I don’t know when it hit me that we weren’t alone. First I looked around for Miss Sophia Brown and Mister Cat, but then I realized someone or something was pacing us, just off to my left. I can’t say how I knew, because I couldn’t see it, whatever it was, and it didn’t make any sound. No crackling brush, no growl—no breathing, even—but the thing was close, and I would have been scared out of my mind if I hadn’t been with Tamsin. She put her arm around my shoulders, which I couldn’t feel any more than I’d felt her hand on my arm, but I was glad of it just the same. She said quietly, “Do not fear. There is no danger.”
We stood together, waiting. I didn’t know for what, but I wasn’t afraid, because Tamsin had said not to be. We stood there, and after a while the thing that had been walking with us came out into the moonlight.
It was a dog, the biggest dog I’ve ever seen, the size of a cow. It looked like the Hound of the Baskervilles, except that it was totally black—so black that the moonlight made it look even blacker, as though it was soaking up the light and turning it to darkness inside itself. Its eyes were glowing red, but it didn’t look savage: more like really dignified, almost sad. I whispered to Tamsin, “What is it? What kind of dog is that?”
“That is the Black Dog,” Tamsin said. I just blinked at her, which seemed to surprise her. “The Black Dog. He appears always as a warning.”
“Warning about what?” Tamsin didn’t answer me. She moved toward that huge creature, and I thought he wagged his tail the least bit, but maybe not. Her voice was different than when she talked to me. She said, “Why have you come, tell me? What need for such as I am to beware?”
She beckoned to me without taking her eyes off him, but I couldn’t move. I knew I wasn’t scared, but my legs didn’t. Tamsin turned and saw how I was standing, and called softly, “Jenny, to me! No harm, no harm,” as though she were coaxing a skittery animal. I went to stand beside her, and I made myself look straight into the Black Dog’s red eyes.
To this day I don’t have any idea what the Black Dog is. Maybe he’s nothing more than a presentiment, a way of telling yourself to watch out for something you already know to watch out for. I could believe that if he hadn’t looked so real—he even smelled like a real dog. I’ve never yet had a presentiment that smelled.
Tamsin asked him again, “Why have you come?” He didn’t bark or whine, the way dogs do when it’s killing them not to be able to talk. But she listened to his silence, and once she nodded. She glanced sideways at me, and I said, “What? I don’t understand a thing!” and when I looked back again the Black Dog was gone.
“Well,” Tamsin said. “Passing strange.” Her voice was so soft I could barely hear her. “This is passing strange, Jenny. The Black Dog is come to warn us both, though of what I’m not aware. He came just so to Edric and me, but my understanding failed us then. It must not fail again.”
“Who’s Edric?” I asked her, but she didn’t answer. The moon was so bright that I could even make out a small frown line between her eyes, and that melted me more than I can write down now. The idea that she could make herself remember something as human as a frown, with everything else she was trying to hold on to… I wondered suddenly if Miss Sophia Brown ever used to paw her eyes open in the morning, three hundred years ago, the way Mister Cat does with me.
“It’s late,” I said, “Sally’s going to start worrying. I guess we can meet your friend another time.” Tamsin looked at me without answering. There was a moment when I felt like the ultimate idiot, talking about lateness and worry to a ghost. But then she said, “Indeed, my own mother was greatly given to apprehension,” and we started back.
She didn’t talk much on the way, but she stayed visible and distinct in the darkness, which I took to mean that she was thinking hard about the Black Dog. Which was why I did something I shouldn’t have done, something she’d made me promise I’d never do. I asked her, “Do you suppose the dog was warning us about the Other One? You know, like the boggart?”
The moment the words were out of my mouth I was desperately hoping she wouldn’t recall what I’d promised. But I just had to look at her, and I knew. I was sure she’d be furious at me—and for a bit she was, which was frightening, because with a ghost you can really see a feeling, all the way down. Somebody who has to remember all the time what feelings are isn’t going to be any good at hiding them. Tamsin looked at me for a long time without saying anything, while I was apologizing and apologizing for mentioning the Other One at all. Finally she smiled, and it was all right, like that, the same way it had been absolutely, horribly wrong a minute before. That’s how it always was with Tamsin.
“He is gone,” she said. “Long gone, Jenny, long away past returning, even that one. And if he did, be sure that I would know of it. The Black Dog is wrong.”
“Well, who was he?” I asked, but that was pushing it. Tamsin turned and started on, and although she seemed to be barely drifting through that sludgy air, I had to skip to catch up with her. She said, “Jenny, all that matters is that he is not. Words are dear to me, and he will consume no more of mine. The Black Dog is wrong, and your boggart is wrong—be greatly thankful, and be still.” And I was, the rest of the way, until the lights of the Manor came into view through the branches of Tamsin’s beech trees. They seemed very far away, although they weren’t really. I think that was the first time I was even a little homesick for someplace that wasn’t West Eighty-third and Columbus Avenue—even for the people who had snatched West Eighty-third away from me. It was an uneasy feeling, and I didn’t like it.
Tamsin stopped before we reached the trees, putting her arm out in front of me. For a moment I thought the Black Dog was with us again; but he never made a sound, and there are too many dead leaves under the beeches for a big animal to move quietly. Tamsin whispered, “Stay” to me; and then, louder, “Will you have forgotten me so soon, old friend? Not you, surely?”
There was a sudden raspy grunt up ahead, and one loud crash in the undergrowth, and something darker than the night hoped away beyond the line of trees. It looked as big as the Black Dog—bigger—but I couldn’t make out whether it was running on two legs or four. It turned once to look back at us, and its eyes were yellow as gold. Tamsin said softly, “A pity.”
“What’s a pity?” I asked her. “What was that?” Tamsin pretended not to hear me. She did that a lot when she didn’t want to answer a question, just as I did with Sally. She said, “And yet, one turn around Stourhead Farm in your fair company, and here are folk I’ve not seen since my father died, waiting to welcome me. Not only those two, but others, others… I think you must be my good fortune come to find me, and calling yourself Mistress Jenny.” She made to ruffle my hair, and I will swear to this day that I felt the one little breeze of the night cooling my sweaty neck. I know it had to be a coincidence. I’m not saying it wasn’t.
“What others?” No chance. Tamsin said, “Child, we will part here, an it please you. Your mother will be waiting, and I… I have affairs left too long untended. Stay on the path, and it will have you home before you can say my name entire, which is Tamsin Elspeth Catherine Maria Dubois Willoughby. I will come for you again.”
Even this close to the Manor, I wasn’t crazy about being left alone in a night that was turning out to be practically as inhabited as West Eighty-third Street. But I didn’t have a vote—Tamsin blinked out with her last word, and I made my way home, looking over my shoulder a hot. Sally tried to be angry with me for being gone so long, but it was too hot. Julian was still up, fussy and miserable, so I read him one of his William books until he fell asleep. I took the book to bed with me, because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to sleep either, but I was, and I dreamed all night of the Black Dog.