The black shape on the dike does not float. It does not howl like a storybook curse. It shakes water off its ears.

Eyes shine because a mirror in the back of the eye—tapetum lucidum—throws leftover light back to the world. Your lantern makes two coins. The coins bounce. A tail, soaked, attempts a wag and succeeds.

Nettle. Ordinary wet black mutt. Collar missing, which is how legends get legs. She smells like pond and guilt. She leans on your knee as if you were a radiator.

Jonah, if he is here, whispers, “That’s the black dog,” and then, smaller, “That’s Nettle.”

You scratch the place behind her ear that all dogs consider a law. She is the night’s story in the way a sock on the stairs is a burglar: a true shape plus a tale already waiting.

Ranger Dev’s light is a moving star on the landing. He will know the eye-shine lecture by heart. You could also walk Nettle home yourself and let the legend get a sequel that people laugh with, which is a different kind of science: the social kind.

Nettle sneezes. Thunder agrees.