"Maybe you did ... but that doesn't change the fact that you ripped a living thing out of the living world."
She looked up at the Ogre, who sat in his stained chair. Was it her imagination, or was there more of the brown stuff on him than yesterday?
"Let me ask you something, Zin, because it's important." He leaned forward. "When you ripped Kudzu, did you just rip his spirit, or did you rip the whole dog into Everlost?"
"I guess I ripped everything, sir," Zin said. "I mean it weren't like I ripped his little doggy spirit out of his body or nothin'; I grabbed him, pulled him into Everlost, and there he was. It's not like there was a dead dog left behind when I ripped him here--I ripped him body and soul." Kudzu lay down and rolled over, wanting a tummy rub. Zin obliged, and the dog purred like a kitten. "He didn't sleep for nine months, neither, on accounta he never officially died."
"So ..." said the Ogre, "somehow, he was flesh until you pulled him here ... and now he's not."
"That's right--he's an Afterlight just like any of us. He don't grow old, he don't get sick, he don't change, and he got the glow."
"Still, by taking him you did something very wrong."
Zin didn't like the direction this conversation was going. "No more wrong than anything else I done," she said defensively. "No worse than any of the things you made me to do," and then she added "sir," a little snidely.
"It is worse, and I think you know that."
"Well, that there's water under the bridge. Nuthin' I can do about that now."
And the Ogre quietly said, "Yes, there is."
Zin didn't want to hear this. "C'mon, Kudzu, let's go."
She practically lifted the dog to his feet and headed for the door.
"Come back here," said the Ogre. And when she didn't, he said, "That's an order!"
She stopped just short of the door, and spun back to him. "You can order me around all you want, but you can't do nuthin' to Kudzu--he's my dog, not yours!"
"If you want to set things straight in the hereafter," the Ogre said calmly, "then you need to put Kudzu back in the living world--just like you did to those flowers the other day."
"No!" She didn't even bother saying "sir," this time.
"It's the right thing to do, and you know it."
"If I put him back, he'll have no place to go!" she pleaded.
"He will if you find him a good family."
"If I put him back, he'll die!"
"But not until he lives the full length of a dog's life."
Zin found herself screaming into the Ogre's face, but he stayed calm, which just made her even madder. "Why're you asking me to do this?"
He didn't answer her. Instead he said, sternly, "I am your commanding officer, and your orders are to find a good home for Kudzu ... and then you are to use your powers to put him in it."
"You can ask me from here till doomsday, I won't do it!"
He was quiet for a second. Then he said, "If you do it, I'll put you in charge of an entire regiment of soldiers."
The Ogre had just put his nasty, sticky little finger on her button, and Zin was disgusted with herself to know how easily her buttons could be pushed.
"How many's in a regiment?" she asked.
Zin hated this more than anything, but she couldn't deny that the Ogre, curse his Hershey's hide, was absolutely right. She had no business ripping a living dog into Everlost. And the story she gave--the one about saving him from an owner who beat him? It was a flat-out lie. Kudzu had a good life with a family that was so sweet and caring, it had made Zin sick. This was before she went off to be a hermit, when she still believed she could linger with the living, and pretend she could be one of them, even though they never knew she was there. She stayed with that family for more than a month, sitting with them at the dinner table, ripping bits of food off their plates. She sat in their playroom, ripping toys and watching the brother and sister fight, blaming each other for the missing playthings.
The dog sensed her presence. Not entirely, but just enough for it to act edgy whenever Zin was in the room. Then the dog warmed to her. It would come near to where she was standing, and roll over, waiting to be scratched on the belly. So Zin would use her ripping hand to reach in and do it. When her hand came back with dog hair on it, she got the idea. If dog hair could come through, then why not the whole dog?