Duck Lake Through the boughs of the garden

Especially after his aunt’s forceful bid to make him come home, he expected Amalia to push the issue. He braced himself for it. But she accepted what he said without argument, then spent the next five or so minutes drawing him a map in the soil and giving him a couple of names to memorize.

He wasn’t sure what he’d do with any of it, though the picture she’d scribbled in the dirt greatly intrigued him. Atreus intended to study it long after she was gone, not just to commit the routes to memory but to marvel at the fact that this hastily scrawled image represented actual places.

Thanks, Amalia, he said again, wondering if she might drop by again to visit him since he intended to linger here.

Atreus didn’t ask, just like he didn’t reach out to her the way he craved. He thought about her paw nudging his and felt a deep yearning in the pit of his stomach. Nobody ever touched him that way. He wanted more of it, even as the thought made him squirm.