He whined and backed away, staring so pointedly at the door that I laughed and opened it, waving him inside. Not even a dog bred for sledding should be out in the bitter cold of the new year's first night, and his owner was probably already asleep, unaware their dog had slipped away.

I'd left hot embers glowing in the bookshop fireplace and banked them with kindling; it was still warm enough on the lower floor that I shed my coat and hat, watching in amusement as the big, pale-gray dog trotted to the fireplace and threw himself down in front of it.

"Just as well; I don't want dog hair all over my bed," I said to him, leaving my boots next to the door. The upstairs was not quite so warm, but my bed was piled high with blankets and man invented flannel pajamas for nights like that.

I'll tell you a secret, because it's one I thought about a lot that night before I fell asleep. The real reason I like trains – and I could never have made the others understand this – is that they are the last common form of surrender granted to us in an age of self-determination. You can't control where a train goes or how fast it gets there. You can't even talk to the driver, like you can in a taxi. Your last conscious decision is to step on board, and the only decision you can make once you're on is the decision to get off again. Between those two events, you submit completely, and you're free from responsibility.

I wouldn't like to live my life without any choice, and the life I lived in Low Ferry was full of them, but in a small town you do lose a lot as well, like you do on a train. There are some things you just can't do, which is fine – but there are some things that it's dangerous to do, like Nolan and Michael's secret tryst.

Still, once in a while it's nice to have fewer choices, to give up a little bit of the burden. Sometimes I used to dream about the trains in Chicago. That night I did.

When I woke in the morning, at the dawn of the new year, it was several minutes before I thought of the dog downstairs. I had already put water on the stove to heat and cracked two eggs into a frying pan when I remembered my guest. Not wanting to burn the eggs, I finished cooking them before descending to the shop with a plate and a mug of tea, only to find the fire finally burnt out and the dog nowhere to be found.

Now, a full-grown sled dog does not simply vanish when placed in a small country bookstore. There are very few places for a dog of that size to hide, and I knew them all from the times when children had made the attempt. I checked the bathroom, the rear storage room, the cupboards under the counter, and the shadowy, dusty hollow under the stairs. The doors were unlocked but not open, and the windows were all latched.

I stood in the middle of the floor and rubbed my head in thought, eggs and tea forgotten. Finally I stepped into my boots without bothering to lace them, went outside, and stood at the edge of my porch.

There, in the fresh snow that had fallen sometime after midnight, were wide-spaced dog tracks. I glanced back at the door, then slowly stepped down into the snow and touched one of them. The bottom of the paw-print was smooth and hard, and when I tried to scoop up the snow a thin layer of clear, pure ice – like glass – cracked away and crumbled in my palm.

Well, aside from me, nobody's fooled for an instant, are they?

It's easy to see in hindsight, but at the time all the things that make it obvious were obscured by everyday life: other worries, other peoples' opinions, things that seemed bigger at the time and aren't even very memorable now. There are plenty of people who wouldn't believe such a thing was even possible. It's not hard to deduce that I didn't want to know. I never made the connection. Call me an idiot if you want, but it's true.

Business was sluggish in January. With the snow heavy on the ground and no school in session for the first part of the month I didn't see – nor did I expect to see – much of Lucas. The weather was, after all, the reason that the cottage at The Pines had stood empty for so many winters. It was a long trek in by snowshoe, impossible by car, and the sort of people who owned snowmobiles were not the sort of people who found our little village very interesting.

The mystery dog, however, was around all the time. A few days after New Year's I encountered him begging for scraps of the hot apple tarts the cafe was selling, being spoiled by half a dozen small children and one or two of their chaperons.

"Do you happen to know whose he is?" I asked the boy, who was apparently helping to mind the younger children.

"Nope," the boy answered. "They're going to be annoyed when he throws up apple all over, though. He must've had eight or nine helpings by now."

I gave the dog an absent pat with one hand, gently maneuvered two children out of my way, and continued on to the cafe. Certainly the dog couldn't be a stray. Where would he have strayed from without dying of cold, and where could he be sleeping at night? Unless he'd learned how to let himself into my shop, and even then I'd only kept fires downstairs in the early evening, putting them out when I went to bed.

It snowed a lot that month, not the incapacitating storm-blitz from earlier but steady, light spells on a regular basis. Towards the end of January the snow had finally built up to intolerable levels on my front porch, and I decided it was time to clear it off before the entire structure caved under the weight. The dog, who seemed to spend a lot of time there, was pleased by this turn of events. He danced around the handle of the shovel while I worked and chased after the snow I flung into the yard below, snarling and biting at it playfully.

"You're going to need a new porch soon," Paula told me, leaning against the recently-cleared railing as I scraped snow up off the scarred and weathered wood.

"I think it has about two more winters left," I said, stopping to lean on the shovel.

"Why wait till you have to replace it, though? Come springtime, I'll put it in for you myself if you want."

"Not that the vision of you and power tools isn't overwhelming to the senses, Paula, but I don't know yet. I might try building one myself. I'll buy the lumber from you, anyway," I said.

"Do you want it done right, or do you want to lose a finger?" she asked. "Seriously, by the way, is he your dog?"