What Slips Through

It was the hottest day of the year.

Even the wind had given up. Cicadas droned from somewhere deep in the trees, rising and falling like the breath of something ancient and exhausted. Everything shimmered. The asphalt outside looked liquid. My skin stuck to the wood-paneled walls of my grandmother’s living room. And the air, somehow, smelled like metal.

I was lying on the hardwood floor with my cheek pressed to the boards, hoping the cool would seep into my bones. It didn’t. Nothing helped. Not the lukewarm iced tea, not the ancient ceiling fan spinning like it resented being alive. Not even the blackout curtains she’d pinned in place with wooden clothespins.

Grandma’s house was always dark in summer, like a tomb. The kind of darkness that made you drowsy even when you weren’t tired.

“I can’t sleep,” I called toward the kitchen. It was barely 3 p.m., but I felt trapped in some strange half-dream already.

No answer. Only the creaking of the floorboards and the slow, lulling murmur of the local news.

Her house was old — like the kind of old where nothing really worked the way it was supposed to, but it still functioned. Stubbornly. The air conditioner wheezed like it was dying, and the fridge made a high-pitched whine that no one acknowledged. Still, Grandma kept the place orderly, with yellowed lace curtains and waxed wood and a ceramic dish of hard candies that never seemed to empty, no matter how many you took.

I loved it here, in that uncomfortable way you can love something that hasn’t changed since you were a kid. Coming back to it made me feel small in a way that was almost comforting.

Grandma shuffled in a few minutes later with a glass of lemonade. The real kind — lemons squeezed by hand, honey stirred in until it dissolved. She held it out without a word.

I took it. “Thanks.”

She grunted and sat down in her recliner with a long sigh. Her ankles were swollen. She wore socks in the summer, and I never understood how.

“You know what this heat does,” she said eventually, eyes closed.

“What?”

“Opens cracks.”

I looked at her. “Like in the soil?”

“In the world,” she said, still not opening her eyes. “Let’s old things slip through.”

I laughed once, unsure if it was a joke.

She didn’t.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Like ghosts?”

“Not ghosts,” she said. “Older than ghosts.”

She began to hum, low and tuneless, and I let the subject drop. Grandma had a way of saying things that sounded like nonsense but made some kind of sense later, when you least expected it. The summer before sixth grade, she told me not to pick the white berries that grew near the back fence because “they don’t belong to us.” I thought she meant they were poisonous. A week later, a neighbor’s dog ate some and vanished. When he came back three days later, he wouldn't cross our yard anymore.

I didn’t eat the berries either.

---

The house got worse as the sun dropped. The walls seemed to radiate heat. Everything slowed to a crawl. My thoughts were thick and syrupy. I drank more lemonade and counted the whirs of the ceiling fan until I lost track and started again. The world felt stretched thin, like cellophane pulled too tight.

When night finally came, it didn’t bring relief. Just more stillness. My bedsheets clung to me like damp clothes. I tossed. I turned. I stared at the shadows and tried not to think of Grandma’s words.

Something inside me itched — not my skin, but deeper. Restlessness. A tightness that no amount of lying still could undo.

So I got up.

The back porch was cooler, if only by a few degrees. I stepped out barefoot into the grass, the screen door whispering shut behind me. The air buzzed with the after-heat of the day. A few moths fluttered around the porch light, but otherwise it was quiet.

And the stars — the stars were bright.

The kind of bright you don’t get in the city. Like you could reach up and run your fingers through them. I spotted Orion’s belt, then Vega, and then—

There it was.

Sirius.

The Dog Star.

It sat just above the horizon, pulsing with a kind of urgent stillness. Bright enough to burn a hole through the dark. I remembered what Grandma had said — about the Romans, about Sirius rising just before dawn during the hottest part of the year. Dog days, she’d called it. The time when the sky thinned and old things wandered.

I lay down in the grass and stared up. There was something about that star. It made the night feel… expectant. Like it was holding its breath.

A breeze stirred — finally — but it wasn’t cool. Just moved the air around a bit.

That’s when I heard it.

Something moving in the field beyond the fence. Slow. Purposeful.

I sat up.

At first, I thought it was a coyote. Low to the ground. Four-legged. But its silhouette wasn’t quite right. The way it moved was wrong — fluid, almost like it was drifting rather than walking. It was big, too. Too big for a dog.

Its eyes caught the starlight — or maybe reflected it — glowing faint and blue, like the flame of a gas burner.

It didn’t make a sound. Just stood there, watching me. Not aggressive. Not afraid.

Just... present.

I didn’t move.

My heart was beating fast, but I wasn’t scared. Not really. If anything, I felt calm. Like I’d been waiting for this without knowing it.

The creature tilted its head, as if it were curious.

So I lay back down again.

When I looked back up, it was gone.

The next morning, I woke to the sound of a spoon clinking against ceramic. Grandma was already in the kitchen, stirring her tea in slow circles like always. She didn’t ask why I was up so early or why there were grass stains on the back of my shirt. She just gestured to the toast and slid a plate my way.

“You saw it, didn’t you?” she said after a moment, like we were picking up a conversation from yesterday, or a decade ago.

I looked at her. She was staring out the kitchen window, steam rising from her cup.

“I don’t know what I saw,” I said honestly.

She nodded. “Most don’t.”

I waited for her to explain, but she didn’t. Grandma had a way of offering only the part of the story she thought you were ready for — no more, no less.

I picked at the toast.

“Some folks never notice it at all,” she said after a while. “Spend their whole lives half-asleep. But some… well, some are meant to.”

“Meant to see it?”

“To feel it,” she said. “To remember that this world’s got more cracks in it than most people like to admit. And through those cracks, old things still move.”

Her voice was matter-of-fact, like she was discussing the weather.

I didn’t know what to say, so I sipped the tea she’d poured me, bitter and earthy.

“I don’t remember you ever talking like this when I was little,” I said.

She smiled, faintly. “You weren’t listening.”

---

That day passed in a kind of suspended silence.

The heat rose again, thicker than before. The house felt heavy with it — like the walls were holding in more than just warmth. I wandered through rooms that felt both familiar and foreign, half-convinced the creature from last night had left some trace of itself behind. But there was nothing. Just shadows and dust and the groan of old floorboards beneath my steps.

I found a photo album in the living room — one I hadn’t looked at in years. Inside were shots from every summer I’d ever spent here: birthdays, barbecues, me in a plastic kiddie pool under the elm tree that no longer stood.

And tucked near the back: a photo of a dog I didn’t remember.

It was large and sleek, with dark fur and pale eyes that shimmered strangely, even in the faded print.

“What was this one’s name?” I asked Grandma when she shuffled in later.

She didn’t even glance at the photo.

“He never had one.”

I looked up.

“Stray?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” she said, easing herself into the recliner. “He came and went. Only during summers like this.”

I didn’t press further. I didn’t need to.

---

That night, I didn’t wait for the heat to drive me out of bed.

I crept out just after midnight, barefoot again, and sat on the back steps. The stars were even brighter than before. Sirius hung low, like it had been waiting for me.

The air felt charged. Not in an ominous way — more like a held breath. Anticipation, but with no promise attached.

I stood and walked barefoot across the grass, past the garden where the tomatoes had shriveled on the vine, through the brittle patch where Grandma said the berries used to grow.

And then I saw it.

This time, closer. On my side of the fence.

The same dark shape. The same glowing eyes.

It was waiting.

I didn’t run. I didn’t speak.

It moved forward, slowly, one deliberate step at a time, and stopped just a few feet from me.

We stood in silence.

Then — and I swear this is true — it lowered its head, almost like a bow.

I felt something shift in my chest. Not fear. Not awe. Something quieter. Recognition, maybe. Or release.

It stepped around me, brushing my leg lightly with its flank — solid and warm — and moved toward the back of the house.

I turned to follow, heart hammering now. But when I reached the porch again, it was gone.

And the gate, the one Grandma always kept latched shut with a rusted hook, was hanging open.

Just a few inches.

Just enough.

I didn’t mention the open gate the next morning.

Not when Grandma handed me the newspaper like she always did, the crossword already half-solved in her slanted print. Not when she sprinkled salt on her melon like it was the most natural thing in the world. Not even when she caught my eye over the rim of her teacup and said, “You feel it now, don’t you?”

Because I did. I felt it everywhere.

The world hadn’t changed, not exactly — but I had.

It was like being tuned to a different frequency. Everything looked the same, but I could sense the space between things — between heat and shadow, sleep and waking, now and then.

And it wasn’t scary. It was quiet.

Comforting, even.

Later that day, I sat on the porch steps while Grandma napped inside, her radio murmuring low from the bedroom. The sun was falling behind the treetops, turning the sky the color of old copper.

I found myself staring at the gate.

Still open. Just a crack. As if waiting for something else to come through. Or maybe, for someone to go.

A cicada buzzed nearby. I reached down and brushed a beetle off the step with my finger. It curled and tumbled harmlessly into the grass.

And then —

A memory surfaced, gentle and uninvited.

I was maybe eight.

It was a different summer, a different kind of hot. Back then, I had a small slingshot I carried everywhere — not to use, just to hold. I liked how it fit in my hand. One evening, I saw a crow on the fence, and on impulse, I raised the slingshot, a pebble already in the band.

Grandma stepped out just as I pulled it back.

She didn’t raise her voice. Didn’t even look surprised.

Just said, softly, “Everything’s watching something.”

I lowered the slingshot. Let the pebble fall.

The crow stayed. Watching me.

I hadn’t thought of that in years.

But now, I understood it.

Everything’s watching something.

And maybe some things are watching us.

That night, I stood in the doorway with the porch light off. The yard was silvered with moonlight. The stars were sharp.

No sound. No movement.

Just Sirius, clear and bright, pulsing like a heartbeat in the sky.

I didn’t go out. Didn’t need to.

Whatever had passed between me and the thing in the field — it was enough. Some quiet knowing had settled inside me. A thread had been pulled taut, then let go. And now, something new was ready to begin.

I closed the door gently. Locked the gate the next morning. Not because I was afraid — but because I knew now that it would come back if it needed to.

I left Grandma’s a few days later.

The heat broke. Rain came. The air smelled like iron and wet dirt.

Before I left, she hugged me tighter than usual, which wasn’t saying much — she wasn’t the hugging type.

“You’ll be alright,” she said.

“I know.”

She paused. “And you’ll know when to open the gate again.”

I nodded. And I believed her.

Now, back in my own place, where the cicadas are quieter and the stars harder to see, I sometimes think about that field. That creature. That open gate.

I think about what it means to see something no one else sees.

To be still enough to feel it. To let it pass through you and change nothing — and everything.

And when the nights are hot and the air won’t move, I lie awake and whisper to no one,

I can’t sleep.

And I wait.

Just in case.