Iris Starling's Arc

Chapter 1 of 6

Iris Starling knelt on a moss-cushioned fallen log and opened her notebook. A package waited in her satchel, but the pink wings ahead mattered more. For two years she had mapped these routes, chasing every flutter through Juniper Forest. She wanted them all — every path, every turn. The dragon-butterfly drifted up from a fern. Iris tracked it with her pencil tip, sketching fast. It climbed toward the high green ceiling where the canopy thinned above an old stone well. There the moss broke open into a ragged hole of sky. The creature spiraled once, caught a shaft of light, and lifted through the gap. Iris stood. She squinted. The pink flicker dissolved into blue, and she lost it completely. She swore softly and pressed her palm against the well's damp stones. Every sighting ended here, at these bright holes in the roof of the forest. Notes were not enough. The moss did not record what climbed past it. Iris dug into her satchel and pulled out a carved slab of bark mounted on a dowel. She drove the stake into the soft earth beside the well. One marker. One known doorway. Tomorrow she would bring more, and she would learn what the sky did with them.