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here.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œSia, I thought you were going to meet me at the door with an injured seal or a bag of money. Not a man.” Jillian craned her neck toward the kitchen, trying to get her first glimpse. “So he’s mute?”
    â€œI don’t know if he’s mute. It could be that he just hasn’t spoken yet.” Sia wedged herself in the hallway that led from the living room to the kitchen and pushed hard every time Jillian tried to shove past.
    â€œOh, come on,” Jilly said. “Let me see him.” She flattened herself against the wall and tried to squeeze between it and Sia’s left hip. When that didn’t work, she crouched and tried to juke through Sia’s legs. She was like a piping plover—small, skittish, quick, unpredictable. Sia managed to block her, but only because she had height on her side.
    Out of breath, Jillian asked, “What’s your silent man doing now?”
    â€œEating, I hope. When we got here, I gave him muffins and milk.”
    â€œWhere did he come from?”
    â€œI don’t know. I don’t have a clue.”
    â€œDo you recognize him?”
    â€œNope, never seen him before.”
    â€œCould he be an alien?”
    Sia rolled her eyes. “An alien? No, Jilly, he’s not an alien.”
    â€œAre you sure?” Jilly had a thing about aliens.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œI just know.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œAliens are ugly things with giant heads and goofy eyes. This guy is handsome, way too handsome to be an alien.” She grabbed Jillian’s wrist and held tight.
    â€œHandsome?” Jillian stopped moving. “You didn’t say he was handsome, Sia. You said he was soaking wet and disheveled.”
    â€œHe was, and is, but it seems he might be handsome, too.”
    Jillian tugged hard to loosen Sia’s grip. She liked handsome.
    â€œJillian.” Sia’s voice was sharp.
    â€œOkay, okay, what?” Jillian stood still, her arm slack in Sia’s clenched fingers.
    â€œThis is serious. I think this guy has shell shock or something. He looks, well, how does he look? Different, I guess.”
    â€œDifferent?”
    â€œYeah. Something’s not right.”
    â€œThat bad?”
    â€œYeah, that bad. You can’t go roaring in there. You’ll freak him out even more.”
    Jillian relaxed. “Okay, okay, I hear you. I’ll chill. Just let me meet him.”
    â€œFine, but take it easy. I think this guy just crawled out of the ocean, and honestly, I have no idea where he was before that.” Sia let go of Jilly’s arm and walked down the hall, but before rounding the corner into the kitchen, Sia peeked in.
If Gumper is sitting in there alone
, she thought,
Jilly is going to think I’ve finally gone over the edge
.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    The Dogcatcher crept from between the boulders. She squeezed through Sia’s front gate and slipped into the tangle of forsythia bushes. Then she squatted down. Though most people thought the Windwill house was Water Street’s finest, she preferred Sia’s. Compared to all the other houses along this stretch, it was diminutive . . . a fairy-tale cottage with old-fashioned latticework windowpanes and purple pansies overflowing from hanging pots on the porch.
    A few minutes after Jilly shut the front door behind her, the Dogcatcher’s left foot fell asleep, but still, she didn’t move.

CHAPTER 8
    From her mother, Sia learned that names were far more than randomly ascribed monikers. Like the phase of the moon on the night of your birth, a name could destroy or solidify your fate. It could break a heart or cause a mountain of love to grow where before there was only a pile of rubble. A name could make you beautiful or hideous. It could rain down like a soft shower after a long drought or clunk like the sad coming together of two hollow objects. A