Dog

Previously

…The wall in front of me held the whole story, told twice. Hers and mine. Neither complete. Both true. And between them, in the carved stone, the Dog Star burned — bright, ancient, navigational, the thing you steer by when every other landmark has failed. I pressed my hand against the carving. The groove was warm. Worn smooth by another hand that had rested here, in the dark, asking a dead dog if he was still there. He was. He is. Sirius doesn't disappear. It sets below the horizon and comes back. That's what stars do. That's what my mother knew when she named him. The maze held its breath. Or I did. At this point I can't tell the difference.