where none existed before. And he is proven right about change being dangerous, because the next day, Bringer is gone.

Ghost doesn't notice it at first, not really. He registers that Bringer is no longer home, but he's left his big noisy vehicle behind and he's left before and always comes back.

When the Huntress brings his food out the following morning though, that is when it really sinks in. He has to be sure, and looks inside Bringer's home, peering this way and that for any sign of the man, without any luck. The man has vanished.

Three days pass and the Huntress is nervous and irritable and Ghost is nervous and irritable, and the drizzling rain suits his mood completely. He eats because he has to, just in case this next meal is his last because what if both Bringer and the Huntress leave? He shivers and shakes in the rain, and waits and worries about Bringer.

The Huntress tricks him, leaves in Bringer's vehicle and when it comes back he jumps up and rushes over to it, but it's just her. He is still gone. Then, to make matters worse, it turns out that the Huntress may be a Thrower. She is eating on the porch and throws something at him, and he instinctively twists to avoid it, dashing out of range. It takes him a few moments to realize that she's thrown a piece of meat at him, but he regards her with newfound suspicion. It lessens ever so slightly when she does not throw anything else, but sets the food down on the porch for him to take as he pleases.

He does a more thorough search of Bringer's territory, checking the fire pit, the garage, his vehicle, even the trees for any sign of the man, before he accepts that he is well and truly gone. Ghost fears for Bringer because he is not there to watch out for the man, and wonders what he will do if—or perhaps it is when—both Bringer and the Huntress leave him.

This is his first encounter with the Loud Metal Man: He is laying in the yard when he hears something approaching from the most unexpected source of all—the sky. He runs and is in the woods well before it crashes to the ground behind him. It's only after he's been running for a few minutes that he remembers the Huntress. She's injured and slow and if anything happens to her, he really will be alone.

He circles back around and the relative quiet is almost as frightening as the loud entrance had been. The Huntress is exactly where she was. As it turns out, the flying metal thing is part man, a loud man in a loud metal body with a loud smell and a loud presence.

The Huntress is right where he left her, relaxed and unharmed, both friendly toward and mildly annoyed by the presence of the Metal Man. He roars off into the sky a little while later and Ghost runs away from the thunderous noise of his departure.

When he returns, he sniffs the ground where Metal Man had stood, and then, more out of habit than anything else, peeks inside the house door looking for Bringer. He has been gone for days now, and Ghost worries about him. Something must be wrong, perhaps he is injured and cannot find his way home. A whine escapes him at that notion, and the Huntress says something quiet and reassuring to him. It helps assuage his feeling of loss, and he watches her go inside before laying down to sleep for the night.

This is how he knows Bringer is still alive: Many days have passed and it seems like the man's scent has begun to fade from his territory, brushed aside by wind, washed by rain, burned by sun. It is still strong inside the den though, and every time the Huntress opens the door it billows out of the house in a wave. She is sitting on the porch in the sunshine eating a round crunchy thing and he is dozing in the yard with a dead squirrel a few inches away from his nose. He's taken up hunting again because he fears that he may be alone and need to survive on his own again. He's discovered that he's much better at it now than he was when desperation and starvation made him rush too much for a good ambush, and weakness made him too slow for a good chase.

A sudden chirping comes from the Huntress and he bolts for the woods, ears twisting and turning to listen. That's when he hears something he hasn't heard in so long that he's almost forgotten what it sounds like. He follows it to the source, a small black thing that the Huntress is holding up to the side of her head and it is Bringer.

It is strange because he cannot smell or see Bringer in the small black box, and his voice is distorted, but when the Huntress turns it out and the sound comes through clearer, and he hears Bringer speak his gibberish string of words, it's like he's talking right to Ghost and his entire body quivers and wiggles with joy because the man is alive, Bringer is alive and that means that there is a chance he will come back and then he won't be left alone.

Perhaps he is trapped in the little box? Ghost stretches out his nose, seeking out Bringer's scent but all he can smell is metal and plastic and the Huntress. When it touches his nose, it tickles just enough to make him sneeze, which startles both himself and the Huntress. Bringer speaks for a short time longer and then his voice goes silent, to his disappointment.

It's not until then that he realizes just how close he is to the Huntress, who looks at him but does not try to touch. Hearing Bringer's voice has given him newfound courage, and he stretches out his neck and snuffles at her bright hair. Then he grabs the round crunchy thing she had been eating and carries his prize into the middle of the yard to gloat, because Bringer is alive and he is happy and feels like he could take on a pack of coyotes and the Huntress at the same time.

The following day, Ghost is nosing around the entrance to a rabbit hole on the edge of the woods when a car pulls into the drive. He goes to see and a man steps out and his eyes tell him it is Bringer but he just isn't sure, so he walks closer, nose lifted to verify his scent. Then the man calls him by name and he is so happy and relieved that he hardly knows what to do with himself. He charges right at Bringer and remembers that he is supposed to be afraid seconds before running into him, stops short, rears up on his hind legs and runs circles around him, runs faster than he ever has in his life edging in closer and closer, and when Bringer manages to reach out and just touch his flank it startles him so much his rump drags the ground as he tries to evade that brief touch. Then it becomes what will soon be his favorite game to play, where he runs and the slow two-legged Bringer chases and even when he manages to touch Ghost, it still feels like he's won because it is so much fun playing with the man.

Eventually Bringer goes into his home and Ghost watches him through the glass until he can't bear to be apart from him so soon after their reunion. He paws at the door and Bringer comes outside and eats where he can see and hear and smell him. Now, he does something he's always wanted to do but never been brave enough to try, sniffing the man so closely that his nose rubs against the man's not-hide outer wear. He still smells the same but he also smells of strange places and things and people. Ghost is fascinated by the new smells but he's aware that Bringer is exhausted and somehow both satisfied and sad. They play again and this time he is bold and quick enough to jump on the man from behind, and it just adds another fun element to their game.

In the midst of his joy at Bringer's return, he still observes that that unseen barrier between the man and his mate is still there. She unexpectedly leaves in the middle of the night and he can't bring himself to care, because Bringer is home. He is alive and he is home and that is all that matters.

This is how Bringer marks him as his own: He has been back for a few days and that evening when he comes outside, he is holding the food dish in one hand and something else in the other, something dark and long and thin. Bringer sets the food dish on the ground as he always does, but arranges the long thin thing on the ground around it, and then sits on the steps and waits. The man looks as relaxed as ever, but he smells tense.

Ghost is suspicious because this is a change, though it is a minor one. His food is in the same place, Bringer is in the same place, and the slender ring on the ground just lays there. He sniffs it. It smells new, has the faint smell of humans he does not know, but other than that, it is a nothing.

He is about halfway finished with eating his food when Bringer jerks his hand, quick as a snake, and the thin thing that had been laying on the ground is up and around his neck before he can run away.

It is the ultimate betrayal.

He bucks, pulls, twists with all of his strength to get away but the cord around his neck gets tighter and tighter until he has to stop fighting long enough to breathe. And during that pause, when his tongue is lolling and his eyes are wild with fear, Bringer edges closer and he waits for the terrible thing that he knows is coming with bunched, tense muscles.

Bringer slips something else around his neck, something wider and thicker, and the whole time he talks to Ghost in a low, soothing voice. There is a quiet click of sound and the thin noose around his neck loosens. The man's hand strokes gently over the top of his head, under his neck, down his back and flanks, and each touch makes him flinch because he is expecting it to hurt. It does not. In fact, it feels so nice that almost against his will, he finds himself leaning into that gentle caress.

After a few moments of that, Bringer brings his hands up to his neck and slips that thin thing off of him and Ghost bolts for the woods. He makes it about two body lengths away before the larger thing around his neck pulls taut and it's like his head comes to a complete stop while his legs keep running. His entire body snaps around to a painful stop with such force he's flung to the ground. He just lays there, stunned, while Bringer hurries to his side murmuring his soft words and stroking him with the soft touches.

They remain like this for a little while, Ghost sprawled out on the ground where he's fallen and trying not to like how Bringer's hands feel when they rub across his hide and scratch him just so under the chin but it is so very hard when it feels so good. Then there is another quiet, metallic click and Bringer rises to his feet, takes one step backward, another, and then turns and walks to the porch.

He doesn't understand what is happening now. Is it another trick? He can still feel that heavy weight on his neck and definitely does not want a repeat of the jarring incident from earlier, so he waits until the man goes inside and then slowly rises to his feet. His entire body aches from his efforts to escape earlier, but other than that he is unharmed. A good full body shake helps. After that, he makes his way to the woods at a slow walk, unwilling to risk a repeat of the body-jarring halt from earlier.

Ghost tries that night and the following day to get that thing off of his neck, rolling, flipping his body around, shoving at it with his hind feet, trying to angle his mouth enough to grab it with his teeth, all to no avail. It is not coming off, not without Bringer's help, and since the man put it there, it must serve some purpose that he just does not understand. Finally, he decides that it must be Bringer's way of marking him as his own. After he comes to that decision, he stops trying to get it off. A couple of days later, he doesn't even notice it's there, it's just part of him.

Bringer spends the next couple of days doing man things in his garage that involve a lot of pounding and loud buzzing and emerges with a much smaller version of his own den, made of wood with a metal top. The man fills it with wood shavings and sets it up by the edge of the porch and Ghost looks at it and thinks that there is no way he will go anywhere near that thing, because it looks and smells like a trap.

And then Bringer puts his food dish inside of it, way in the back so there's no way he can avoid going into it if he wants to eat.

He endures it, stretches his body out to reach the food dish inside the same way he once did when trying to avoid getting close to Bringer and the Huntress. Then it rains, hard and heavy for two days and he notices that the inside of the small house is dry and the wood shavings are soft and comfortable under his paws. He moves the soft and rubbery toy and the old garden glove from the hollow under the tree into his new den, and now he can be even closer to Bringer.

As for the man himself, he seems less than he was when Ghost first encountered him, and he suspects it has to do with the fact that he misses his mate, because she does not come around for many long days. He has no interest in finding a mate himself, not yet anyway, but he is aware that some animals mate for life and he thinks that it must be this way with Bringer and his Huntress.

Bringer goes away again and this time, it's not the Huntress does not come to feed him but a stranger, a human male who is all angled limbs and awkwardness. He eats the food the boy sets out, but otherwise avoids him. When Bringer returns home, their reunion is just as joyous as the previous one, and Ghost learns that if he stands very still, the man will give him those wonderful rubs under his chin and on his head and anywhere else he can reach.

The man starts doing something else—leaving the door to his den open. Bringer talks to Ghost, gestures at him, calls at him persuasively in an attempt to get him to enter into the large den but he just sits and stares at that opening, knowing that he is being given an invitation to truly join Bringer's pack once and for all, but he never goes inside. He is not brave enough, strong enough, worthy enough. Not yet.

Ghost learns this is how things are, the man will leave for a while and come back for a while, and even though he worries about what dangers the man is exposing himself to without him to keep watch, he always returns.

Bringer is gone again and Ghost is sleeping in his den by the porch when a car pulls into the driveway and to his surprise, the Huntress gets out. She is intent, focused, and he realizes that she is hunting something. The woman goes inside Bringer's house and is in there for a short time when the boy's car comes in the driveway. She comes out and when she sees the young human, some of that intensity fades. The two chat for a little while, then the young man leaves and she stays and feeds him that night.

The following morning, a familiar rumble comes down the road and it is Bringer's big, smelly vehicle. He wriggles with joy and runs to meet the man, and the Huntress comes out of the house and when the two talk to each other, that barrier seems to have weakened ever so slightly. Ghost is not interested in the how or why, because his friend is back and he is safe and unharmed and all he wants to do is play and be rubbed on.

This is how he is taken away from his home: He is outside playing with Bringer and he is running as fast as he can and plants his front paws to turn aside at the very last moment when he hears and feels his paw turn open. His eyes and jaw fly open with surprise, but he does not make any noise, because loud injured things become silent dead things.

Instinctively, Ghost licks his torn foot and his mouth fills with blood. Bringer comes toward him with his hands raised and speaking in that soothing voice, and he trembles with pain and fear but does not run like he would have at one time, because the man is the closest thing he has to a packmate, and packmates look out for each other. The Huntress joins them and wraps something around his hurt paw that doesn't do anything to lessen the pain.

His first ride in Bringer's car would be scary enough even if he weren't injured, but he is. The Huntress is up in the front and it rumbles and moves, and trees and dens fly past them at impossible speeds. If Bringer was not there, he is sure he would go mad with terror, but he is not alone, so he endures the pain and the strangeness of it all, and then they reach a new place that looks like a den but it is something else.

Bringer carries him inside and there are so many smells and sounds that he can't process it all. Strange humans crowd around him and a woman unwraps the covering on his paw while he shakes like a leaf and buries his head in Bringer's shoulder. There is a sudden sense of urgency in everyone around him and something stings him in his uninjured arm.

The world goes dark.

He wakes up on a soft bed and his nose and eyes tell him he is still in the strange place that is not home, in a small enclosure with bars that is not his den. His paw still hurts and there's a new pain between his hind legs, but it is less now than it was, having waned to a dull ache. His entire leg feels strange because it is wrapped in thick coverings from his toes all the way up to his shoulder.

Strange people move past his kennel and he can smell his kind and the yowlers and hear barks and whines and meows and many other sounds in this place. He tries to sit up and is hit by a wave of dizziness. Then Bringer appears, opens the cage door, talks and pets him while the Huntress hovers behind, and he knows his wound is a bad one because even she smells concerned. The man leans forward and says to him the string words that he always says just before he leaves for many days. And then he gives Ghost one last pat and leaves.

The following days are long and confusing. Bringer returns with the Huntress, just as he said he would, and they go outside so he can empty his bowels and bladder, but instead of taking him home they bring him back into the Caretaker's Den. Then they unwrap the bandages from his paw, and study it and put smelly stuff on it, only to wrap it up again. It seems pointless but Bringer is always there to hold and talk him, so he suffers through the indignity of it in typical silence.

Ghost is in the same kennel the entire time he is there, one that seems to be in the main room where he can see all the comings and goings of the animals and humans alike. That's how he realizes that the Caretaker's Den is a temporary dwelling for all who come in. Some animals are sick or injured, but many seem to be in perfect health, so he does not understand why they are even there. Either way, with the exception of a very sick old dog that smelled of wrongness all throughout his body, all of the animals leave with the same humans who brought them in. He will too, eventually. He is sure of it.

A couple more days pass and when Bringer and the Huntress come in one morning, that barrier between them is gone and they are happy and together and closer to each other than they have been in the entire time he has known them. Finally, they are mates, and both of them are aware of that now.

Bringer says something to him but he only understands one word. Home.

This time when he is led out of the Caretaker's Den, Bringer picks him up and puts him in the back of his large, smelly vehicle and he shakes again from nervousness, but excitement too because he knows he is going back home, back to their territory with the familiar things and smells and sounds.

When they get home, Bringer opens the door to his massive den for him again and tries to lead him inside, but Ghost balks and stares wide-eyed into that space just beyond the door, because if anything, his injured paw makes him even less worthy of joining their pack than he was before.

Bringer will not take no for an answer this time, picks him up and sets down, unclips the leash and leaves him to do what ever he will. Naturally he follows the man around, because he's not sure what else he should be doing.

Night falls and it is getting to be sleeping time, so Bringer goes into a side room and Ghost follows. There is a massive pile of soft bedding there, so he jumps up onto it and settles into the plush covering that smells so strongly of Bringer's scent with a sigh of relief and contentment. It is finally sinking in that he has a home, and the pack he is in may be small but it is strong.

The Huntress and Bringer climb into bed with him, and even though she doesn't smell like she is in season, the two consummate their partnership by mating, which is a good thing except that it's keeping him from sleeping.

Ghost decides the floor is more comfortable after all.

And that is how he joined Bringer's pack.