Iris Starling's Arc

Chapter 2 of 6

Iris returned at dawn with fresh markers and found her stake yanked from the earth. The soil around the well was cracked and trampled, pine needles scattered like thrown confetti. Someone, or something, did not want her doorway marked. She knelt and studied the dirt. A single paw print pressed clean into the soft edge — four pads, four claws, narrower than a dog's. A fox, then. Small enough to slip in unseen, stubborn enough to come back. Iris drove the stake in again. This time she strung twine between two posts and hung three small bells along the line, low to the ground where a curious nose would brush them. She tucked herself behind a log to wait through the long blue evening. Near midnight, the bells rang. Iris lifted her lantern and caught the thief mid-tug — a fox with the stake clamped in its teeth, eyes bright as coins. It froze. She froze. Then it dropped the stake and bolted into the ferns, leaving her marker standing, her doorway kept, and a brand new question loose in the dark.