The porch boards still held the cool of the night. Bob sat cross-legged, the piece of string between his fingers — frayed at both ends, the kind you find in barns, tied around hay bales until it snaps. He looped it over his thumb, under his index, pulled it tight. A knot. He stared at it. Wrong. He pulled it apart and started again. Petunia’s head rested on the porch beside his knee, her dark eyes fixed on his hands. Her breath came slow, warm against his forearm. When he looped the string wrong — twisted it clockwise instead of counter — she whined. A soft, questioning sound, like she was reading the mistake before he felt it. “I know,” Bob muttered. He didn’t look at her. He untied the knot and started over. He had been trying to tie this particular knot for three mornings now. He couldn’t remember where he’d seen it. Maybe a dream. Maybe something Johnny had shown him once, half-drunk and laughing, his fingers moving too fast to follow. But Bob’s hands remembered. Or they were trying to. They kept circling the same sequence, hitting a wall, starting over. Petunia shifted. Her nose pressed into his palm, warm and rough. He stopped. The string hung loose. “I almost had it,” he said. But he knew that wasn’t true. He was missing something. A step. A twist. A reason. She looked up at him, and for a second he caught the reflection in her eyes — not his face, but the sky behind him, still pale and empty. He thought about the glow he’d seen under the field. The symbol on the device. The way Johnny’s face had gone white when he saw it. Bob let the string fall into his lap. Petunia nosed it, then pushed her head against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her thick neck and held on. “We’ll figure it out,” he whispered. She didn’t whine this time. She just leaned into him, solid and warm, as the sun broke over the orchard and filled the porch with gold.