Aaron glared at the animal. “No Goofy Grape,” he said sternly, referring to the toy that he had nicknamed because it resembled an enormous grape with a face. “I’m playing with Stevie now. Go lie down.”
He could feel the dog’s intense stare upon him, as if he were attempting to use mind powers to sway his decision. Aaron didn’t bother to look up, hoping the dog would eventually grow tired and go away.
Gabriel abruptly turned and quickly strolled from the room.
Good, Aaron thought, connecting a blue block to a yellow. He didn’t want to hear the dog talking tonight. To anyone else it was typical dog noise, a series of whines, growls, and barks, but to Aaron it was a language—a language he could easily understand. Tonight he wanted it to be like it used to be. A bark, an excited wag of the tail—that was all the conversation he really needed from his four-legged friend.
From the couch Tommy Stanley let out a happy guffaw in response to one of the movie hero’s patented catch phrases.
“No one says ‘em like Arnold,” his foster father said aloud, a critical observation about the art of action films. “Your Van Dammes, Seagals—they’re all well and good with the fightin’ and blowin’ up crap, but nobody delivers the goods like Ahnold. ” He said the name with a mock Austrian accent and then went back to watching the film, sucked into the cinematic world of a one-man army out to rescue his little girl from the bad guys.
Aaron heard the sound of toenails clicking across the kitchen linoleum toward the living room, and then a strange grunting sound. He didn’t even have to see what the dog was bringing from his toy box; he knew just from the sound. Squeaky Pig was on its way.
Gabriel came around the corner, a pink stuffed pig clutched in his maw. With his muscular jaws he squeezed the body of the pig repeatedly, and it emitted a sound very much like that of a pig grunting.
As before, the dog approached and let the toy fall to the floor.
“Squeaky Pig better,” he said with a hint of excitement in his gruff-sounding language. “Play with Squeaky Pig.”
Aaron felt his temper rising. He was angry with the day and all the stuff that had happened, angry with the dog for reminding him that things are not how they used to be, angry with himself for being angry.
“He’s pretty vocal tonight,” Lori said from the recliner, looking up from her book. When she had seen what movie her husband brought back from the video store, she had gone upstairs to get out her latest romance novel. “Does he need to go out or something?”
The dog is being “vocal,” he thought. If you only knew the half of it.
“No,” he said, giving Gabriel the evil eye. “He doesn’t need to go out, he’s just being a pain in the butt.”
Gabriel flinched as if he’d been struck. He blinked his soulful, brown eyes repeatedly and lowered his ears flat against his skull.
“Not pain in the butt,” the dog grumbled as he began to back from the room, his tail lowered and partially stuck between his legs. “Just wanted to play with Aaron. Bad dog. Go lie down. Bad dog.”
He turned and sadly slunk from the room.
Gabriel’s words stung. How could I be so cruel? Aaron thought disgustedly. Here he was with the unique ability to understand exactly what the dog wanted—to be played with, to be shown some attention—and he was so caught up in his own problems that he couldn’t be bothered to give in to the dog’s simple request. I ought’a be ashamed.
“Gabriel,” he called out. Aaron had to call for him two more times before the dog finally responded, peeking around the doorframe.
“C’mere,” he said, patting the floor with his hand and smiling. “Come over here.”
Gabriel bounded into the room tail wagging, and began to lick Aaron’s face excitedly.
“Gabriel not pain in butt, yes?” he asked between licks.
“No,” Aaron answered, taking the dog’s blockhead in his two hands and looking directly into his brown eyes. “You’re not a pain in the butt; you’re a good boy.”
“I’m a good boy,” the dog happily repeated, and began to lick his face again.
Gabriel plopped his large body down beside Aaron and was having his tummy rubbed when Stevie looked up from his blocks. Aaron noticed the child’s stare and smiled.
“Hey there, little man, what’s up?” he asked the autistic child.
The child’s change of expression could be described like the sun burning through a thick haze of storm clouds. His usually blank face became animated as his eyes twinkled with the light of awareness. A smile so bright and wide spread across Stevie’s face that Aaron was genuinely warmed by its intensity.
“Bootiful,” Stevie said, holding out his hand.
“Stevie?” Lori questioned, her paperback falling to the floor. “Tommy, look at Stevie.”
But the sound of his son’s voice had already pulled Tom away from the movie. They both slid from their seats to the floor and watched as their child gently touched Aaron’s cheek with a tiny hand, a smile still radiating from his usually expressionless face.
“Bootiful,” the child repeated. “Bootiful.”
Then, as quickly as awareness had appeared, it was gone, the clouds again covering up the sun.
Stevie showed no sign that he even remembered what he had just done. He simply returned his attention to his blocks.
“He spoke to you,” his mother said, grabbing Aaron by the shoulders and squeezing excitedly. “He actually spoke to you.”
Tommy kneeled by his son, grinning from ear to ear. “What do you think it means?” the big man asked, his voice filled with emotion. “He hasn’t said a word in two years.” He touched the boy’s head lovingly. “That would be something, wouldn’t it?” he wondered aloud, his eyes never leaving Stevie. “If he started to talk again.”
Both parents began to play with the child and his blocks, hoping to elicit another verbal response. Something, anything to prove that the boy’s sudden reaction wasn’t just a fluke.
Stevie remained in his world of silence.
Aaron got up. “Do you want an apple?” he asked Gabriel.
The dog sprang to his feet and wagged his tail. “Apple, oh yes,” he said. “Hungry, yes. Apple.”
As they left the room Aaron couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that Stevie’s behavior was somehow connected to the bizarreness that had been affecting his life since his birthday. So much for distraction, he thought as he took an apple from the small wicker basket atop the microwave and brought it to the cutting board on the counter.
“Did you see the way he looked at me?” Aaron asked the dog as he took a knife from the dish strainer by the sink and split the fruit in half. “It was like he was seeing something—something other than me.”
“Bootiful,” Gabriel responded, gazing up by his side. “He said bootiful.”
Aaron cut the core out, then cut half of the apple into strips.
“The way he looked at me, it was like the old man at the common.”
He fed the dog a slice of apple, which Gabriel eagerly devoured.
Aaron saw the old man in his mind pointing at him. “You are Nephilim,” he had said.
“First I’m Nephilim and now I’m bootiful,” he said to himself as he leaned against the counter.
“More apple?” Gabriel asked, a tendril of thick drool streaming from his jowls to the floor.
Aaron gave him a slice and took one for himself. Something weird was happening to him. And he realized that he had no other choice than to find out exactly what that was.
He took another bite of the apple, then gave the rest to Gabriel.
It was a crazy idea, but he was desperate to know what was happening to him. He would have to take a chance. Before his appointment with Dr. Jonas the next day, he would try to find the old man from the common.