The screen door wheezes on its hinge. Bob holds it open with one hand, his shoulder pressed against the frame, and watches. Petunia hasn't moved in three minutes. She stands over the worn porch boards, her massive black frame blocking the early light. At her feet: a stick she found at the creek yesterday, a gray stone from the driveway, a bleached chicken bone from the neighbor's yard, and the rusted lug nut she dug out of the flower bed last Tuesday. She nudges the stone with her nose. Shifts it a quarter inch left. Then the stick, rotated exactly forty-five degrees. Bob knows the pattern. He's seen it thirty-seven mornings now. The stick always points toward the orchard. The stone faces the road. The bone sits at the center, like a compass needle waiting to lock on. She whines, low in her throat. Not at Bob. At the arrangement. "You're missing something," he whispers. Petunia's ears twitch, but she doesn't look at him. Her tail gives one slow wag — confirmation, not comfort. The morning is still. No wind. No birds. Just the two of them and the geometry of small objects on old wood. Bob steps onto the porch barefoot. The boards are cool and rough. He kneels beside her, close enough to feel the heat radiating off her thick coat. He picks up the stone, turns it over. Nothing special. Just a rock with a streak of mica catching the light. Petunia's nose presses into his palm. Her eyes — those deep, patient brown eyes — hold his gaze for a long moment. Then she looks past him, toward the screen door, where inside the house, something hums at a frequency no human should hear. She knows. She's been trying to tell him for weeks. Bob sets the stone back exactly where it was. He doesn't ask. He just sits beside her and waits for whatever she's arranging them for. The missing piece will find them. It always does.