The frog blinked an instant before the invisible force caused the heron to open its wings and lift off. The frog was either in the pond or in the heron as it flew slowly past the kitchen window, long legs dangling, and Joan felt the gray shadow just as the dogs arrived at the kitchen door and threw themselves at the screen.

Somehow, lightning fast, the stranger had her by the ankle. Joan lifted the shovel like a sword as the dogs bayed at the screen.

Back when the mighty turtle grabbed the shovel, Joan had had to drag him across the grass for a few feet before he let go, and that’s what she did now, tugging her foot until the stranger’s arm was fully outstretched, his head lolled back, the hand like a constrictor around her ankle.

Turtles are not amphibians, as Joan always forgot. They are reptiles.

She leaned back as far as she could until she could just reach the screen door with the shovel.

Let the dogs work for you.

His grandmother had come out in the yard, picked up those long-ago posies from the ground, dropped them in a coffee can, and carried it back inside. He heard himself grunting now the way she had when she bent over, and he was being hurried along, tugged back and forth as the dogs worked in tandem until he heard himself making a sound like a kitten. When the delicate blue stem of his windpipe was finally unwrapped, the stranger felt a great happiness overtake him. In morte voluptas. Through death into pleasure.

Chances were he’d end up where Kyle had ended up, and nobody didn’t have fun when they were with Kyle.

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