We’d roll the tennis ball into its circle, and without fail, it would pick up the ball in its restless winds and push it back out towards us. We’d toss it underhand or even throw it overhand, and so long as the ball passed through the circle of stones, it would snag the ball and send it back to us like a game of catch. Every day we would try new things, and while we were having trouble communicating beyond simple games, it wasn’t for lack of trying. It either couldn’t talk or chose not to, but we had still spent several hours peppering it with questions and telling it more about ourselves.

We named it Harvey after the old movie about the invisible rabbit, or “pooka” as Rusty would correct me, and every day we spent with it, the more it felt as though we truly had a new best friend. And while it didn’t speak, it did seem to understand at least some of what we were saying. It knew the difference between the two of us, as demonstrated by where it went when we asked it to “go to Rusty” or “go to Tommy”. It seemed capable of remembering things and understanding the more complex rules of games we made up to test the limits of what it could do.

To an outsider, this would probably look like stupid kids playing with something dangerous, or at best, a juvenile and amateurish science experiment. And in many ways, those descriptions would be right. But it was more than that too. The strangeness of it all, the amazing rush of excitement at interacting with something so unknown and magical, elevated it beyond just a game or a childish attempt at solving a mystery. I think it felt like we were touching the Divine, and in turn, it was touching us. By the end of the week we didn’t just feel special, we had accepted that we were special, because who else had such a special friend?

That pride and misunderstanding is what ruined us from the start. We had made a friend that transformed a few hours out of every day into something magical, and naturally we wanted more. So we slipped into Aunt Karen’s shed and found two sturdy shovels before sneaking back out to the woods.

And then we let Harvey out.

Part Two