Free Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones

like being home again. He watched as much as he could see from Kathleen’s bed, with his paws propped among the plants on her window sill. The cats could not understand him. They all retired into the linen closet and refused to come out until midnight. Sirius learned from their grumbles that people only had these lovely fires one night in every year. He would have to wait longer than he had lived in order to see them again. The last fire he saw was a great green rocket, exploding far above the houses, spreading like a bright, drifting tree, and turning to nothing while it hung in the sky.
    It fascinated Sirius, and worried him, too. He thought about it next day as he lay in the yard along a bar of sunlight. The green fire put him in mind of the vast green something inside him. It hung, drifting, behind the warm and stupid dog thoughts, and he was becoming seriously afraid that if he did not try to understand it and make it a proper part of him, it would drift into nothing like the fire from the rocket. But, however hard he tried, he could not seem to make his dog’s brain grasp the green thing, any more than he could make his dog’s mouth say words. The green drifted away out of sight, and he found he was falling asleep.
    “Effulgency,” said someone, “I’m sorry I haven’t got round to speaking to you before. I’ve had a lot to do.”
    Effulgency? What was this? It was a long time since anyone had addressed Sirius with this kind of respect. Its effect was to bring the green fires he thought he had lost tumbling into his head in suchhuge bright profusion that he could only lie where he was in the bar of sun, in a sort of emerald daze.
    “I have got the right dog, haven’t I?” said the voice.
    Sirius got over his shock a little and opened his eyes, very blank and green against the sun, to see who was speaking.
    “Yes, I have,” said the voice.
    “I can’t see you,” Sirius said, frowning into the sunlight. “Who are you?”
    The voice gave a little chuckle, fierce and gay. “Yes you can. Don’t you remember anything at all?”
    That particular fierce, gay sound stirred memories in Sirius. He was surprised to find they were dog memories. But they were so mixed up with vast green things that he was very confused. “You talked to me once before,” he said slowly, “when I was drowning in the river. And I think you helped me. That was good of you.” He was sure this was not all. Puzzled, he searched the great green spaces that now seemed to be expanding and rippling in his head. There was a host of strange bright things flitting there, but none of them had quite this fierce gay voice. It must be someone he had known only slightly, if at all. “You sound as if you might be a luminary,” he said doubtfully.
    The voice pounced on this, warmly. “So you
do
remember! Thank goodness for that! Look at me. It may help.”
    Still puzzled, Sirius frowned in the direction of the voice, along the band of sunlight where he lay, into the blazing white and yellow heart of the sun itself. Under his eyes, the searing light shifted. It flowed and hardened and became a figure, which seemed to bemade of the light itself. In shape, it was not unlike a human. But it had fierce white-yellow rays lifting and falling about it and massed around its head like a mane of hair. The queerest thing about it was that Sirius could not tell whether it was a tiny figure quite near, or a large figure very far away. It could have been standing somewhere near the top of the yard wall, or in the very heart of the sun.
    “Effulgency,” said Sirius, “I’m very sorry. I’ve been very stupid. You’re the Denizen of our luminary, aren’t you?”
    “That’s right,” said the bright figure. “The Sun. Sol, they call me.”
    He stood blazing cheerfully down on Sirius, so bright and confident in his power that Sirius’s heart ached to see him. He knew he had once been like this. Now he was only a creature in this luminary’s sphere. That