Gabriel could tell she was jazzed by whatever was in the wind because Whiskey was at the full length of her lead and leaning in.
Could he turn her around?
Probably.
Was morbid curiosity at the helm?
Certainly.
He hated to think it, but part of him really liked the idea that Daniel was hanging out.
Gabriel would have discounted the idea altogether because the idea wasn’t anywhere in his paradigms, but then Reaper had told him on the siblings search on Sweet Gum last March: dogs don’t memorize songs and randomly start singing.
And it wasn’t one song.
It was many.
Yesterday, Gabriel had been at Whiskey’s graveyard concert in the pre-dawn morning when she started to sing a new song, one Gabriel hadn’t heard before.
Gabriel remembered Reaper saying that howling was a group sport, a way of communicating. He’d wondered if Whiskey might be hearing something that had her joining in.
Organ music up at the church made the most sense to him.
They hadn’t had organ music at his brother’s funeral. Daniel hated the organ, but Gabriel remembered singing along to one as a child.
If that was why Whiskey made her way to the church, there might be a car in the parking lot that he could see to make sense of things. Gabriel reasoned that the organist was there at odd hours, practicing for church, perhaps even an upcoming funeral.
So the length of the field between the church and road might have made it something Whiskey could hear while he, with his pitiful human ears, could not.
But as he’d arrived at the stop sign where Whiskey liked to sit and sing, Gabriel could plainly see that the parking lot was empty and the lights were off in the church.
Whiskey plopped her butt to the ground and offered a couple of stale-sounding notes as if she regretted not having time to warm up before her concert.
Her chin tipped up, her chest expanded, and to Gabriel's surprise, it was a different song. Clearly different. Gabe took out his phone to record the sound. He would have asked Cathy about it to see if this song was also on Daniel’s hospice playlist, but she was a little too excited by the idea that Daniel was haunting Gabriel via Whiskey.
Cathy needed to let go. Gabriel couldn’t see how fully believing in a possessed dog was healthy.
If he couldn’t offer a quick explanation, like the musician at the keyboard, then he’d keep his mouth shut.
And while he felt like he was protecting his sister, Gabriel had to admit that it felt like there was something otherworldly at play. As if this did have meaning; Gabe just needed a way to define it. “Daniel, man, if this is you as soon as I die, I’m going to kill you.”
And as he said it, Whiskey stopped howling and turned her attention to him.
“Whiskey, that’s just how Daniel and I talk to each other. No malice intended.”
He expected her to tip back and sing again, but instead she moseyed over to the stop sign, took a good sniff, then left her own scent for the neighborhood dogs to enjoy.
Gabriel had decided to walk up to the church, then the nostalgic scent of roses drew him across the street instead.
His movements set off the motion-detector lights, and he didn’t want the owner to look out and find him staring. So he turned and left.
Now, as Whiskey leaned into her leash, aiming for the graveyard, Gabriel stopped.
He didn’t have the time or the emotional bandwidth to deal with howling this morning.
He just didn’t.
“Hey, Whiskey, how about you pee on this tree here?” Gabriel stepped toward the copse of trees. “I’ll tell you what, if you just pee and get it over with, when I get to work, I’ll walk you by the food carts and let you smell the meat cooking.”
