The Spirit Wood by Robert Masello Page A

research, and usually Byron found his books absorbing. But not tonight. For some reason, his mind wouldn't take hold of the words; his eyes merely grazed the pages, and when he stopped at the end of a chapter, he realized he couldn't remember a thing of what he'd just read. He was listening instead, he discovered, to a barely audible and distant whining. At first, he'd thought it was the bathroom pipes sighing, then the wind in the eaves. But when he closed the book and paid attention, he could tell it was coming from downstairs; it was Diogenes, in the kitchen. He swung his legs out of the bed, hoping that Meg and Peter hadn't already been disturbed by Dodger, too.
    With a terry-cloth bathrobe thrown over his pyjamas, he crept out into the hallway; the floor was like ice beneath his feet, and he wished he'd put on some socks. He debated going back, then decided not to bother; it would take only a couple of minutes to see what was wrong with Dodger. Before going down the stairs, he glanced over the railing at the mosaic below; the pebble design was entirely obscured by the darknessof the foyer. All he could see, glistening faintly here and there, Were the strips of fine gold metal that outlined some of the figures. What a house.
    The stairs themselves were even colder than the second floor corridor; two French doors in the black-floored room beyond the foyer had been left partly open, and a cool draft stirred the air. Above the central fireplace, the white gowns of the beckoning naiads almost appeared to be swirling in the breeze; the red tags spun like pinwheels. From the kitchen, Byron heard another, and more troubled, whine.
    He passed through the dining room, and just as he pushed open the swinging door, he heard a frantic scratching sound. Fumbling along the wall, he found the light switch. Diogenes had been up on all fours, pressing against the door that led back toward the black room. When Byron turned on the light, the dog turned and bounded back across the kitchen to him, tail switching furiously.
    “What's the problem, Dodger?” Byron knelt down, scratching him on his head. “You having bad dreams?”
    The dog whined again, turned in a circle, tried to lead Byron to the rear door of the kitchen.
    “Shhh—you're going to wake up our hosts. Keep it down, boy.”
    Byron followed him to the door. “You want to explore, is that it?” he said in a low, soothing voice. “If I let you, will you quiet down? If we take a little walk, will you go to sleep? On your nice blue bath mat?”
    He swung the door open and Diogenes pressed his muzzle into the crack, then used his body to push it open the rest of the way. Confronted by another closed door at the end of the narrow passageway, he barked and turned to Byron for help.
    “Stifle it,” Byron said sternly. “No more barking.”

    He pushed it open, and Dodger raced through, his nails clicking across the polished black surface, and over to the pair of French doors which had been left ajar. Byron just had time to catch him by his collar before he managed to squeeze his fat body through the aperture.
    The fountain was directly below them, obscuring a portion of the lawn. But beyond that, Byron could make out what appeared to be several figures—one man and two women, it seemed—moving about between the boathouse and the water. At such a distance, and with fleeting clouds passing before the moon, it was difficult to be absolutely sure . . . though the figures, whoever they were, did seem to be weaving back and forth, their arms outstretched, as if they were awaiting something from the woods to the left.
    “Looks like a game,” Byron said, crouching down. “But I don't know who the players are.”
    Dodger panted excitedly and strained at Byron's hand. A moment later, something—an animal of some sort—shot out of the trees. It wasn't a dog, that much Byron could tell, but what was it? The figures moved to catch or trap it—Byron heard a woman's laughter—but the