The morning in Juniper Gate Thicket smelled sharp and clean, like pine needles and rain. Mira the tiny mouse stood by the split stone, where the roots made a low, arching doorway, and listened to a strange sound: not wind, not birds, but a tiny, wobbling lullaby coming from somewhere under the arch.
Tobin the hedgehog twitched his nose. “That song is new,” he whispered, as if saying it softly might keep it from flying away.
Mira peered closer. Between the roots and the lichen, she saw pale beads of light blinking on and off in the shadows, like someone trying to speak in a language made of fireflies. Pip the spruce marten was already halfway onto the stone, tail lifted, eyes wide. “I heard it first,” he said, trying to sound very sure. Then the lullaby stopped all at once.
For one quiet moment, the thicket seemed to wait.
Mira felt the hush settle around them. The sound was gone, but the blinking lights were still there, and each one seemed to point deeper under the roots. If they wanted to find out what was making the song, they would have to choose how to begin: follow the blinking lights, ask the dry creek bed where the sound might be hiding, or climb up to the root arch and look above it.
What happens next?
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