Ruby and the Moon

Illustration by Emily Love

When you howl at the moon, the moon howls back.

I learned this after I first became sick and my People refused to give me medical care.  There were rumors among my kind that the Moon kept our stories, that she listened when we called, and that she answered, but I’d never thought to test them.

My body burned with sickness and without the right medicine I grew sicker and sicker.  I didn’t understand how sick I was, and I hid it because those two little ones needed someone to protect them, and I loved them.  I thought that if I ignored the fire it would go away.

After a few moons, a Person came to take me away.  Leaving my family hurt, and although my rescuer gave me a comfortable place to sleep and the care I needed, I was feeling sorry for myself.

The sickness should have killed me.  But, the Moon told me a story the night my rescuer took me away from my old family, the night I let loose my first howl.  That story, along with a new family who adopted me soon after, kept me going, kept me as healthy as I could be with my disease, now a permanent, slow-burning fire inside of me.

When my rescuer took me to her house, she took me out into her yard after the sun had long set.  It was summer—June, I think—and the warm air smelled like rabbits and flowers.  I wandered away from the Person, and when I crested a hill I noticed for the first time in my young life how big and round the Moon was.

The howl started in my toes as an urge to dig them into the soft dirt and feel it squish between my pads.  It rose through my body and when it reached my stomach it became guttural, instinctual, a need.  From there it moved into my lungs and grew into something with a mind of its own and tore through my throat and out my lips where it rose to meet the Moon in all her shining glory.

It felt wonderful, like that howl had been growing in me my whole life, like it had been holding me back, like letting to go had cured me.  But I knew that it hadn’t.

Then, the Moon spoke to me.

“Little Ruby, since you have told me your story, I will tell you a new one.”

I cocked my head sideways and looked up at her.  “Moon?” I asked.  Her smooth voice surprised me.  I knew I’d heard her speak, but the words floated by me like a breeze.  Once they passed, they were gone, and nothing moved in to fill the space they’d left, because they hadn’t left any.  It was as if they’d never been there.

I stared up at her, but the glowing orb in the sky didn’t change, and she still looked impossibly far away.  I gave another short howl and then the midsummer wind plucked her words from the sky and carried them to me.

“Once, there was a Welsh Corgi dog who had no tail.  She never had one, and did not know the difference until a child exclaimed, ‘He doesn’t have a tail yet!’  Aside from the indignity of being addressed as a boy, she was not sure what the child meant.  Was she supposed to have a tail?  She was still young herself, but she’d gotten along without a tail for this long.

“From then on she noticed that all the dogs she passed did have tails, even the new-born puppies.  She felt self-conscious about her lack of tail now, and hoped the other dogs wouldn’t notice.  But they did notice, perhaps because she made such an effort to hide it.  A large bulldog asked her what happened to her tail, but rather than respond she hung her head and walked away.

“The Corgi grew shy and reserved, and kept to herself.  She tried all she could think of to make her tail grow.  She pulled on the spot where her tail should have been to see if it was stuck inside, but all she did was pull her hair out and give the other dogs cause to laugh at her bald spots.  Then she tried attaching some bushy reeds to act as a surrogate tail, but that made the other dogs laugh even more.”

I stood rapt, looking up at the Moon as her sweet voice blew by my ears.  Her words came at an even pace, but I knew that the story so far had taken less than a minute to tell.  And all the while she told me the story, her visage didn’t change.  I could see her face, but I wasn’t looking at anything more than a glowing white ball.  But her words continued.

“A few weeks went by without the Corgi leaving her yard, and she grew more and more miserable.  Now, if you have never met a Corgi, they are not the kind of dog to sit around and mope, and she finally couldn’t take her self-pity anymore.  So one day, she sought out an old, wise sheepdog at the dog park.

“‘Sir?’ she asked. ‘Do you happen to know why I don’t have a tail?’  She looked away from him while she spoke.

“‘You don’t need a tail,’ the sheepdog said.

“‘But all the other dogs have tails.  Is there someway I can get one?’  If dogs could blush, the little Corgi’s face would have been bright red.

“The sheepdog laughed.  ‘No.  You don’t need a silly tail.  They get all tangled and give children something to pull on.  Your ancestors herded cattle.  The People removed your tails so that the cattle wouldn’t step on them and so you wouldn’t get burs caught in them.  I don’t know if you’ve ever lain on a bur, but it hurts like a—well, it hurts.’

“His eyes sparkled with mischief, but the Corgi knew he told her the truth.  Even so, she had it in her mind that she wanted a tail.

“‘That’s still not fair,’ she said.  ‘All the other dogs make fun of me.  And I do not herd cows.  Or anything else.

“‘Fair doesn’t mean everyone gets the same,’ the sheepdog responded. ‘It means everyone gets what she needs.

“The Corgi wasn’t happy, but the sheepdog’s tone implied that he would not be coaxed into saying anything else on the matter.  She thanked him and went back to her People.  On their way home, she lost herself so thoroughly thinking about the sheepdog’s advice she didn’t notice another dog walking toward her until she bumped into him.

“‘Hey, shrimp, watch where you’re going!’ he said.  His People pulled him back, but he continued looking down at the Corgi with disdain.  ‘What happened to your tail?’ he snickered.

“The Corgi’s first reaction was to look away from the dog in shame, but she recalled the sheepdog’s words about her ancestors. ‘I don’t need a tail,’ she scoffed.  ‘It would only get in my way.’

“She walked away from the bully with her nose in the air.  If she would have looked back, she would have seen shock on his face.  Once she was sure she was out of sight and sound, she let a wild grin spread across her muzzle.

“After that, she took pride in not having a tail and in the history of her ancestors.  Her attitude surprised the other dogs, and they never bothered her about her tail again.”

The Moon looked the same, of course, but I thought she must be smiling.

“Did you like my story, Ruby?” she asked in her wind-voice.

I howled my thanks, and this time I was sure I heard her laugh.

Before either of us could say anything else, my rescuer ushered me inside for bed.  It wasn’t fair that I’d gotten sick, but I certainly had everything I needed right here.  I barked once more to let the Moon know I understood before my rescuer closed the door behind me.