Angela Ant stood at the edge of the oak root and looked across the garden toward the cottage where Summer Sun lived. She wanted to visit. That was the whole trouble. Ants in her colony did not visit the big creatures. They hid from them. Angela had already broken that rule once, when she walked away from the witch and chose Summer Sun instead. Now she wanted to keep choosing her. She wanted a real friendship, the kind you show up for on an ordinary afternoon with no emergency to explain you. The problem was simple and awful. Summer Sun was enormous. Angela was the size of a seed. If she crawled up onto the cottage step unannounced, Summer Sun might not see her at all. Worse, she might see a dark speck moving near her door and brush it away before she looked twice. One flick of a hand and the trust they had built would end without either of them knowing why. Angela climbed down and started back toward the colony. Her sister Tracie was hauling a crumb along the path. "I need to be seen," Angela said. "Bright. From far away. So she knows it is me before I get close." Tracie set the crumb down. "There is a scrap by the fence. Yellow. Fell off a picnic thing last week." Angela found it caught on a thorn. A strip of shiny yellow cloth, longer than her body and light as a petal. She dragged it free and worked one end into a loop she could wear across her back. The cloth caught the sun and threw it everywhere. She could barely see past her own shoulder for the glare. She was crossing the flat stones toward the cottage when a shadow cut the light. Matilda stood on the path in her ragged black robes, hat tilted, looking down. "That yellow will get you eaten by a bird," Matilda said. Flat. No warmth. "Take it off." Angela did not stop walking. "I want her to see me." "She will. So will everything else." "I know what I chose." Matilda watched her another moment, then stepped aside. She did not argue again. Angela kept going, the yellow sash flashing at every step, and she felt the witch's eyes on her back the whole way to the cottage door. Summer Sun was on the step already, watering a pot. She saw the yellow before she saw the ant. Her whole face changed. "Angela." She crouched low and set her palm flat on the stone, fingers spread wide, well clear of Angela's path. "You wore a flag." "So you would know it was me." "Anytime you wear that," Summer Sun said, "I will know. Come up." Angela climbed onto the warm palm. Behind her, on the path, the witch was already gone.

Angela came home from the cottage still warm from Summer Sun's palm. She wanted to tell Tracie about the way the light had felt up there. She never got the chance. Three of her sisters stood at the base of the anthill, crowded around something white on the dirt. A sugar cube. Bigger than any of them. It smelled like burnt honey and something else underneath, something Angela's legs remembered before her mind did. "Don't touch it," Angela said. Tracie looked up from the edge of the group. "There's more. Four along the north tunnel. Two by the south door." Angela circled the cube. The sweet under-smell was the same smell that had come off the trail Matilda had once laid to pull her back to the bramble cottage. She had walked away from that trail. Her sisters had never smelled it before. They would not know to walk away. "It's the witch," Angela said. "She's baiting us. If we eat these, she owns the colony." One sister was already leaning in, antennae twitching. Angela shoved her shoulder hard. The sister staggered back and hissed. "I know how it smells," Angela said. "I've had it in my head before. Trust me or lose everyone in there." Tracie stepped up beside her. "We move them. Now. Before the foragers come out." They worked. Angela and Tracie rolled the first cube away from the mound, then the next. The sugar was heavy and it left a bright trail in the dirt that Angela scuffed over with her back legs. Sisters who had been curious started to help once they saw Tracie carrying. By the time the sun tilted, seven cubes sat in a pile at the far edge of the flat stones, well clear of every tunnel mouth. Angela climbed the top cube and looked across the garden. The witch was there. Ragged black, hat crooked, hands empty at her sides. She had been watching from the fence line. Angela walked down off the pile and crossed to her. "Take them back," Angela said. "They aren't going in my hill." Matilda's face did not move. "You smelled it." "I've smelled it before." "You have." Flat. She looked past Angela at the pile, then at the anthill, then at the cottage in the distance where a bright shape stood on the step. "You'll tell her." "I already am." Matilda bent and gathered the cubes into the fold of her robe. She did it slowly, one at a time, and she did not argue. When the last cube was up, she straightened. "Next time you won't smell it," she said. Then she walked back toward the fence. Angela watched her go. Her sisters were safe. The witch knew she'd been seen, and she had chosen a warning over a fight. That was worse than a fight. Angela turned and started across the stones toward the anthill.

Angela did not sleep. She sat at the top tunnel mouth and watched the fence line until the sky went pale. Matilda did not come back. That was the problem. A witch who took her poison home without a fight was a witch who was already planning the next thing. Angela had to tell Summer Sun. She had to make Summer Sun believe her. She left before the foragers stirred. Tracie caught her at the south door. "You're going alone?" "She'll see me faster if I'm alone." "Take the sash." Angela took the sash. She tied the yellow strip across her back and started across the stones. The walk to the cottage was long on ant legs. She kept to the shadow of the grass and watched the sky for beaks. When she reached the step, Summer Sun was already outside, barefoot, watering a pot of clover. Summer Sun saw the flash of yellow and knelt at once. She put her palm flat on the stone. Angela climbed on. The palm was warm. She stayed on her feet this time. She needed to be heard, not held. "She poisoned the hill," Angela said. "Seven cubes. We moved them. She came to the fence and watched." Summer Sun's face did not change. "You got them all?" "All seven. I made her take them back." "Good." "She didn't fight me. She just said next time I won't smell it. Then she left." Summer Sun was quiet. She lifted Angela closer to her eye. "You have the cubes?" "She took them." "Then I have your word." "That's all I have." "That's enough." Angela's legs shook. She had come ready to argue. She had rehearsed how to describe the smell, how to explain the trail from before, how to prove any of it. Summer Sun had skipped past all of it. "You believe me," Angela said. "I know you." "She's been at your cottage. She brought you tea. She made you laugh." Summer Sun set Angela down on the step and sat beside her. She looked at the garden a long moment. "She did," Summer Sun said. "That was real too." "Both can't be real." "They are." Angela did not know what to do with that. "I'll watch her," Summer Sun said. "Closer. You watch the hill. If she comes back to the fence, you send Tracie. Don't wait." "I won't." Summer Sun stood. She did not look angry. She looked like someone counting the exits in a room she thought she'd known. "Angela." "Yes." "Next time she offers you something, don't send it back. Bring it to me." Angela climbed down off the step. The yellow sash caught the early light. She started back across the stones toward the hill. Behind her, Summer Sun stood on the doorway a long time before she went inside and shut the door.

Angela made the walk to the cottage three more times that week. Each trip took most of a morning. A crow shadow sent her flat under a leaf for an hour. A boot came down two ant-lengths from her head and did not know she was there. She lay in the dirt after and shook until her legs would hold her. If she was going to watch the hill and report to Summer Sun, she needed a way to survive the road between them. She went to Tracie at the south door. "I need something loud," Angela said. "Something a big foot will hear before it lands." Tracie thought. "The tinker leaves scraps by the fence. I've seen a little brass thing there. Round. It rings." They went together at dusk. The bell was the size of a raindrop and hung from a broken chain. Angela cut a length of grass fiber. Tracie helped her lash the bell to the sash, right at the shoulder, where every step would swing it. Angela walked a test line across the stones. The bell rang thin and clear. A beetle turned its head and stepped aside. A sparrow landed, cocked its eye at the sound, and lifted off again. Small ears heard it as a wrong note. Big ears heard it at all. She set out for the cottage at first light with the bell ringing at her shoulder. Halfway down the path she froze. Matilda was crouched by the fence, sorting stems into a cloth. The witch's head came up at the sound of the bell. Matilda looked at the yellow sash. She looked at the bell. Her mouth pulled flat. "That's clever," Matilda said. Angela did not move. She did not answer. "A bell for the big ones." Matilda's voice went clipped. "So they step around you." "So they hear me." "Same thing." Matilda tied the cloth shut and stood. "I hear you too. From the fence. From the hedge. Anywhere you walk." She stepped over the stems and went back toward her cottage without looking again. Angela stood a long time in the path. The bell hung quiet at her shoulder. The thing that had made her safe from crows had told the witch exactly where she was, every step from the hill to the cottage. She kept walking. Summer Sun needed to know. At the step, Summer Sun knelt and put her palm down. Angela climbed on. The bell tapped her shoulder. "You made a road," Summer Sun said. "I made it for the birds." "She saw it." "She heard it. She said she'll hear it every time." Summer Sun studied the bell. Her face stayed flat. "Then we know where she'll be listening," Summer Sun said. "Come. We plan the walk different." Angela sat down on the warm palm. For the first time in a week, her legs stopped shaking.

The new route Summer Sun drew skipped the fence line entirely. It cut straight across the open dirt between the hill and the cottage. No hedge. No stones. No bramble. Nothing for the witch's ears to track and nothing for Angela to hide behind. Angela left the bell in the tunnel. She kept the yellow sash. She stepped onto the open ground at sunrise. The dirt stretched wide and flat in every direction. Her shadow was the only mark on it. She walked fast. Ten strides in, a shadow slid over her. She flattened. A magpie passed low and turned back for a second look. Angela lay still. The bird landed six ant-lengths off and hopped closer. She could see the wet black of its eye. Without the bell, nothing warned it away. Without a leaf, nothing hid her yellow sash. The magpie tilted its head. She ran. The bird lunged. Angela cut sideways and drove her legs into the dirt. Ahead, half-sunk in the field, a rotted log lay open on one side. The bark hung down in strips. A dark slot showed under the timber. She threw herself at it. The beak struck the wood behind her. She was inside. The magpie stabbed at the opening twice more. The slot was too narrow. It gave up and lifted off. Angela stood in the dark, breathing. The log smelled of moss and old rain. She was halfway across the open ground. She could see the cottage step through the far end of the hollow, a bright square of green. She waited until the sky stayed empty for a slow count of a hundred. Then she ran again. This time she reached the grass at the cottage edge without a shadow finding her. Summer Sun was on the step already, watching the field. She knelt and set her palm down. Angela climbed on. "You made it," Summer Sun said. "A magpie almost had me." "Where?" "Middle of the field. There's a log. Hollow. I got inside." Summer Sun looked out at the dirt. Her eyes found the log. She nodded once. "Then that's the halfway," she said. "You run to the log. You rest. You run again." "She can't hear me on that ground." "No. But the birds can see you." Angela sat down on the warm palm. Her legs were shaking again, but not as hard as before. "I can do it," she said. "If the log stays." "It stays." Summer Sun's thumb brushed the edge of the sash. "Every trip. Log first. Then me." Angela looked back at the field. The yellow sash caught the sun. The road between the hill and the cottage had a middle now, and the middle had a roof. She would report from here on. The witch would hear nothing. The sky was the only thing left to beat.

The next morning, Angela stood at the mouth of the anthill with a plan and a problem. The route worked. She had proved it. But the log had been empty when the magpie chased her in. No water. No place to sit. If a second bird came and pinned her longer, she would leave the log weaker than she entered it. She could not run the second leg on shaking legs. She needed to stock the log before she needed it. She went back into the tunnels and found a water pod the foragers kept for long trips, a smooth bead of water sealed shut with sap. She rolled it out into the dirt. It was heavier than she was. She pushed it with her head and front legs, one shove at a time, across the open field. She did not look at the sky. Looking would not help. She counted shoves instead. At forty she stopped to breathe. At eighty the log threw its shadow across her. She rolled the pod up the lip of bark and into the dark slot. Inside, the log smelled the same as before. Moss. Old rain. She pushed the pod against the far wall where the timber curved down and pinned it in place with a wedge of bark. It would not roll. It would not crack in the sun. She pressed her feelers to the sap seal. Still tight. She rested. Her legs stopped shaking sooner than last time. Then she ran the second half to the cottage step. Summer Sun was already kneeling. She set her palm down without a word and Angela climbed on. "You're early," Summer Sun said. "I stocked the log." "Stocked it with what." "Water. Sealed in sap. Enough for one rest. Maybe two." Summer Sun looked out at the field. The log sat small and brown in the middle of the dirt. Her eyes stayed on it a long moment. "Good," she said. "Now the middle has a roof and a cup." "I can carry more. Bark for a seat. A crumb of sugar." "One trip at a time." Summer Sun's thumb touched the yellow sash. "Don't load the log in one morning. Birds notice a pattern." Angela sat down. She had not thought of that. A single ant crossing was one thing. An ant crossing back and forth with cargo was another. The sky learned. "Then I bring one thing each trip," she said. "One thing. And you tell me what's in there. So I know what you have if you don't come out." Angela looked up. Summer Sun's face was flat and calm, the way it always was when the words were heavy. "Water pod. Far wall. Wedged." "Water pod. Far wall. Wedged," Summer Sun said back. The log had a cup in it now. The road between the hill and the cottage had a middle that could hold her a little longer. The sky was still the sky. But Angela had bought herself time inside the wood, and Summer Sun knew where to look for her.

The next crossing, Angela brought a crumb of dry seed. She rolled it across the field the way she had rolled the water pod, head down, counting shoves. She reached the log. She wedged the seed beside the water. Two things now. A cup and a bite. She ran the second half and climbed onto Summer Sun's palm. "Seed. Far wall. Next to the pod," Angela said. "Seed. Far wall," Summer Sun said back. Then she frowned. "One seed won't hold you if a bird pins you an hour." "I know." "You need real food in there. Not one crumb. Enough for a bad day." Angela's legs still ached from the run. She thought about carrying seed after seed across the field, trip after trip, while the sky learned her pattern. Summer Sun had said not to. Summer Sun had been right. "I can't stock it fast enough," Angela said. "Not without the birds noticing." Summer Sun looked at the field. She did not answer for a long moment. "Then don't stock it from your side," she said. "Ask the garden." Angela did not understand. Summer Sun set her down on the step and pointed past the flower bed. "Try the aphid roses. Someone lives there who shares." Angela walked into the shade of the roses. A round beetle-shaped person sat on a leaf, black spots on a red coat, sorting small pale eggs into a cup made from a curl of bark. She looked up when Angela climbed the stem. "You're the ant with the yellow flag," the ladybug said. Her voice was soft and even. "I've watched you cross. That's a long run for small legs." "I need food for the log," Angela said. "For if I get stuck. Summer Sun said you share." The ladybug set the bark cup down. She did not ask why, or what log, or who Summer Sun was to Angela. She reached behind the leaf and pulled out a soft yellow lump the size of Angela's head. Pollen, pressed and dried into a cake. "This keeps," she said. "Won't spoil in the wood. Break off what you need, one bite at a time. It'll last you weeks." Angela stared at it. It was more food than she could have carried in ten trips. "Why?" she said. "Because you asked," the ladybug said. "And because the garden's smaller when we let the little ones die on it." She helped Angela roll the cake down the stem and out to the edge of the field. She did not cross with her. She waited in the shade and watched the sky while Angela pushed the pollen cake across the dirt alone. Angela reached the log. She rolled the cake inside and wedged it beside the water pod and the seed. She pressed her feelers to it. Dense. Dry. Enough. She ran the second half and told Summer Sun what was in the log. The middle of the road had a roof, a cup, and a meal now. Angela could be pinned a full day and walk out on her own legs.

The log had a roof, a cup, and a meal. Angela crossed the field the next morning and climbed onto Summer Sun's palm to say so again, out loud, because saying it made it real. Summer Sun listened. Then Summer Sun looked at the field the way she did when something was still wrong. "You can eat in there a full day," Summer Sun said. "I still won't know you're in there." Angela's feelers dropped. She had not thought past the food. If a bird pinned her in the log, she could last. But Summer Sun would sit on the step and wait, and waiting would turn into hours, and hours would turn into Summer Sun deciding Angela was dead. "I need a signal," Angela said. "You need two," Summer Sun said. "Loud for close. Bright for far." Angela went back across the field that afternoon and asked the ladybug in the aphid roses. The ladybug did not ask why. She climbed down from her leaf and led Angela to a hollow acorn she had strung on a bit of stem, seeds sealed inside. She shook it. It cracked like a rock hitting wood. "Old baby toy," the ladybug said. "My children outgrew it. Loud enough for a girl on a step?" "Loud enough," Angela said. The ladybug pressed a second thing into Angela's grip. A round chip of mirror, edged in dried dew beads, light as a petal. "For the sky," she said. "Tilt it. The sun does the rest." Angela rolled the rattle across the field alone and carried the mirror on her back. She wedged both inside the log beside the water, the seed, and the pollen cake. She stepped out into the field and looked back at the log's dark mouth. A cup. A meal. A voice. A flash. She ran the second half and climbed onto Summer Sun's palm. "Rattle in the log," Angela said. "If I'm pinned close, I'll shake it. You'll hear it from the step." "I'll hear it." "Mirror in the log. If a bird sits on the roof and I can't shake, I'll flash the sun at you through the crack." Summer Sun turned her face toward the field and squinted. "Flash it now. Test." Angela ran back. She climbed inside the log, tilted the mirror, and caught the sun. A bright coin skipped across the dirt and landed on Summer Sun's dress. Summer Sun raised a hand. Angela ran home the long way, the log behind her, stocked now for the worst day. If she got pinned, Summer Sun would know within minutes. Summer Sun would come. She reached the anthill at dusk. Tracie was waiting at the tunnel mouth, feelers up. "The witch was at the fence again," Tracie said. "She watched you cross both times."

Tracie's words sat in Angela's chest all night. The witch had watched two crossings. Two was a count. A count meant a plan. At first light, Angela climbed to the tunnel mouth. Tracie was already there, boots dusted, vest pockets full. "She's studying you," Tracie said. "Timing. Where you slow. Where you rest." "How do you know?" "I watched her watch. She counts on her fingers when you're in the log." Angela's feelers went cold. If Matilda knew the log, the log was not shelter. It was a trap with a lid. "I have to see what she's doing," Angela said. "Before I cross again." Tracie nodded like she'd been waiting for that. "There's a broken flowerpot against her fence. Tipped on its side. The crack faces her yard." "You've been over there." "Twice. She doesn't look down." They went the long way, along the roots and under the hedge. The clay pot sat where Tracie said, red and split, one jagged crack wide enough for two ants to press their heads through. Angela climbed inside. The crack framed Matilda's back step like a window. Matilda was on the step with a slate. She drew a line across it. She marked a dot at one end, a dot at the other, and a smaller mark in the middle. "The hill," Tracie whispered. "The cottage. The log." Matilda tapped the middle mark. Then she set something on the slate beside it. A brass lantern, no bigger than a walnut, with wings folded against its sides. She turned a knob. The lantern woke with a green glow, soft at first, then bright enough to throw color on her chin. "Signal light," Angela breathed. Matilda smiled at it. She wrapped it in a cloth and tucked it into her apron. Then she picked up the slate and wiped the middle mark clean. Angela understood. Matilda meant to sit near the log with that lantern and flash it at Summer Sun's cottage. Summer Sun would see a light from the field and come running to a log that held a witch instead of an ant. Angela backed out of the pot. Her legs shook. "We go now," she said. "Before she moves." They ran the long way to the cottage. Angela climbed the step and up onto Summer Sun's palm and told her everything in one breath. The slate. The three marks. The green lantern in the apron. Summer Sun's face did not change, but her fingers closed a little around Angela. "She wants me to open the log," Summer Sun said. "Yes." "Then any light from that field is a lie now. Only the mirror. Only in daylight. And only if Tracie is on my step first, telling me you left." Angela's feelers lifted. The log was still hers. The signal was still hers. But the rules had just grown a second ant in them, and the witch had made her own light for nothing.

Angela came down from Summer Sun's palm with the new rules set. Mirror only. Daylight only. Tracie on the step first. But halfway across the field, running toward the log, she remembered the other problem waiting for her at home. Her own colony still thought Summer Sun was a giant to fear. If any sister saw Angela wave a mirror at the cottage, they would call her a traitor and seal the tunnels behind her. She reached the mound at midmorning. Tracie was already there, standing on the top ridge with her boots planted wide, watching the guards below. "They're talking," Tracie said. "Two foragers saw you climb onto the giant's hand yesterday. They told the queen's runners." Angela's feelers dropped. "How long do I have?" "Until sundown. Then they close the north tunnel. Your tunnel." Angela climbed the ridge and looked down at the openings in the mound. Ants moved in and out in tight lines. Every one of them could smell a stranger. Every one could smell fear. "I have to tell them," Angela said. "Tell them what? That the giant is kind? They'll say the witch said the same thing once." "Then I show them." Tracie's antennae twitched. "Show them how?" "Bring her to the mound. Close enough to smell. Far enough not to crush it." "They'll swarm her ankles." "Not if you go first. You've stood on her palm. You carry her scent. Walk in ahead of me and let the guards read you." Tracie was quiet. Then she nodded once. They went back across the field the short way, because there was no time for the long way. Angela climbed Summer Sun's step and told her plain. Summer Sun listened. She did not ask why. "How close?" Summer Sun said. "Ten of your steps. Sit. Don't reach." "Hands in my lap." "Yes." They crossed together, Summer Sun walking slow behind Angela's line. At the mound, Tracie went in first. She stood in the north opening with her arms out so the guards could pass their feelers over her vest, her boots, her shoulders. They found Summer Sun's scent on her and did not sting. Angela climbed to the top ridge. Summer Sun sat down in the dirt ten steps out and folded her hands. "Come smell her," Angela called down. "All of you. One at a time." The guards came. They climbed Summer Sun's shoe, her ankle, the hem of her dress. They tasted the air around her wrists. Summer Sun did not move. She did not speak. She let them read her for a long time. When the last guard climbed down, the runners went back into the tunnels. The north opening stayed open. Angela slid down the ridge. Her legs shook again, but for a different reason now. "They know you," she said up to Summer Sun. "Good," Summer Sun said. "Now the witch knows I've been to your door."