Steadying Cammy with one hand, Grady said, “Wild, bold—but not dangerous. Just the opposite. Almost tame. Like somebody’s pets.”

He let go of her and headed along the hallway again.

Expecting him to halt suddenly, Cammy hesitated to follow.

At the living-room archway, he glanced back. “What’re you doing? Come on, come on.”

In the front room, Merlin sat at attention. He glanced at Cammy, and his tail twitched, but he didn’t hurry to her as he usually did. He was captivated by the two creatures in front of him, on the sofa.

They were the size of six-year-old children. They sat as kids might sit, not on their haunches as a dog or a cat, but on their posteriors, legs straight in front of them.

In its forepaws, each held a dog toy, which it was examining with interest. A plush yellow duck, a plush purple bunny.

They were almost like plush toys themselves: dense, lustrous, snow-white fur. Furless and coal-black noses, lips, and paws.

Grady said, “Well? Is this really something? Is this something or isn’t it?”

Cammy glanced at him. Nodded. Found her voice. “Yeah. It’s something, all right.”

She put down her medical bag. Her knees had gone weak. She sat on a footstool directly opposite the animals.

Their skulls were not long like those of dogs, but round, and their faces were flat compared to the faces of dogs. Their nose leather and lips seemed feline. They looked more like otters than like cats, but they were not otters.

Because their heads were larger in proportion to their bodies than was usually the case in animals, the enormous eyes didn’t seem grotesque, and they weren’t protuberant. When they blinked, their lids were as black as their noses and lips.

Other aspects of the creatures were different from anything Cammy expected in furred mammals. Above all else, however, their eyes compelled her attention.

Some nocturnal animals, like African bush babies, had large eyes in proportion to the size of their heads. None she could think of was a fraction as enormous as these.

“Large eyes aren’t essential to night vision,” she said, as much to herself as to Grady, thinking aloud. “Diurnal-nocturnal animals, like dogs and cats—they’re able to see well in the dark because they have large pupils and a lot of photoreceptors in their retinas.”

Many animal eyes lacked a sclera—the white—as prominent as it was in the human eye. In most dogs, the sclera became visible largely when the animal looked sideways. The pair on the couch seemed to have no sclera whatsoever.

“The iris,” she said, “the pigmented portion, appears to wrap the eyeball far enough that the sclera never rotates into view.”

This alone suggested the possibility of numerous structural differences from the eyes of other animals. The cornea’s convex arc was a more impressive engineering feat here than in the human eye. The anterior and the posterior chambers of the aqueous humor must be shaped differently and must integrate in a unique fashion with the iris at the iridocorneal angle.

As a veterinarian, she was compelled to study them more closely, but she was simultaneously restrained by amazement, by astonishment, her mind and heart equally affected. Her stomach muscles fluttered, and her hands trembled as if palsied.

The animals shook-smelled-chewed the plush toys. The one with the duck offered it to the other, and they traded duck for bunny.

Merlin wagged his tail, as if pleased that they seemed to like his stuff.

A kind of wonder had overcome Cammy, akin to what she felt among the horses at High Meadows Farm. But the word wonder didn’t do this feeling justice. This was more profound. The right word eluded her.

However many differences might exist between these eyes and those of other animals, only their color impressed as much as did their size. They were golden but not uniform in hue. Several shades played through them: from gold dust to flax, to amber. …

“The irises don’t appear to be striated,” she said.

From the arm of the chair on which he now perched, Grady said, “Appear to be what?”

“Striated. The light and dark crossbands of muscle fiber—the striae—that radiate from the center of the iris and give texture to it. Sometimes the way light plays in light-colored eyes, they seem to be cut like jewels, to sparkle.”

“Sure. Okay. Striated.”

“But these aren’t. There’s a wholly different texture. I’d sure like to look at their eyes with my ophthalmoscope.”

“I think they might let you.”

She raised her hands to show him how she trembled.

He said, “You’re not afraid of them, are you?”

“No. No, they seem docile. It’s just … just what they might mean. My God.”

“What? What’re you thinking?”

“I’m not thinking anything.”

“You’re thinking something.”

“No. I don’t know. But they sure as hell mean something.”

“I told you they were something. But I thought you’d have some idea what.”

“I don’t. I don’t know what.”

“I thought you’d at least have a theory.”

“I do medicine. I don’t do theory.”

He said, “I’m gonna turn off the lights. Wait till you see their eyes in the dark.”

The creature with the purple bunny found the squeaker in it.

“Wait,” Cammy said as Grady moved toward the light switch.

“Wait for what?”

Squeak, squeak.

In case the squeaking meant a play session was imminent, Merlin got to his feet.

“Their forepaws,” Cammy said. “I didn’t notice till now. I was so taken with their eyes, I didn’t notice their forepaws.”

“What about them?”

Squeak, squeak, squeak.