She stopped just short of the door, and spun back to him. “You can order me around all you want, but you can’t do nuthin’ to Kudzu—he’s my dog, not yours!”

“If you want to set things straight in the hereafter,” the Ogre said calmly, “then you need to put Kudzu back in the living world—just like you did to those flowers the other day.”

“No!” She didn’t even bother saying “sir,” this time.

“It’s the right thing to do, and you know it.”

“If I put him back, he’ll have no place to go!” she pleaded.

“He will if you find him a good family.”

“If I put him back, he’ll die!”

“But not until he lives the full length of a dog’s life.”

Zin found herself screaming into the Ogre’s face, but he stayed calm, which just made her even madder. “Why’re you asking me to do this?”

He didn’t answer her. Instead he said, sternly, “I am your commanding officer, and your orders are to find a good home for Kudzu … and then you are to use your powers to put him in it.”

“You can ask me from here till doomsday, I won’t do it!”

He was quiet for a second. Then he said, “If you do it, I’ll put you in charge of an entire regiment of soldiers.”

The Ogre had just put his nasty, sticky little finger on her button, and Zin was disgusted with herself to know how easily her buttons could be pushed.

“How many’s in a regiment?” she asked.

Zin hated this more than anything, but she couldn’t deny that the Ogre, curse his Hershey’s hide, was absolutely right. She had no business ripping a living dog into Everlost. And the story she gave—the one about saving him from an owner who beat him? It was a flat-out lie. Kudzu had a good life with a family that was so sweet and caring, it had made Zin sick. This was before she went off to be a hermit, when she still believed she could linger with the living, and pretend she could be one of them, even though they never knew she was there. She stayed with that family for more than a month, sitting with them at the dinner table, ripping bits of food off their plates. She sat in their playroom, ripping toys and watching the brother and sister fight, blaming each other for the missing playthings.